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Speaker 1: (silence) In the absence of the president, I'd like to call the meeting to order. The first item of business this afternoon is the approval of the agenda for today. Is there a motion to approve? Speaker 2: Moved. Speaker 1: Is there a second? Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: Those in favor, aye. Audience: Aye. Speaker 1: Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Next, if I could ask you to look at the draft minutes for October the 16th, which was attached as appendix A, are there changes to those draft minutes, corrections? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve? Speaker 5: Moved. Speaker 1: Thank you. Second? Audience: Second. Speaker 1: All in favor? Audience: Aye. Speaker 1: Any opposed? Thank you. President Ingler is apparently unable to attend. Provost remarks, what are my remarks? I think we are celebrating this evening the promotion of a number of associate provosts to provosts a few years ago. Some of you are full professors, sorry. If they'd like to be a full provost where you'll work that out, no, this is associate to full professor. A lot of you in the room who are maybe not quite as old as I am, frequently say, you didn't do that when I was promoted and that's true. But for the last few years we've been University Council 11.20.18 Transcript by Rev.com Page 1 of 38

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Page 1: acadgov.msu.edu file · Web viewSpeaker 1: (silence) In the absence of the president, I'd like to call the meeting to order. The first item of business this afternoon is the approval

Speaker 1: (silence)

In the absence of the president, I'd like to call the meeting to order. The first item of business this afternoon is the approval of the agenda for today. Is there a motion to approve?

Speaker 2: Moved.

Speaker 1: Is there a second?

Speaker 3: Second.

Speaker 1: Those in favor, aye.

Audience: Aye.

Speaker 1: Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Next, if I could ask you to look at the draft minutes for October the 16th, which was attached as appendix A, are there changes to those draft minutes, corrections? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve?

Speaker 5: Moved.

Speaker 1: Thank you. Second?

Audience: Second.

Speaker 1: All in favor?

Audience: Aye.

Speaker 1: Any opposed? Thank you. President Ingler is apparently unable to attend. Provost remarks, what are my remarks? I think we are celebrating this evening the promotion of a number of associate provosts to provosts a few years ago. Some of you are full professors, sorry. If they'd like to be a full provost where you'll work that out, no, this is associate to full professor. A lot of you in the room who are maybe not quite as old as I am, frequently say, you didn't do that when I was promoted and that's true. But for the last few years we've been much more conscientious about trying to pause and celebrate the academic accomplishments of our colleagues. And so last week we celebrated the assistant to associate professor promotions, this week it's associate to full. That is this evening and we're looking forward to it.

On a totally mundane but still very important, a development of this afternoon, we also celebrate it opening of Wilson road so you're actually going to be able to drive off campus now instead of driving around all kinds of wire, that's exciting. That'll will stand I guess as my mundane remarks for the day. Dr. LaDuca is not with us, but rather Dr. Moriarty. And so I'll ask her for comments.

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Dr. Moriarty: Thank you. Dr. LaDuca asked me to let the group know that he is having some medical issues and was not able to be here today. The one thing that I have to talk about here is last week at faculty senate, we had a discussion of the bylaws then new additions and changes in the bylaws and it was basically thought by many people in Faculty Senate that this should be moved back to committees. Recently the committee, I'm reading the motion that came to the steering committee by email, recently the university committee on academic governance produced proposed bylaws changes as regards to faculty governance matters.

The steering committee and the provost have agreed that the relevant university standing committees, UC, UE, UQ, UCFA, UCFT, and UCGS should examine these proposed bylaws, changes and recommend additions, deletions, and other edits by the end of January 2019. Then the committee should formally ratify these recommended changes at their regularly scheduled February 2019 meetings. The recommendations will then be passed onto UCAG, then the full university council will discuss and vote on the full and complete package of bylaws prior to being sent to the board of trustees for their approval in March 2019. That is the calendar that we have at this point in time and these will go back to committee and then come back to UCAG. I just wanted to give you that information item and hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and if you're traveling, safe travels.

Speaker 1: The bylaw changes are those that were developed last summer by an ad hoc committee and they brought them to steering committee and then there was, for those of you who are part of faculty senate you know there was a brief presentation last Tuesday on the themes of those changes. They are substantial, there are many changes and some of them are pretty significant changes and they in some cases modify the function of particular standing committees of academic governance. So having those standing committees take some time and really look at implications of those changes rather than just, as a group, all of us decide how that would work is probably why.

