Minutes of Senate Steering Committee
January 10, 2019
 3:30 p.m.
Samford 206

Present:   Michael Baginski (Chair), Beverly Marshall (Secretary), Nedret Billor (Chair-Elect), Adrienne Wilson (Secretary-Elect), Dan Svyantek (Immediate-Past Chair), Emmett Winn (Associate Provost), Robert (Bob) Norton, Jared Russell, Jung Won Hur and Michael Tillson
Chairman Baginski called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm. The committee was provided with an agenda via email prior to the meeting.

Agenda items:

• The minutes from the Steering meeting on November 8, 2018 were unanimously approved.
• Todd Steury, Lindsay Doukopoulos, and Murali Dhanasekaran from the Teaching Effectiveness Committee attended.  Todd provided a summary of several studies on the use of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs). He shared the evidence regarding SETs and learning and cautioned on the use of individual SETs in the evaluation of a faculty member’s teaching effectiveness.  He also discussed biases that are often inherent in the SETs. He concluded with alternatives to the use of SETs for evaluating a faculty’s teaching effectiveness.
• Mike Fogle, Chair of the Faculty Research Committee, provide an update on the progress of the Scholarship Incentive Plans. He indicated that these had made the first pass to Deans and Associate Deans of Research. 
• Jennifer Kerpelman, Interim Vice President for Research, provided a report titled Supporting Research. This report highlighted some of the recent funding of research proposals and the work of the Faculty Research Committee.
• Ralph Kingston, Chair of the Handbook Committee, presented two pending action items – two faculty handbook amendments. The first amendment regarded Senate meetings and calls for the elimination of the August and June Senate meetings. This amendment was drafted from Senate survey responses and a straw poll of Senators in September suggested overwhelmingly that the Senators were in favor of this. The second amendment calls for the expansion of the charge of the Retention Committee to include enrollment.  These will be presented at the January meeting and voted on at the February meeting.
• Beverly Marshall and Bob Norton talked briefly about the need for clearer expectations and evaluation of service across campus. Dan Svyantek indicated that Annette Kluck was working on this topic and we should contact her and coordinate with her on this initiative.
• The agenda for the January 15 Senate meeting was approved.

The agenda for the Senate meeting for 1/15/2019 includes two pending action items. Ralph Kingston will be presenting two faculty handbook amendments regarding Senate meetings and expansion of the role of the Retention Committee. There are also two information items. A study on the effective use of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) by Todd Steury and an update on research initiatives and improvements to reduce barriers by Jennifer Kerpelman. The meeting was adjourned at 4:50 PM.

Prepared by:  Beverly B. Marshall, Secretary, AU Senate