MEMBERS PRESENT: P. Anderson, P. Bagley, E. Bateman, D. Borino, F. Daniels, C. Eikenberry, J. Emerson, P. Fisher, G. Goicoechea, E. Henderson, C. Hyslop, L. Hyslop, D. Jones, N. Kelly, J. King, J. Larson, J. Licht, K. Martin, K. Mowrey, B. Murphy, R. Null, L. Owens, M. Ports, C. Pyatt, J. Rice, B. Robertson, S. Rombough, J. Rosenthal, R. Schaffner, K. Schwandt, J. Shaw, G. Skivington, P. Smith, G. Tenney, L. Uhlenkott, P. Warren, J. Williams

OTHERS PRESENT: Regent Marcia Bandera, Ag Program Director Gary Sundseth

1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS : Chair Pete Bagley welcomed everyone to Senate.
2. CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 1:19 p.m.
3. REGENT MARCIA BANDERA: At the November 2002 meeting, Senate requested an arranged appearance by new Regent Marcia Bandera. Regent Bandera accepted the invitation for the January meeting and, following prior inquiry into subjects important to GBC Faculty, she addressed Senate regarding:
   1. Nevada Budget - No new information has been received. Chancellor Nichols believes there is a threat that COLA's are at risk. The Chancellor has stated that she will stand firm on merit increases; however, no outcome can be predicted. Regent Bandera believes that the focus of institutions must be on the instruction of students and an effort to create a balance in all things. If the budget shortfall materializes and cutbacks are seen as necessary, Regent Bandera hopes GBC has a Plan B. GBC must be actively interested in a solution.
   2. Shared Governance - According to faculty definition, shared governance is defined as various areas of faculty responsibility with Administration approval; Administration disapproval with substantiative reasoning. Barriers may be more difficult to work through with regards to system level initiatives. The definition as interpreted by Regent Bandera can be seen in specific examples:
      1. The common course numbering project has not been seen as helpful for students in some instances. There have been circumstances where tactic positioning has been used to gain preferred outcomes; however, Regent Bandera is unaware of any problems which cannot be worked through. Clear issues need to be brought back to the BoR, through President Killpatrick, in order to get the problems solved. The Board sees the path to accomplish the project, not the problems which have been caused by changes.
      2. Workload has been an increasing concern among system faculty. At this time, GBC faculty do not have a specific workload plan in place with regards to the institution's mission of offering selected 4-year programs. Faculty have preferred an across the board compensation plan which may not address instruction differentials. Regent Bandera will be happy to re-address the issue when a proposed formula is formed.
      3. Compromises will need to be made with active input by faculty and the BoR. However, there will be issues, which will not be able to be solved through compromise and ultimately the Regents will make the final decision. Regent Bandera believes this is still shared governance. She does not believe in secrets or secret meetings - Code changes can be worked through in localized work groups in ensure the effectiveness and fairness to all parties.
   3. State-Wide Consortium of Online Classes - Regent Bandera believes distance education is an essential part of instruction. She understands that there are battles to be fought with regards to FTE, etc. However, UCCSN has to engage heavily to combat those out-of-state entities who have the technology to bring courses into Nevada without providing quality instruction. A plan needs to be together within the next year. There are ways to make on-line programs work through collaborative efforts. This does not mean having to sacrifice core courses to another system institution; concentration will be on specialized course work.
   4. College Development - Great Basin College is unique to the state; however, because of our location, students can easily cross state borders to attend college. Efforts have been made to ensure that what GBC is developing is taken into account when designing code changes so as not to hamper program development or enrollment. A Good Neighbor Policy in effect which should allow institutions to bring in out-of-state students into our programs.
4. ATTENDANCE: Silent roll was taken while Regent Bandera addressed Senate. Chair Pete Bagley declared a quorum present at 2:14 p.m. Two proxy votes were recorded.
5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes of the December 6, 2002, Faculty Senate meeting were unanimously approved.