So with your indulgence again, that will go back to committee and the people who best know the work of the committees will have a chance to comment on that. Then because this is the body that approves changes in bylaws before they go to the board of trustees, you will see all of that and have an opportunity to comment on and take action on any part or all of it that you wish, but we will use our governance subcommittees to do a bit of the work if that's reasonable. So thanks for your patience on that.

New business, our first order of business is the committee is the curriculum report, university committee on curriculum,

Mercy: Mercy [Mertu 00:15:55] College of Nursing. This is actually an informational item and so as approved by faculty senate last week in UCC full committee in October, there have been two new programs highlighted by a master's of science in nutrition and dietetics, effective spring, 2019 and a quantitative risk analytics bachelor of science effective fall of 19. This program is actually intended to help

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those that don't want to go into actuary sciences, but be very marketable and competitive in the insurance industry. Additionally, we approved 12 program changes and three program deletions. For courses we approved 34 new courses, 74 course changes and 13 course deletions.

For the moratoriums there's one in geological sciences, PHD Effective spring 2019 to spring 2024 as they're doing some reorganization and a discontinuation in the computer science disciplinary teaching minor for elementary and secondary education effective spring 2019 and ethics and development graduate specialization effective spring 2018, the short reports and appendix B and if you really want to see the long report, you can click on the link.

Speaker 1: Our second item today is around the presentation and format of the minutes of the steering committee. Dr. Moriarty I think is going to speak to that.

Dr. Moriarty: Last meeting of the university council, there was a short discussion about the minutes of the meeting, but there was nothing that was actually on the agenda that made it an action item so there was no kind of official vote. The minutes have been a matter of discussion for actually a number of years and how they will be, what kind of minutes we will have and what the availability will be to outsiders. What has happened in this particular year cycle is that Dr. Hoppenstand has made very, very, very complete minutes from a transcript that comes from the meeting itself.

The problem with that is, is that some people are quoted in full and some people are not quoted in full and this has caused some problems and many, many email exchanges and it's ... Dr. Hoppenstand at least the communication that we've had ... I think we all feel that it is not fair if people, some people are quoted more fully than other people and it gives a slanted view of what actually happened at the meeting. What he has proposed is to have the minutes such as you have today, which are concise and talk about the action items and we'll have the motions in full.

We'll have anything that was in the appendix will be in full, will be attached to it in full and the transcript will be available by link if you go on the website so that everyone can read the transcript and see what the transcript has to say. It will also, I believe we're talking about putting the recording also because sometimes under recordings people do not identify themselves so sometimes the transcript does not have the correct identities, so they will be actually more availability in terms of accuracy, but the minutes themselves will be much more concise. That's the background of that, is there, uh, we have a motion and a second so that we could discuss it if there is discussion. If somebody would just make a motion.

Speaker 8: Motion and second.

Speaker 1: Motion and second, is there discussion?

Andaluna Borcil: Andaluna Borcila, James Madison College. First of all, I want to thank Gary

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Hoppenstand for all the work he's done. I'm one of the people that have been pushing for detailed minutes, not just to hear myself at all, actually I've been contacting Dr Hopkins Stat and Sherry at odd hours of the night on Sundays to say the student has said this and this faculty has this, said this and so forth, particularly when there are big points of critique that I think were important to be recorded at this point in time because we've lived through exceptional moments in our institution. By the way, have you seen the news today? Hopefully we'll talk about that later. It's big news and we should talk about that. But getting back to the point at hand here, I understand very well why we need the minutes that are very brief, but I'm wondering if there is a little bit more of a happy medium where at least we don't just get the extended comments from the administrators.

But actually if we can identify ... if there was a debate over something or a discussion over something, if we can say like student for instance, Isaiah Hawkins or Ben and professor so and so and so and so and so had comments and then when the transcript people can go and see what those comments are because that way if there was a debate and people spoke up on an issue, they can go to the comments. The other part, the transcripts, the other part about the transcripts, which is if you have a more unusual name, I don't know how to put it, but I guess I have an unusual name, then these names might appear transcribed like poorly. I'm Brazilla and the first part of the transcripts and I don't want to, you know, I'm just saying for those of us who have more unusual names, then our names might not be captured in the transcripts and I do not know what it takes to address that. But I do know the problem you're confronting and I'm wondering if there's something we can do to moving from one extreme to the other. Thank you.

