The Faculty Senate passed two bills, heard the first readings of five bills that will be voted on in March and elected two new Athletic Council Members on Tuesday.

Passed bills

The Senate heard the second readings for two bills, unanimously passing both.

The first bill passed was a proposal for a new undergraduate minor in sports media and communications. 

At the previous senate meeting, the board postponed a vote on the bill, allowing the revised bill to pass with an additional course in kinesiology added.

The second bill was a proposed change to the Faculty Handbook 5.1.1.2 annual reviews.

The Senate passed a proposal to change an additional sentence at the end of paragraph one: “For probationary faculty, the chair must document the faculty member’s progress towards promotion and tenure in the annual review.” 

New business

The Senate heard the first readings for one new bill, which will be voted on at the next Senate meeting.

The first was a proposal for program and/or department name change. 

The Board of Regents is proposing to change the Department of Community and Regional Planning to the Department of Urban Planning and Development. 

“Our department was last named during the 1970s and the current name reflects the nomenclature of planning from that time,” according to the proposal. “This change will bring the name of our department into alignment with the contemporary standards used for naming the field.” 

The second bill was in response to compliance. The Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has been disbanded. As such, the bylaws shall delete the committee from Article VI, Section 4 of the Senate Bylaws.

The third bill was a proposal in the faculty handbook to describe the administrative structure of the university. However, it does not currently represent the university’s current practice. It proposed to update section 2.3.

As it currently reads, “Iowa State is one of three universities governed by the Iowa Board of Regents. The other institutions are the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.”

Sen. Jon Perkins suggests changing the language to be consistent by changing the wording of institutions to universities, as stated at the start of the sentence.

The fourth bill was the faculty compensation committee recommendation that the by-laws be changed as follows: 

“Faculty member per College, nominated by each College, plus one at-large member, nominated by the chair of the RPA. One voting member will act as chair of the FCC. If possible, the voting membership should include both tenure(-track) faculty and term faculty. Voting members do not need to be senators.”

The last bill was a proposed change to the faculty salary policies and procedures, sharing how raises are done, promotions and salary increases. 

Some Senate members raised concerns about some of the wording in the proposal. 

“Promotions increase has a section, yet assessment increase does not,” Sen. Dave Peterson said. “I suggest we add or/and assessment increases to clean up catches for the future.”

Others questioned the proposal in its entirety.

“Can we get salary adjustments based on equity?” Sen. Cody Fleming said.

“I am not in the position to answer that,” Sen. Timothy Bigelow responded.

Athletic council election 

There are currently two open positions for the athletic council. 

Doug Smith, an associate professor and current member of the athletic council, applied along with Heather Greenlee, an associate dean who is also currently on the athletic council. 

Smith and Greenlee were elected to the council by vote from the senate. 

The next Faculty Senate meeting is slated for April 8.