6. SENATE CHAIR REPORT:
   1. Board of Regents -The board passed a policy policing Board of Regents' access to student and personnel files.
   2. Code Proposals - A copy of proposed code enhancements affecting faculty personnel issues was provided. The changes are an effort to give more legal binding to individual institutional bylaws. Faculty are asked to bring comments back to Chair Bagley.
   3. Institutional Bylaws - In an effort to standardize the GBC Bylaws for Regent approval, a copy of proposed revisions was distributed. Faculty are asked to bring comment back to Chair Bagley or Vice Chair Shrock. Administration would like to complete this effort as quickly as possible in order to bring the completed work before the BoR at the January meeting. Key comments toward the proposal was the evident absence of the administrative evaluation process and that the college organization appears to be completely under the direction of the President (i.e., tenure is not shown to be approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs but to be directly reviewed by the President).
   4. Streamlining the Faculty Senate Structure - Chair Bagley would like to concentrate the semester on tightening up the Faculty Senate. One area will be to look at committees and if there are areas which can be combined and/or redefined.
   5. Faculty Return Dates - Through the efforts of Vice Chair Shrock, a compromise may be within reach. The proposal sets faculty return at seven working days prior to the beginning of the semester but will make time adjustments to make up lost Mondays due to holidays. The proposal is pending investigation into accreditation standards on seat time versus instruction time. Administration is sympathetic to Faculty assuming responsibility for the Academic Calendar. This responsibility will be appointed to the Academic Standards Committee with a proposal brought before Senate in the near future.
   6. Prioritization of New Hires - Faculty was informed at the November meeting that the budget shortfall may not be as extensive as previously thought, therefore, freeing up potential hiring funds. Department Chairs formed an alphabetic list which was submitted to the Academic Master Plan. Chairs requested that Senate prioritize the list. In an effort to provide a starting point for argument, FS Executive Committee formed the list into categories of High, Medium and Low priority. After nominal discussion, it was decided departments should have an opportunity to defend their position requests since 1) there are positions which departments feel are necessary in order to function but are not necessarily FTE generators; and/or, 2) money issued for a program may not have been used to directly fund instruction. Therefore, the prioritization of hires will be kicked back to the Department Chairs who will form a recommended list for approval by the next Senate meeting.
7. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
   1. Academic Standards - Written report; approved. Non-traditional credit was approved for Andrea Anderson and George W. Bear.
      1. The committee continues to work on Friday utilization and will proceed once the Campus Utilization Report is secured from Vice President Carl Diekhans. The committee will also begin distributing a survey/questionnaire to students to study their course time preference. President Killpatrick wants a plan in place by fall 2003. He proposes M, W, F courses at 50 minute intervals to be held during morning hours; M, W and T, Th courses at 1.25 hour intervals to be held during the afternoon/evening hours.
   2. Curriculum and Articulation - The committee has a report which was not submitted for the agenda. The committee was instructed that they may present their report orally, but it may not be voted on except with a suspension of the rules. The committee withdrew their comments since those courses presented only need approval prior to the end of the semester and agreed to have the report presented on the next agenda for approval.
   3. Distance Education - The committee thanks everyone for attending their forum. There will be a follow-up meeting on February 7 which will break out online and IAV instructors to gather information pertinent to these modes of instruction. The committee will then generate a set of policies for approval. The Vice President of Academic Affairs would like these policies in place by the end of the semester.
   4. Facilities - Written report; information only. Faculty have one month to submit their office requests to the committee for occupation of McMullen Hall. The UNR Cooperative Extension and the Area Health Education Center have agreed to relocate to Griswold Hall. Faculty are reminded that departments should be kept together.
   5. Faculty and Administrative Evaluations - Report withdrawn.
8. FOUR YEAR COMMITTEE REPORTS:
   1. Bachelor of Applied Science - There are 64 active students, 2 graduates with 13 total graduates expected within the next 12 months. There were 32 students listed as inactive; due to the efforts of Student Central, 14 were moved back to active status. Among program participants, 30 hold AAS degrees and 9 hold AA degrees -- this is contrary to the supposition that the program held a majority of enrollees from other degree areas. In three weeks, the committee will meet to consider over 40 applications to the program.