Gary H.: If I can respond, first of all thank you Andaluna for your diligent work in terms of reviewing the minutes and making sure of their accuracy. I have been doing some research on do's and don'ts for a minute meetings and this comes from the Center for Association Leadership and if I may, I just like to briefly read what the recommendation should be for what's in and what's out because I think this might help the body understand the roles of the minute. What's in the minutes should include the title of the group that is meeting, the date, the time and venue, the names of those in attendance, including staff and the person recording the minutes and the agenda. The minutes should follow the order of the agenda with a basic, almost vague summary sentence or two for each item along with the name of the person who presented it.

Votes taken, should appear in their place of order in the agenda. Generally don't include names, instead record what happened. Quote, action motion made, seconded and carried. There is one exception when the board approves executive compensation or a transaction with a board member, that action should be recorded along with the names of those who voted for and against, the information provided on which they base their decision and the outcome. This additional detail can help establish a rebuttal presumption that the action was reasonable and can help avoid IRS sanctions. What's out, since minutes are public

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documents that members may ask to review, be Clear on what to exclude, avoid direct quotations. Even without a name, the speaker may be identifiable. Don't report details of discussions especially who said what, when items on the agenda are discussed, note simply that time was provided for members to discuss items not on the agenda and remember that minutes are not the place for future action items or a to do list.

Finally, once the minutes are approved, destroy any notes and audio or video recordings of the meeting. The final approved minutes should be the only recorded record of the meeting that you distribute and keep. This recommendation comes in an age of a litigious society and I believe that it's an attempt to not ensure but to deflect any kind of litigious actions that may occur in the future, but that's their recommendation. I will do with this body recommends, I again appreciate Andaluna's recommendation, but in a sense we're violating standard practices when we direct quote individuals and we go into great detail. Our minutes for our last faculty Senate meeting ran to nine pages in length.

Jennifer Johnso: Yeah, Jennifer Johnson College of human medicine. I get that in a way, but this is an open meeting and I think everybody here knows that what they're seeing is public and my concern about doing it that way is part of what we're trying to do is improve communication. I would be really ... I think our minutes really lose something if we don't have this concern was raised, this point was made and part of the reason for the shorter minutes. I don't even mind a full transcript personally because I know everything I say here is public but part of the reason for the shorter but substantive minutes was to send them to the board so the board knows what we're talking about or take them back to our constituencies. So if they're completely stripped of any actual information, to me, they don't serve a purpose.

Gary H.: I certainly understand that and then that's exactly the way we've been proceeding up to this point but it is not a standard practice among committee meetings like this and for a variety of reasons. I will be happy to continue to proceed as we have perceived, I do appreciate doing the shorter minutes with attachments of audio and print transcripts for those who want greater detail. There is a concern, however, that we are violating standard practices according to what professional associations have indicated that we do. I work for you, so I will continue to do what you want me to do.

Jennifer Johnso: I'd be interested in what are the standard practice when the purpose of the body is to communicate information.

Gary H.: The purpose is basically to identify major action items that have been brought forward, that have been approved. It's not intended to identify individuals with one exception, and that is the board of trustees with compensation and that's for the purposes of the IRS. But it's a potential for litigation of whatever kind and as such these guidelines that the Center for Association Leadership had provided as well as I've checked other guidelines and they all basically say the same thing,

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these are a way of protecting really the members of this committee from action, litigious action as well as our office. Again, I will follow the wishes of this committee. I'd like to appreciate Deb for bringing this up and for allowing our trial run today of the shorter minutes with the attached transcripts but I think that this is something that this body should be aware of in terms of what we're doing.

Again, I fully understand the importance of providing detailed information to the board of trustees. I think that's extremely important so that they understand this body's positioned, faculty senates position and so on, but we are not in compliance with standard practices that are recommended.

Catherine M.: Catherine Murphy, ODSMSU. One of the things that I mentioned during our conversation with the steering committee is that we've suffered from high turnover as students when we're trying to track why a policy or why an initiative was halted like five years ago, that's enough for me not to have contacts with people that we're serving then in there. So the longer extended transcript would give me a very detailed idea of to say what was the issue that failed, so what happened with the fall break discussion, what happened with certain curriculum or program and that helps us guide advocacy a lot better. I was one of the biggest proponents of, yes, have a smaller, easier to follow agenda minutes that stems directly from the agenda, but then having a full on transcript more for the rationale of why things were voted on yes or no. Just wanted to share that.

