* At the end of the last Senate session Chair Kathy Loncar wrote a Year End Report in which she outlined some of the issues that she thought the Senate had to address. The major items in that document are covered below. [We will try and post the entire document on the computer, or it is available by request]. Some supplementary suggestions for the agenda items are also listed at the end of this newsletter. The Senate is open to other ideas, and Chair Loncar is very concerned that if we are to speak for the faculty, the faculty has to speak to us, both to suggest agenda items and to comment on actions that we have taken. During this academic year Chair Loncar and/or other Senate officers will go to at least one faculty meeting of each unit to talk about what we are doing, and to listen to what you think we need to do. Also, a list of Senate members, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses, will normally be appended to editions of this newsletter.

* A Virtual Faculty Club is being created, and should be fully functional by the end of this calendar year. The club will allow faculty members to easily contact the entire UMKC faculty, faculty members of their own unit, or members of the Senate. We can add a chat facility if people want it. In the meantime we are creating a mechanism through which you can easily contact members of the Faculty Senate.

* The U.M.K.C. Faculty Senate Report will contain the Senate Minutes (a report on actions that the Senate takes) but it will also report on Senate discussions and other issues of interest to the faculty. Your reporter will try to get copy out the day of Senate meetings, so the Report will be timely. Issues of the Report will also be short, and as lively as a report on the Faculty Senate can be. :-) We will try to post long documents on the computer, or make them available by request, rather than simply copying and appending them.

* Budget Review: The Chancellor will present a budget review to the Faculty Senate each Fall. Written information will be supplied on issues of interest to the faculty, including athletic program funds, end of the year cost savings, and continuing education and mission enhancement funds. This information will be circulated to faculty.

* NCAA: The Chancellor will share with the Senate the results of the five-year plan that she requested from the athletic program, and the Senate will send two representatives to the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee. The Senate might establish an ad hoc committee to monitor the athletic program.

* Deans' Evaluations: Apparently Marvin Querry does not give great weight (or any weight?) to faculty evaluations of deans in his review of their performance. The Senate told the Chancellor it wanted to submit these evaluations directly to her, and she agreed to receive and read them.

* Convocation Planning: The Senate will play a larger role in the Fall Convocation. The role of the faculty will be expanded, and emeriti and new faculty will be more fully included in the ceremony.

There are some other problems that the Senate Report focuses on:

Technology Needs: The report recommends a survey of faculty to determine hardware and software needs, and notes that the best equipped and most technologically advanced building on the campus is the Administrative Center. People there have up-to-date computers while many faculty members have obsolete equipment. The report recommends that the Chancellor report on the academic computing budget, and insure that available funds are spent in an organized and timely fashion.

Clerical Support: The report notes that clerical support for faculty has drastically decreased, that clerical positions that serve faculty are often frozen for long periods, and that there is much use of temporary employees unfamiliar with university procedures. It recommends that academic programs be adequately staffed, and that the ratio of faculty to clerical staff should not exceed 5 to 1.

Faculty Evaluations: These appear to be erratic. The report recommends that Executive Dean Querry and the Chancellor work with the Faculty Senate and the Executive Council of Deans and Directors to create a set of standards and guidelines for the evaluation of faculty performance and the appropriate use of the evaluations in supporting faculty efforts. Deans and directors should be able to adapt procedures for their units.

Rewards: Many faculty members serve on campus wide grievance committees, promotion and tenure committees, etc. These take large amounts of time, but this service is not often rewarded, and occasionally faculty are castigated for spending time on these committees.

Assignment: The administration often simply appoints faculty members to campus wide committees to represent faculty, and there is a suspicion that these appointees may not adequately represent faculty viewpoints. They are not known to the Senate and do not report to it. The report recommends that the Senate be asked to appoint and/or confirm all faculty who are asked to serve on campuswide committees. Excluded from this are the Grievance Panel and the Chancellor's Committee on Promotion and Continuous Appointment, which already have prescribed procedures for seating faculty.

Parking Committee: The report claims that the attitude of the parking committee towards employees and faculty has become "negative, punitive and hostile." It recommends that the committee be reformed, with 3 or 4 Senate appointed representatives, and a similar number of people appointed by the Staff Assembly, the Student Government Association Appointed and the Executive Council. Ex officio members would be the Manager of Parking Operations, The Director of Campus Facilities Management and the Chief of Campus Police.