   2. Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education - Report withdrawn.
   3. Bachelor of Arts in Integrated and Professional Studies - Report submitted; information only. Although SIS records over 80 students who have declared the degree as their major, this does not mean the students have been accepted into the program. The committee understands this discrepancy and, therefore, provided the exact number of approved program participants.
9. OLD BUSINESS: No old business was brought forward.
10. NEW BUSINESS:
    1. Bylaw Committee - An ad hoc Bylaw Committee has been formed at the convenience of the Chair. The committee will be headed by Secretary Frank Daniels. The committee will review the Senate Bylaws and make suggestions for revising the structure to better exemplify current business and responsibility. The first order of business will be the review of committees as previously mentioned by Chair Bagley. A call for volunteers was made. Professors Eric Bateman and Bob Robertson agreed to serve.
11. INFORMATIONAL ITEMS:
    1. Agriculture Program - Gary Sundseth, Program Director, was asked to present the developing program to the Senate. He and his family has lived in Elko for 5 years and has a lifetime extensive background in production agriculture. He is a graduate of Oregon State Cardigan I Research College.
       1. The program was brought to GBC out of the conclusion that there is not an accredited agriculture program in the State of Nevada. UNR offers courses in bio-technology/bio-research/bio-chemistry which is different than production science. GBC had a similar program approximately 15 years ago which was discontinued. Agriculture itself has changed extensively since then with major scientific improvements such a cloning. Elko is a the perfect location for the program because it is one of the largest beef producing counties in the nation. The program was designed after Blue Mack Community College (Pendelton, OR) which recently received the National Ag Post-Secondary Program award; and Casper College (Casper, WY) which has the winning-est livestock judging team in the United States.
       2. Prospective students will be generated through the Millennium Scholarship program and 4-H and FFA graduating officers throughout the state. Education through a close community college setting fosters a greater learning experience which is a benefit to this program. Scholarship money from the community has been secured with additional financial support being brought forward through local agri-business individuals working with the GBC Foundation.
       3. An A.S., A.A.S and an A.A. will be offered to supply the students with the individual type of education they are seeking. The differences between programs lie in the academic instruction course work (i.e., science emphasis versus applied science emphasis). Oregon State, Washington State and the University of Idaho are the three land grant colleges which produced a consortium learning atmosphere (a.k.a. TADDA) for veterinary medicine and technical course work (i.e., range, higher end soils, etc.). Through GBC, students could take their upper level general education courses then continue with the land grant educational system. In addition, GBC's secondary education program will work with the current associate's program to further students in reaching their educational goals locally (with the use of distance education for our service area).
       4. Enrollment projections are 15-30 for the first year with steadily increasing enrollment thereafter. The key to the program's success is that GBC does it's job properly - the best salespeople will be our students.
       5. Working relationships with local ranchers and the BLM will provide learning environments and hands-on training. The in-school instruction aspect should already be adequate. The Director position will be a full-time position beginning the next academic year. The program requires approximately 23 new courses for GBC requiring 2-3 full-time new faculty positions.
    2. FS Web Page - Sean Thompson has the new website designed. He is currently working on moving the information from the original page to the new format. The new page will allow discussions and polling.
    3. Department Chairs met and set their agenda schedule for the next six weeks. Details are available through respective Chairs. The items of discussion for the month of February are 1)the progress of the fall 2004 schedule; 2) IAV block schedules; 3) the organizational structure of the college.
    4. The Foundation and the President's Office are sponsoring the Faculty Follies on the evening of April 11. This is a no-talent required evening of fun and they hope faculty will come forward and join. Contact Nicole Kelly at the Foundation office for information.
12. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 3:43 p.m. The next Senate meeting is scheduled for February 14, 2003, at 1:15 p.m.