Ohio University Faculty Senate met Monday evening to discuss updates to the faculty handbook and suggest guidelines for a better faculty and student experience.
Senate also heard updates from President Lori Stewart Gonzalez and Executive Vice President and Provost Don Leo.
Gonzalez began the meeting by discussing the Foundation Board Meeting Thursday and Friday evenings. Greg Simmons, the new vice president of advancement, will attend the meetings featuring a gratitude event celebrating philanthropists who have donated to the university.
Gonzalez also shared the news that David Moore, formerly of Rutgers University, will be the new vice president for finance and administration of OU effective Jan. 6, 2025.
Leo contributed a general update, and Senate began reviewing resolutions shortly after that.
Aaron Wilson, an associate professor in the School of Accountancy, introduced a sense-of-the-senate resolution based on an internal compensation study conducted in 2014.
The study shows that faculty wages are not proportionately reflecting inflation. According to the current draft of the resolution, faculty wages in real dollars have decreased by more than 18.5% over the past 7 years.
The resolution is in its earliest stage, and Senate is still deliberating on its requests. However, language for a corrective five-year budget and use of the Consumer Price Index for projections regarding faculty wages exist within the current version of the resolution.
Cynthia Anderson, a professor of sociology and chair of the Sociology and Anthropology department, presented a sense-of-the-senate resolution to recognize community engagement in promotion and tenure guidelines.
“This is not necessarily trying to add another requirement for people but making a space for a lot of work that people are already doing that doesn't necessarily get quantified in the guidelines we already have,” Anderson said.
Senate also discussed a resolution presented by Doug Clowe, professor and director of the Astrophysics Institute, on second reading to revise language in the faculty handbook to keep up to date with OU policy about fraud and misconduct concerning professional research.
Additionally, two sense-of-the-senate resolutions presented by Sarah Wyatt, distinguished professor of environmental and plant biology, were also addressed.
The resolutions are tied back to the resolution presented by Clowe, which recognizes that ethical mentor-mentee relationships are part of proper research practices and ethics of practice should be set down in writing.
“All the major funding agencies now have identified ethical treatment of students to be a critical component of the mentoring relationship between grad students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty,” Wyatt said. “They're all requiring the writing of mentoring plans in various different pieces and parts.”
The meeting adjourned early after discussing an OU alert about a suspect near Ewing House.