Gary H.: Thank you, thank you very much. I am more than happy to do that. Oh, I'm sorry, Michael.

Michael Capelew: Hi I'm Michael Capelewitt, College of Agriculture and natural resources. I disagree with you, Gary. You are looking at an association or a set of guidelines. We are an elected body, we are a governance organization, this is a public meeting, we have been and I believe we will remain comfortable with our words and our actions here being recorded and documented, so I think going forward, having minutes that are more easy to navigate that are shorter is one thing, having transcripts that are accessible in written form and in audio form is acceptable to me as well. But I think that going forward we want to have ... I would like to have minutes that reflect the activities and actions that this body takes with links to the actual words that we have used and we've listened to and we've responded to as we make decisions as a body.

Gary H.: If I could respond first please. I agree Michael, I really don't. I don't disagree with your position at all. I'm just raising this as an issue. I work for all of you, so I am more than happy to ... I appreciate the support for the briefer minutes, I am more than happy to provide a print and audio transcripts that are linked with the minutes. I just wanted to bring this issue to this committee for discussion without any intent whatsoever to impose these new procedures. I wanted to get a response, I've gotten response.

Isaiah Hawkins: Isaiah Hawkins, College of music in ASMSU, to move this forward, I think there's a consensus in the room. I would move the question on this.

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Speaker 1: Question has been called, we need to vote on the question.

Dr. Beck: A vote of hands I think can suffice.

Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to vote on the question. Those who are ready to end the discussion please raise your hand. Those who would like to continue. It sounds like, sorry, it looks like we're ready then to vote on the motion. Do you want to restate the motion, Debra?

Debra: Yes. The motion was the motion was to have minutes that respond to the agenda, that list the action items, actions that were taken and that include complete motions and as a link to those minutes, they will be a complete transcript of the meeting as well a complete written transcript as well as an audio transcript of the meeting.

Speaker 1: Those who support that motion, please raise your hands. Those who oppose there. There is at least one, any additional? Two, sorry, I didn't mean to.

Speaker 17: Just to get a clarification, are we voting for minutes with content or-

Speaker 1: We are voting for minutes with content that reflect the agenda, the full motion, and have a link to the full audio and written transcript, that was the motion. Does that clarification call for another vote or are you comfortable?

Speaker 18: When you talk about-

Gary H.: Could you come up to the microphone and please identify yourself?

Speaker 18: [inaudible 00:33:59], James Madison College. When you're talking about audio, is that there is going to be a link that I go to the website, I click on the audio will appear or is going to be like before that I have to go to a place to ask for it?

Gary H.: The link like the transcript will appear.

Speaker 18: And the audio is going to be there?

Gary H.: There will be a link on the minutes that we'll have a link to the print transcript and a link to the audio transcript.

Speaker 18: Thank you.

Speaker 1: That motion has carried so thank you. [crosstalk 00:34:42] I apologize. An abstention to that vote one, two. Are there any additional abstentions? So two oppose, two abstentions. Thank you. Moving along. The next agenda item is actually a motion to amend our bylaws and that will be presented by the University Committee on Academic Governance.

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Amanda Tickner: Hello, Amanda Tickner, UCAG chair person. We received a request for bylaws change that seemed short and straightforward unlike some of the other bylaws changes that we've been dealing with and so we decided instead of subjecting it to the same extended timeline and review as those other things that we would push it forward and get it done. The first sentence of 4.4.1 was requested to be amended by Richard Balan brought it to us and brought us, brought this to us. The University Committee on undergraduate education shall include a faculty member from each college and this is where the proposed language starts, a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving as a committee member on another university Standing Committee, new language ends, and a faculty member from the Non College Faculty. So essentially this is a bylaws change requesting to add a faculty member from the Honors College to the university committee on undergraduate education as a voting member.

Thank you, is there a second to that motion?

Speaker 20: Second.

Amanda Tickner: Discussion, I think the rationale again here is that honors college, although deeply engaged in curriculum and curriculum decisions, especially at the undergraduate level, have real relevance to the Honors College. There's been no representation from the Honors College on the Curriculum Committee. Steve do you want to speak to that?

Steve Esquith: Steve Esquith, residential college in the arts and humanities. This is just a question maybe for Cynthia, what does it mean to say a faculty member from the Honors College, is it someone appointed in the honors' college or someone associated with the honors' college? I'm just wondering what size pool we're talking about.

