Members Present: P. Anderson, G. Avent, P. Bagley, D. Bolinder, D. Borino, P. Collins, T. Crum, F. Daniels, K. Dannehl, X. Du, J. Emerson, H. Estes, P. Fox, G. Goicoechea, G. Heberer, L. Hyslop, D. Jones, P. Josey, R. Kampf, J. King, P. Klem, J. Larson, J. Licht, K. Martin, M. McFarlane, D. Moore, K. Mowrey, M. Ports, B. Roberton, J. Rosenthal, C. Pyatt, L. Sanchez-Saenz, G. Skivington, J. Shaw, R. Siler, G. Smith, Ja. Smith, T. Staley, S. Sweetwater, G. Tenney, K. Schwandt, L. Uhlenkott, P. Warren, J. Williams

Others Present: Vice President for Academic Affairs Betty Elliott, Cliff Ferry, President Paul Killpatrick, SGA Representative Michelle Urain

1. CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 1:15 p.m. Chair Daniels declared a quorum present. Three proxy votes were noted. Several of the agenda items were taken out of order to facilitate processes.
2. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS: Chair Daniels welcomed everyone to Senate. Chair Daniels introduced President Killpatrick to Senate.
3. PRESIDENT KILLPATRICK:
   1. GBC Vision Plan – President Paul Killpatrick was invited to speak at the request of the Senate on the vision for Great Basin College. A PowerPoint presentation was provided which will be presented to the Board of Regents in June. Killpatrick requested that faculty come forward with information for the plan. The President reiterated the need for the institution to remain flexible enough to support unexpected opportunities. Issues related to the accreditation recommendations are incorporated into the plan. Cliff Ferry informed the Senate that the strategic planning deadline is May 4. A final input meeting will be called prior to the submission date.
      1. Goal 1: Serving Students – Development and planning for instructional opportunities, enrollment management/ assistance and program outcomes assessment.
         1. The purchase of the old Elko Clinic has produced several instructional opportunities which will be explored.
         2. The plan to move in a bottling company to the area will benefit our community. Vice President for Administrative Services Carl Diekhans attended the community meeting to voice GBC's support for the endeavor.
         3. The college continues to pursue positions in relation to the Tribal Council, ECEDA and the Chamber of Commerce.
      2. Goal 2: Resources – Improvement in matters related to employees, additional facilities or enhancement of current facilities, supply of adequate funding for continued growth, technological enhancements, and security enhancements.
         1. Killpatrick commended the faculty on the action and progress of hiring processes during this spring semester. Several qualified individuals have been brought forward for consideration. President Killpatrick thanked all those heading and serving on the hiring committees.
         2. The Electrical Technology center has been moved up on the list, although it remains at number four. There are behind-the-scenes negotiations and maneuvers which can expedite or delay the process.
         3. Looking at creating a whole, new health center. This project is still in the preliminary planning stages.
      3. Goal 3: Culture – Development of a college “personality” in terms of community perception and student life, maintain/improve communication, develop/improve planning and assessment mechanisms, develop and improve key partnerships with key community entities.
      4. Goal 4: Economic and Community Development – Actively participate in regional economic and cultural development.
   2. Regent Elections – President Killpatrick notified the faculty that elections for Regent are approaching in November. GBC needs strong representation. There is the possibility of competition through Pahrump (estimated population: 30,000) which is within the GBC Regent's territory. Pahrump could bring forth a candidate that could easily nullify our candidate dislocating representation for GBC towards the Las Vegas area. President Killpatrick urged support for current Regent Marcia Bandera.
   3. Faculty Workload – Faculty reservations for a policy of course load reduction for upper-division instruction may hamper any constructive progress. The Chancellor and the President are in favor of the upper-division reduction proposal; neither will approve an across the board course load reduction measure. Chancellor Nichols, while addressing the GBC faculty in August, mentioned that she was in favor of a weighted workload policy. Compensation and Benefits is currently hearing information on the matter.
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes of the February 27, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved.
5. SENATE CHAIR REPORT:
   1. Board of Regents – The Regents met on March 18-19. Comic strip versions of the business undertaken are available upon request from Chair Daniels.
