Faculty Senate addresses President Hall’s goals for the university
Aspects of many of the seven topics from President Kermit L. Hall’s inaugural address last Friday were addressed Monday at the Faculty Senate Meeting.
One element of primary concern was the proposed additional coverage of all prescription contraceptives to the Utah State University Health Plan. The motion was placed before the Senate by Vance Grange, assistant professor in the School of Accountancy, member of the Budget and Facility Welfare Committee and passed with only one opposing vote.
Grange said the additional cost for all contraceptives would be about 1.35 percent, which is equivalent to $216,000. But as one senate member pointed out, this does not take into account the savings from unplanned pregnancies.
“Most plans cover these benefits now, and we may not be in compliance with federal law,” Grange said.
Another motion that passed in the Senate was to have the payroll dispersed in advance if the last day of the month fell on a weekend. Mark Larsen, a professor in the Spanish, languages and philosophy department, made this proposal, and said in the past this had just always happened, but recently it wasn’t.
“With today’s electronic schedule, where a lot of us have bills automatically deducted out of our accounts, we need to have it there,” Larsen said.
One senate member also expressed concern that if this happened at the end of December it would have reprocutions on tax reports.
The motion passed after a count was taken.
Other things covered in the meeting included reports from the athletics committee, the graduate council, the Education Policy Committee (EPC) and university business from Provost Stan Albrecht.
Maurice Thomas, member of the athletics committee, reported on a $180,000 surplus from the athletic budget. He said this is the 10th year they have had a balanced budget.
Thomas said they’re continuing to search for a conference for football and are preparing for women’s basketball. There are already allocations in the budget for this team, he said.
“Things are going pretty well,” Thomas said. “The challenge is to meet all of title nine requirements and to win the game Saturday night.”
Improvements to the Graduate Studies Office have been in the process since last January, said Thomas Kent, dean of graduate studies.
“We are a service unit, we’re there to serve graduate students and faculty,” Kent said.
This semester the doctoral remission program has been in effect offering doctorate students coverage of in-state tuition. So far, the university has had to “eat it” Kent said, but he hopes eventually this will sustain itself with additional credit hours. Master’s remission is being looked at, but is not expected to be effective for several years, he said.
“We’re making efforts to make what we do more efficient and effective. Instead of being viewed as an impediment, we want to be viewed as a help by graduate students,” Kent said.
The senate passed a motion by the EPC to discontinue the six emphasizes in the forestry program. Weldon Sleight, the associate vice president of the university Extension, said these emphasizes have not been effective since the change to semesters and other programs have been made available to students.
Albrecht addressed the council about the president’s plans including the library building status and the inaugural fund.
Right now, the Merrill Library is at the top of the list of requests before the state. The state has allocated $89 million for capital projects he said.
He also addressed the faculty-to-student ratio problem, and said they are looking into addition sources of funds.