Cynthia Jackson: Cynthia Jackson on more honors college and Amanda may have to weigh in. The request was for honors college to be represented and the language came forward as a faculty member from the Honors College. The intent would be there are faculty in the Honors College in administrative roles, so it could be an individual in that role, but you would have to look to UCAG for clarification on the language around that. Our intent was that faculty, faculty from Honors College would be able to be at the table. The whole idea is that when you're looking at curricular issues, honors college has never been in the room and so all of the other language says faculty member and that's it. So Amanda, I don't know if you want to clarify something I probably made no sense, but the whole point is that it was having honors college at the table.

Amanda Tickner: I think our thinking was along the lines of defense, the other categories in the list of people serving on this committee included faculty and we also had some concern about administrators serving.

Rich Balen: Hi, Rich Balen, Leven brings college and chair of UQ. That's the understanding that it would be somebody in an administrative role with the honors' college who

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could represent the interests of the honors' college and the interests of the students in the honors' college and to provide sort of guidance to UQ in our deliberations.

Speaker 1: Additional questions or comments?

Marty Crimp: I'm curious, I am sorry, Marty Crimp, college of Engineering, I'm curious if it would be appropriate for this representative to be ex-officio and that voting on their committee and if that was discussed.

Rich Balen: Rich Balen, Lyman Briggs College. In fact, we have invited an honors' college representative to serve Ex-officio. The reason that we wanted to have a voting member and have this sort of codified is because we consider the honors' college to play a very important role and a role that is important with, with the regular set of representatives and therefore we felt it was appropriate to have this codified in the bylaws and to give them voting privileges.

Speaker 1: Any additional comments or questions on the motion? Yes, the emotion is to revise the bylaws so that it states the university committee on undergraduate education, UQ, shall include a faculty member from each college, a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving as a committee member on another university Standing Committee, and a faculty member from the Non College Faculty. So that change is a faculty member from the Honors College who's not currently serving on another committee.

Kathy Patrone: Kathy Patrone from the Broad College of Business. It just seems to me if we're confused about what that means to be a faculty member from the Honors College, that we should not make this change until it can be clear in the bylaws exactly what we mean. It makes me very uncomfortable that we don't know really what it means before we vote on it. Maybe there just needs to be a footnote or something to define what that means, I don't know.

Michelle J.: Michelle Jackson, Lyman Briggs College. I just have a question of clarification. When in the bylaw says that a member of every college will be included, why does that not already include Honors College? It could be an easy answer to this.

Amanda Tickner: Well, I think there is an easy answer which is the other members are voted on by the Faculty of the college and there is no faculty of the Honors College. There are faculty members who are affiliated with the honors' college in a variety of ways, but there is not a discrete faculty as there is in degree granting colleges.

Michelle J.: So should it be a different part of the bylaw that's modified not this particular item? I think that's the question at hand.

Robert Ofoli: Robert Ofoli, College of Engineering, I think that was the same question I was going to ask because there are a lot of members of the honors' college who are actually note in the honors' college. We are Johnson our various colleges and we look at their academics and so on. So, when you say a faculty member of the

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Honors College, I think I have the same confusion as some of my colleagues. Who is that person?

Cynthia Jackson: Cynthia Jackson on honors college. Just to clarify, who are the faculty officially affiliated with the Honors College? The Associate Dean is a faculty member and plays a faculty role also with the Honors College. There is a professor who has an appointment in the honors' college who is the professor of psychology and holds an honors' college appointment, the Dean of the Honors College is a faculty member and can play a faculty role in the Honors College. Those are faculty in the Honors College. Do I need to stay, Mark?

Mark Largent: No, thank you. Mark Largent, interim associate provost for undergraduate education and I worked with Rich on that committee. The requests originally came to me from the honors' college to include them in the committee and in discussing with the committee the issue that it was at hand when the emphasis was placed on a faculty member from the Honors College are associated with the honors' college was the fact that this committee deals almost entirely with curricular issues. And since curriculum is the purview of the faculty there was concern that the person from the honors' college who might be nominated and placed on this committee would not hold a faculty position. That is you can be affiliated with the Honors College as a staff member or an advisor, a variety of different things but not be a faculty member and so they wanted that aspect of the honors' college represented at this committee. As Rich said, we did give them voice for the year in an ad hoc manner, but we could not give them vote without a change to the bylaws.

Sandra Logan: Sandra Logan College of Arts and Letters. I wonder if the language could be changed to read an administrator from the honors' college who also serves as faculty, would that help?

