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MINUTES UMKC FACULTY SENATE

April 15, 1997 (Approved as written 5/6/1997)

3:00 P.M. Jean Braun called the meeting to order

3:05 Approval of minutes (April 1, 1997) Approved as written.

Business Meeting:

Announcements: Jean Braun: The last Senate meeting will be a luncheon to be held on May 6. It will be held in the Chancellor’s large conference room from 12:00-2:00.

University “Image Committee”: Rich Hamilton announced that the University “Image Committee” is looking into creative types of funding for the university. This would include partnerships in industry and business. Mike Woods of the UMKC Alumni Board, Subcommittee on Faculty Awareness suggested the idea of developing a proposal for an alumni center. There was also consideration that this alumni center house an alumni office, the Faculty Senate office and offices for other faculty centered services. There was discussion on the possibility of considering Epperson House for these organizations.

Classroom Calendar changes and scheduling: Hans Uffelmann addressed calendar changes and scheduling. Haag Hall and the Geosciences building will be closed as of September 1 and there will be displacement of sixteen classrooms. Royal Hall will be available for classes. A potential problem is that classes are already scheduled for the fall term. The scheduling of temporary classrooms will greatly affect the Arts and Sciences faculty and other schools because those are the classrooms other schools normally use. We need to ask questions of the Administration about the rescheduling of classes. The Student Services building and the “Aviation” building have been mentioned as replacement classrooms. The Arts and Sciences Dean has asked Dr. Doerr to provide scheduling early enough so that faculty affected by the construction can deal with getting to classrooms and parking lots that may be far apart. The fear is that as soon as the faculty leave after the semester, classroom scheduling decisions will be made that will be detrimental to students and faculty returning for the fall semester. The question was posed as to whether it is possible to get assurances from the Chancellor or Dr. Querry of what the classroom schedule will be before faculty leave at semester’s end. There is a public relations issue involved as well. If the temporary classroom schedule creates havoc for students and faculty, UMKC may lose students because of the affects of scheduling.

Dr. Jakob Waterborg pointed out that it is Dr. Widmar’s office (coordinating with Dr. Doerr’s office) that is responsible for classroom scheduling. This would include Gary Whitmeyer, Wilson Berry, Cindy Olsen, and Tim Sullivan. Faculty would need to know the schedule of class assignments by the middle of summer so that they can see how the schedule is progressing and to allow time to make any necessary changes. Dr. Jean Braun suggested that we can present our own plan to submit to the Chancellor.

Dr. Jim McKinley made the following resolution that was unanimously passed by the Faculty Senate:

Resolution: “The UMKC Faculty Senate asks that Chancellor Schwartz urge Vice Chancellors Doerr and Widmar to proceed as expeditiously as possible in arranging classroom space, classroom scheduling, parking space, and shuttle services owing to the displacements caused by the pending renovations of Haag Hall and the Geosciences Building; and further, that in order that these displacements have minimal adverse effects on students, staff and faculty, that all these be informed of the new arrangements by July 1, 1997.”

Dr. Kathy Loncar mentioned that she will be attending the next Chancellor’s Staff meeting and she can raise this concern (and present the Senate’s resolution) at that meeting.

Dr. Judith Killen: Report--Office of Graduate Faculities and Research position:

Dr. Killen joined the Office of Graduate Faculties and Research last summer. She received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Louisville. She has a great deal of experience in proposal development. Dr. Killen distributed a handout that describes current services available from her office and encouraged senators to contact her when considering proposal competitions. Future plans for this office include support to UMKC faculty in a Research II institutional environment. A database of faculty project profiles needs to be developed in-house that includes areas of expertise for each faculty profile. Dr. Killen would like this database to be available on the Internet. For examples of this type of database, look at the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech’s web pages.

Dr. Hans Uffelmann asked if a faculty member can receive preparation for any proposal being developed if it includes human or animal components. Dr. Killen explained that these components need to be marked on the IRB (Institute Review Board) sheets and a faculty member can be supported in these types of proposals. The question was asked as to how Dr. Killen finds other units and faculty members that would be “blendable” in a project? Dr. Killen said that she currently provides this service but it would be more systematic once a faculty database is developed. Funding organizations often require that a team be involved in proposals and that those teams should be multidisciplinary. Teams must be voluntary in nature. Project efforts are rarely successful when people are forced into teams. Dr. Killen has created a faculty template that is tailored to resumes submitted by faculty members. Dr. Jean Braun commented that there is increasing pressure to find external funding for the university. She stated that on the Saint Louis and Kansas City campuses, external funding has steadily increased. For Rolla, it has remained steady. External funding on the Columbia campus is on the decline. With an emphasis now being placed on external funding, can Dr. Killen’s office aid faculty in that type of development? Dr. Killen assured the Senate that her office is committed to providing that type of support and even help streamline the proposal process. For instance, her office has money to aid in travel expenses if a faculty member needs to meet with another team member long distance.