      1. A lengthy item regarding the proposed UNLV School of Orthodontics which produced little progress except to reiterate the credentials of those presenting. The item was allotted 20 minutes on the agenda but took five hours. The item was tabled for insufficient information and will be carried forward to the next BoR meeting. The time consumption prevented testimony on the No Child Left Behind Law for which members of the GBC education faculty were in attendance.
      2. An athletic director was approved for UNR despite discussion of the salary and benefits package and a comment by a Regent referring to her gender. The director hales from Illinois.
      3. The BoR discussed the transition plan presented by Chancellor Nichols for former CCSN President Ron Remington. A previously submitted plan allowing him to teach at UNLV was approved, with the approval subsequently pulled by Chancellor Nichols. The Regents questioned the Chancellor's justification and intentions for the denial, the legalities of such a move, and if any Regents were consulted in making this decision. The Chancellor's plan for Dr. Remington was denied by the BoR following the exit of several Regents which left the vote in Dr. Remington's favor. Final dispensation on the matter is pending due to lack of quorum. Chancellor Nichols commented on the easily swayed persuasion demonstrated by the Regents.
6. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
   1. Academic Standards – Written report; unanimously approved. Applications for four students were approved for non-traditional credit: Junior Krows, Daniel McVey, Robert Merrit, Aaron Salzer. Faculty was reminded of the limitations for the credit.
   2. Budget and Facilities – Written report; unanimously approved. The committee met to review equipment requests funded through student fees. Certain requests were eliminated due to the parameters outlined to apply for the monies; i.e., requests must directly benefit students. Most requests were approved with those receiving 80-85% of their request. The committee will hear a request relating to instructional videos from the Social Sciences department which was submitted in early March and was not addressed in the recommendations for funding.
   3. Compensation and Benefits – Written report; unanimously approved.
      1. Requests for professional development funds will be tabled until after the Community College Conference. Individual departments can fund travel and those resources should be investigated.
      2. A revised procedure for merit increases for faculty who have reached the top of the pay scale was presented. The deadline for acceptance of a procedure, set by President Killpatrick, is April 11 for faculty to realize their increases in the coming year. The proposal will only apply to those faculty members who are affected – it is not an across the board policy. Currently, a portfolio is compiled for review by the Vice President for Academic Affairs. There is no particular scale or method implemented other than the prescribed scale of “exceptional” in order to qualify for merit pay. Other system institutions use committees to make the decisions. The proposed procedure requires an “exceptional” rating in three of the following four measurements: Vice President for Academic Affairs evaluation of faculty member; self-evaluation; student evaluation; Department/Division Chair evaluation or Fifth-year evaluation. Senate questioned the use of a Department Chair evaluation as part of the determining criteria. Department Chairs, by description, do not hold supervision over the faculty within their respective department. Department Chairs did discuss the evaluative proposal with no decision made. The committee clarified that the process suggested should be an evaluation of peers in simple letter form and the evaluation would be one component of the process. Vice President Elliott reiterated the need to have documentation in place to substantiate the increases. A motion was made and unanimously approved that the fifth-year evaluation process will be the evaluation mechanism used to substantiate merit increases for affected faculty as rotation provides. It was proposed that the evaluation procedure authored by the Faculty Senate Faculty and Administrative Evaluations Committee be utilized to substantiate the affected faculty as exceptional for each subsequent year. The process will be approved by Faculty Senate. For this year only, a fifth-year evaluation will be provided for each affected faculty member.
   4. Curriculum and Articulation – Written report; unanimously approved as amended.
      1. The report is presented in tandem with the BAIPS Committee report in order to present the AHA program to the Senate for approval. (See committee report below.) The program was unanimously approved.
      2. Senate questioned the changes and protocol for the Criminal Justice degree which expanded the human relations options for the program. Specific components must be visible within the curriculum for the course to meet accreditation requirements for human relations. The changes also affect the general education matrix. The changes may need to be submitted through the Assessment Committee. This item was tabled.
      3. ENV 422 is incorrectly referred to in the report as ENV 442.
      4. Senate questioned the committee's recommendation to table approval of the ANS courses. The orientation of these courses in terms of credits received was unclear and unjustified. The committee is working with the Agriculture program to clarify these discrepancies.