Amanda Tickner: The honors' college dean is nodding yes.

Michelle Jackso: I'm Michelle Jackson, Lyman Briggs College. I should say that I'm in support of the spirit of the intent of this. So this is really just procedural. 4.2.1.2 says that no college will have more than one representative and from what I can tell-

Amanda Tickner: Speak to the microphone.

Michelle Jackso: I'm used to being short and not being able to reach the microphone, 4.2.1.2 point two says no representative, no college will have more than one representative and there's nothing that I can tell in 4.2 which is where the selection that says that they need to be elected. And you said that was the-

Amanda Tickner: No, I was explaining why there hasn't been not why there couldn't be, just why they're traditionally hasn't been.

Michelle Jackso: It seems to be an oversight because ... I would appreciate someone pointing to where in the bylaws it says that they're not supposed to be there because I can't

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find that.

Amanda Tickner: We have a variety of perspectives have been offered. One is a suggested, a modification to this bylaw that suggest someone serving as an administrator who is also a faculty member from the Honors College, not currently serving on another committee, is one suggestion. Another is that it's unneeded, the entire bylaws revision is unneeded. The other is there's a motion on the floor for this. We could move ahead and vote on this and if it's turned down you can change your mind about something else or we can have a friendly amendment to this one. What's your wealth?

Michelle Jackso: Is currently the wording, comma, sorry, it's not up so I don't see it.

Amanda Tickner: From each college comma, a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving da da, da.

Michelle Jackso: Would it be possible to, instead of having a comma friendly amendment put in parentheses, this is intending to include, then the dual language and parentheses, if it's a matter of just intent.

Dr. Beck: If that's a friendly amendment.

Gary H.: Yes.

Amanda Tickner: I've lost it, I don't ...

Speaker 1: It sounds like we don't need it.

Amanda Tickner: I didn't get the suggested friendly amendment, I didn't follow.

Gary H.: Could the friendly amendment be restated please, for the record?

Amanda Tickner: Yeah, I didn't follow. I have 4.4.1, is that what you're amending or are you amending 4.4.2?

Michelle J.: An amendment to the motion on the floor.

Michelle Jackso: The amendment suggested amendment to the motion on the floor is to begin the bylaw amendment one character before, sorry, just reading the grammar here. To replace the current change with open paren, this is intended to include, or the intent is to include, at the end of the suggested amendment to remove the comma and to replace that with closed paren.

Speaker 1: So it would read, I believe, we'll see what Gary writes, the University Committee on undergraduate education shall include a faculty member from each college. This is intended to include a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving as a committee member on another university standing committee.

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Michelle Jackso: How about just including?

Speaker 1: Including a faculty member-

Amanda Tickner: Including a faculty member from the Honors College.

Sandra Logan: Sandra Logan College of Arts and Letters, I don't think that clears up the other question, which is what is a faculty member?

Dr. Beck: Is this-

Speaker 32: You got to turn it on.

Dr. Beck: Regular faculty are defined as tenure line faculty, Fixed Term Faculty of three years or more, academic specialists have three years or more and fringe people.

Amanda Tickner: So if in fact the dean is a faculty member, the Associate Dean is a faculty member and there is one person assigned full time or part time to the two honors college who is a faculty member. There is a faculty member, they may not have a facultee, but there is a faculty member. There are faculty members who are serving in the honors college.

Robert Ofoli: This is Robert Ofoli, engineering, I was going to suggest that maybe we can wordsmith this. We might say an administrator of the honors college who is a university faculty member because then that goes back to your definition because I think the confusion that we're having that all colleges have faculty members and the members who are actually working on behalf of the Honors College are also faculty in other colleges or the university, Cynthia, would that be correct or?

Speaker 1: She says that is correct, but there are at least three faculty members who are in the honors college who are not affiliated. They're not serving in other colleges and so there are at least three people who fit the regular faculty definition. They have a secondary role, or an ancillary role, or they're tenured faculty members in the university.

Robert Ofoli: Okay. Then I withdraw my words, I think it's necessary.

Amanda Tickner: It does not say that it will include a faculty member from a degree granting college. It just says a college so I think-

Speaker 1: which I think was Dr. Jackson's point.

Michelle Jackso: Exactly. I think it seems to me that in order to just leave the bylaws as they are, do we just simply, can we just simply vote down the motion and then leave it?