Campus Safety Issues: Dr. Bruce Bubacz: Dr. Bubacz is the Chair of the task force that is investigating campus safety and security issues. It’s this task force that dealt with the survey sent to senators. Angela Rusk (Chair of Staff Assembly) will also respond to questions senators may have. The task force was reconstituted from a previous committee to look into the safety and security of persons and property (i.e. issues that would engage campus police). The task force was given a vague charge to provide a white paper to be delivered to the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellors. In addition, Student Services has done a series of surveys on safety issues. The top priority of students has always been safety on campus and open forums were held around campus last week. The task force talked to people in various units and looked at UMKC’s strategic plan to determine future safety needs. For example, the projected increase in student residences on campus will change the character of some of the work police will have to do. There may be an increase “domestic disturbances” with more students residing on campus.

Suggestions made by the task force:

1. The planning and renovation of new buildings does not consider safety and security issues. The campus police need to be involved. The police need to do an inventory of all buildings on campus. The Student Services clientele will be moving the Administrative Center and will bring a whole new set of people entering that building.
2. Every building or school should have a safety liaison person to serve as conduit of information. For instance, everyone in a building needs to be informed to call 1515 rather than 911 or else there will be a delays in response time for campus police.
3. UMKC needs to increase its police force by eight officers (for a 30% increase). The number of officers is less than what it was fifteen years ago and is currently five under the authorized size due to two vacancies. Our campus is greatly under covered. UMKC Police officers receive a mandated 800 hours of academy training. This is equivalent to training given to highway patrol officers. Because of the time this involves, once an officer is hired, it takes about one year to place her/him on campus.
4. The primary message needs to be made that if we are not PERCEIVED to be a safe campus, then we won’t succeed in attracting students. UMKC is one of the most safest places to congregate, yet the public perception remains that we are an unsafe campus.

Angela Rusk addressed the issue of Hospital Hill and outside lighting. She explained that the nursing parking lot is not owned by UMKC but is in serious need of more lighting. This is a political situation that will not be easily resolved. UMKC Officer Garrett was involved with the administrative decision not to secure the front entrance of the Administrative building. Tim Sullivan explained that the task force is still “crunching” numbers because it was difficult to determine from the surveys how much information was antedotal and how much information reported were real incidents. Twelve hundred surveys were sent out and 45% of those were returned. According to the police crime statistics, the perception is not the reality on our campus. We have very little criminal activity.
Hospital Hill community is much more tightly knit, so crime appears to be higher because people there are more likely to report a crime. The “blue lights” (emergency light) and phones represent a good campus presence and response time to those phones is about two minutes. Many people on campus are not even aware of these emergency phones and lights.
Bruce will be sending the Faculty Senate a draft of the final report to review, make comments, and give its support to the task force. The task force is planning to set up a safety web site, a listserv, and hotlines for students and faculty, and staff.
Jean Braun mentioned that there are internal and external perceptions that need to be addressed. This type of project would be an excellent one for graduate assistants to examine. The task force should take advantage of faculty expertise. Rich Hamilton stated that if we could do some tasks that are based on the recommendations of the committee, this would be good publicity for UMKC and can be a start to change the community’s perception of safety on our campus. We need to start internally to change these perceptions.
Where will the police department be moved? They will be going to the old maintenance building. This is directly across from the Miller Nichols Library. The task force suggested that the police park their cars out front to show a presence on campus. The Conservatory and the Medical School would like to see phones placed inside practice rooms and other areas for use after dark.
When will results of the survey be available? There is no specific date when the final report will be ready. Once the task force finishes with specific suggestions for their proposal, they will need to give analysis for those proposals. It can not be finished before the winter semester.

Present: Valerie Blanco, Jean Braun, Jane Carl, Les Chafetz, Robert Cleary, Ray Coveney, Alfred Esser, William Frederickson, Rich Hamilton, David Harris, Joseph Hughey, Kathy Loncar, James McKinley, Janet McKinney, Nancy Stancel, Hans Uffelmann, Jakob Waterborg, David Yourtee

Excused: Greg Arling , Julie Cheslik, Rafael Espejo-Saavedra, Barbara Glesner-Fines, Steve Krantz, Ed Mills, Gary Pettett, Jerry Place, Dennis Pyszcynski, John Rapley, Jan Russell, David Schwarzer, Khosrow Sohraby

Respectfully Submitted,

Nancy D. Stancel
Secretary, Faculty Senate


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