      5. The report was amended to include the committee's recommended approval of the common course numbering change for CHEM 142 and 142L which will be changed to CHEM 220 and 220L. This item was unclear in the report provided.
   5. Distance Education – Written report; unanimously approved. A draft of the Intellectual Property Rights document was provided for review. Faculty is requested to provide further amendments as quickly as possible.
   6. Personnel – Oral report; information only. An initial comment by Chair Jack Smith indicated that all business related to hiring is in positive motion. The committee was then informed that Administration had decided to advertise for a Criminal Justice position; an action outside the wishes of the Social Science department which had submitted a combined position for advertisement and had chosen to eliminate their request after negotiations with Administration failed. This action taken outside of protocol prompted Dr. Smith to issue his immediate resignation as Committee Chair.
   7. Student Relations – Written report; information only.
      1. For the 2004-2005 academic year $86,250 in scholarship funds were allotted to 116 students. The GBC President's Leadership Scholarship and the Bette Hoge Sawyer Scholarship remain to be awarded.
      2. The committee reported that 16 MTC students were awarded $46,094 and 18 nursing students were awarded $14,500 during the current academic year.
      3. The annual scholarship luncheon will be held on Thursday, April 8 at noon in Cafe X. The committee requests that faculty allows the scholarship recipients release time from classes to attend.
      4. The President's Awards Ceremony is scheduled for April 30 in the GBC Theatre. Nominations are due by April 16.
7. FOUR YEAR COMMITTEE REPORTS:
   1. BAIPS – Written report; unanimously approved. The committee presented the Arts and Humanities Administration program in conjunction with the Curriculum and Articulation Committee report for Senate approval. The degree is a business-based degree with very few courses for development. The degree provides employable skills for arts and humanities endeavors. This program is unique to Nevada and is rare within the U.S. The initial proposal for the program came from active members of the community who are entrenched in arts and humanities oriented businesses. The college is currently not capable of offering a full Fine Arts Degree; however, this allows for the possibility for future development. The Senate voiced criticism of the degree name promoting a fine arts education when it is structured as business education. The committee argued that it would not be relevant to title it as a straight business degree since it was designed for the arts and humanities. Proposals for future courses include event(s) management and booking. In the meantime, these areas will be addressed within the content of the listed course offerings. The program was unanimously approved.
   2. BAS – This item was dropped from the agenda.
   3. Education – This item was dropped from the agenda.
8. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: No unfinished business was brought forward.
9. NEW BUSINESS:
   1. Senate Vice-Chair and Secretary – Nominations are now being received for Faculty Senate Vice-Chair and Secretary for the 2004-2005 academic year. The nomination deadline is May 7 wherein elections will held.
      1. Dr. Linda Uhlenkott was nominated for Vice-Chair. Dr. Uhlenkott accepts the nomination.
10. INFORMATIONAL ITEMS:
    1. Lab Survey – The survey is proposed by Administrative Services as part of the strategic planning process. The survey addresses lab safety and conditions and was distributed to Senate for review. These surveys will be distributed in all lab classes over the next two weeks. Interruption should not be more than five minutes. Student employees will conduct the survey. Any questions relating to ADA requirements can be directed to Campus Safety Officer Pat Anderson.
    2. Developmental Task Force – The committee met yesterday. Jan Kempster was unavailable to report.
    3. Community College Conference – The conference is to be held on April 16-17. Applications for attendance are still being accepted.
    4. Volunteer for Food – Dr. Jay Larson will once again provide food for the May 14 meeting.
    5. Career Fair – The fair will be held April 7 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the Fitness Center. Fifty-four employers will be present to speak with students. Faculty is asked to encourage students to attend. The keynote speaker is Brian Fiese who will be addressing the audience on broadening individual horizons. The speaking engagement is open to the college community and the public.
    6. Nursing Program Accreditation – The National League for Nursing has recommended accreditation for the GBC Nursing program.
    7. One Book, One Community – The information on the program was distributed via email. The committee has received some response and would welcome additional input.
11. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 3:04 p.m. Senate will convene on Friday, May 14, at 1:15 p.m. for the final meeting of the academic year.