Speaker 1: Well, so here is the question and you all can do whatever you want, but that I

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think was Dr. Jackson's, Dean Jackson's point about this is intended to include so that it's very clear that the honors college is a critical part of this body and it calls it out. Now you can say, well we don't call out arts and letters or natural science, so why call up the honors college and that's up to you. But that was the intent of the friendly amendment to intended to include. So I think we're ready to vote on this. if you don't want this, we can just let it go if you-

Michelle Jackso: On procedure, I think the second needs to made in the amendment.

Amanda Tickner: Of the friendly amendment hat was my proceeding. So the friendly amendment ... Have you got it up there?

Dr. Beck: I have 4. What?

Gary H.: 4.4.1.

Amanda Tickner: The friendly amendment restates this ... Have you got it? Okay. No, you don't have the amendment. The University Committee on undergraduate education shall include a faculty member from each college, including a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving as a committee member on another university standing committee. Is there support for that amendment to the original motion, is there a second?

Michelle Jackso: There's the university parentheses.

Speaker 1: Yes, parentheses. Yes.

Speaker 32: Seconded.

Speaker 1: There's a second to that amendment, do we have to vote on the amendment? Yes. Those in favor of the amendment, just the amendment, changing what we had in order to vote on this. Those in favor, please raise your hand. Those opposed those abstaining. So there's a clear majority in support of amending the original motion with parentheses to indicate intended to include a faculty member, including a faculty member from the Honors College. Those who support that amended motion, please raise your hands. We need a vote. Yeah, we need to count.

Cynthia Jackson: Can we do clickers?

Dr. Beck: We have clickers.

Speaker 1: Oh Gosh. Let's do these darn clickers. First turn it on, that's the bottom line. Don't vote yet but do turn on the power.

Gary H.: Not Open yet.

Speaker 33: Just a quick point of personal privilege, could you repeat the amended language?

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Speaker 1: Yes, I will before we're ready to vote, tell me when we're ready and I'll read it one more time.

Dr. Beck: We're ready to vote.

Speaker 1: We're ready, okay. The university committee on undergraduate education include a faculty member from each college, parentheses, including a faculty member from the Honors College who is not currently serving as a committee member on another university standing committee, parentheses, and a faculty member from the non college faculty. Those in favor of that bylaw amendment, please vote yes if you're opposed, no. C is abstention, A is yes. B is no, C is abstention. How many roughly people do we have here?

Dr. Beck: Roughly 150.

Speaker 1: 10 more seconds in case you're-

Dr. Beck: One is we have quorum which will open that up.

Speaker 1: Okay, I think we're good. So the motion passes as amended. Thank you for your patience and your engagement in that conversation. Before we moved to a planning exercise, we have one final business item and that is I think an action item proposed by Dr. Moriarty around the formal requests for transparency from the board of trustees in regards to the presidential search.

Gary H.: Provost if I may interrupt just briefly, I've been informed by John Beck that there may not be enough time to conduct the work session that he has planned.

Speaker 1: Depending on this discussion?

Gary H.: Yes, correct.

Speaker 1: Well, last week at Faculty Senate Mary Fin, the representative that was voted on by the faculty, came and gave a presentation and at that time Dr. Lupitas, I hope I'm saying your name correctly, asked her if there was a possibility of getting some transparency from the presidential search committee regarding their feelings on what they are looking for in a president. Then the steering committee of the at large members of the steering committee also wanted to add having questions that came from ... that the search committee would ask having those come to the university council. So the university council could see what questions were being asked and also potentially add some questions of their own if they had questions that they felt should be asked.

What we have come up with is a motion that is rather lengthy when I read it, so I apologize for that, that is looking for transparency in the search committee process. It would be sent to the presidential search committee and we would ask for a written response from the presidential search committee as to whether or

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not they would agree with this. So if you'll permit me, I will read the motion.

We applaud the efforts of the presidential search committee for transparency, particularly holding listening sessions and posting the notes from those sessions. However, now that the listening phase has come to a close, we the faculty and students are now blind to the rest of the closed search process. The notes from the listening sessions reveal a wide diversity of opinions across campus regarding the qualities the search committee should prioritize. Therefore, we urge the committee as a whole and as individual members to reveal to the university community their priorities for the candidates. It is the practice of search committees at Michigan State and elsewhere to formulate a list of questions that will be asked of each candidate at every step of the process.

The members of the university council requests that the search committee provide to the university council a draft copy of the questions they would like to ask in advance of the interviews so that the members of university council can provide input, feedback, and possible additional questions. These questions are valuable and important to the members of the university community to understand how and why the president is chosen and what the new president will take as his or her mandate. This will enable the university community to be included in this very important process while preserving the confidentiality of the process. It will also reinforce the search committee's efforts for transparency and inclusiveness. So are you looking for a motion to forward this-

Amanda Tickner: Looking for a second.

Speaker 1: Oh, looking for a second to forward this to-

Amanda Tickner: The presidential search committee.

Speaker 1: The presidential Search Committee, is there a second?

Speaker 34: Second.

Speaker 1: Second, discussion.

Catherine M.: Catherine Murphy, ASMSU, my question is for, I think I love the idea. I think I love the sentiment of it, but if a professor gives me the essay prompt in a test, they're not really testing me in the test. So if the questions are made public, and people prepare for them is that a thing to be one to measure how they're, how they're responding to questions impromptu, or is it going to be a list of like 20 things that we can then pick from? I just want to like test the grounds on that.

Benjamin Horn: Benjamin Horn, Lyman Briggs College ASMSU, I'd like to Echo Catherine's sentiments in that. It's not really a fair assessment if either they're private and some leak because if the university council, this is almost like 100 members if we get to see all the questions but it's supposed to stay private, that's not going to stay private. Regarding transparency and presidential searches, the last one that

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we had Peter Macpherson about 25 years ago, It was a confidential search in which the candidates leaked at the final four and we ended up with Peter Macpherson who is not part of the final four candidates selected by the search committee. Forgive me if any of that is inaccurate, I was not born yet.

Speaker 1: BUT The legend lives on.

Benjamin Horn: Yes, so realistically there needs to be some lack of transparency, I suppose, moving forward with this in order for it to be effective, which is why we placed so much stock in selecting the correct search committee itself because we need to trust them moving forward with this. I think that while good in while good intentions are behind this, it's going to result in some disparity of preparation for presidential interviews in whatever form they end up taking, which is going to impact either the perceived legitimacy or the ability of the next president to respond to unprompted situations.

Speaker 1: I just want to say I neglected to say one thing, Mary Finn at at the Faculty Senate meeting answered the question by saying that she thought that it was important that the faculty senate not be silent, that we actually say something because silence was the worst thing that would happen.

Alyssa Donna: Thank you. I'm Alyssa Donna from the College of Education, and first I'd like to thank the two students that just spoke, I honestly had not even thought about that. Our students teach me something every day. So thank you both for bringing that up. The suggestions that I'm about to offer are, if we do decide to move forward with this motion, I would like to suggest that given how the search committee has talked about what they have previously done, whether we believe that this happened or not, that we change listening to input because they repeatedly emphasize that these were not listening sessions that they were input sessions. So if we do move forward with this, I'd like to suggest that we change that. And I'd also like to suggest that we change the ableist language of using blind as a metaphor, to insert another word instead of using that language. Thank you.

Dr. Beck: Those would be friendly amendments?

Andaluna Borcil: I appreciate the comments that students, the students made to. I'm wondering though, having complete transparency, I don't see a with candidates actually knowing their questions beforehand because they can think about what they want to say. Just another point I do want to make about that though is that we didn't get to select the search committee, they've been completely non transparent with the process of selecting the search committee. I agree with the fact that information will be leaked, I'm afraid of that being used preferentially but what if we're transparent, these are the questions, you know, these are the questions we want the candidates to engage with and if they all know the questions they can all prepare. What we're interested in is the candidate that would be best for and so I'd put for total transparency all the way. You also know that I want to push for open sessions and continue to put for that with a top

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candidate. So thank you.

Dan Gould: Dan Gould, Education. I think there's a lot of good points raised. One concern I have is how many questions, the search committee needs a lot of latitude in my experience over the years on search committees where you have standardized questions, follow ups are important if you've ever done any qualitative research or probe and follow up, so maybe a prioritized list of questions. At the level of president, they're going to be pretty good at Bsing, so you're probably not going to put them on the spot. These people are really seasons they've been coached so I'm not sure the surprise question is really going to get them. I'm more interested in people going back to where they were and finding out where their actions were historically and going back, that's where you're probably really find out, talk to people on their campus.

The value of the questions that a realistic list, it does show the faculty priorities. We're interviewing them and they're interviewing us, so if they here's a five or six really key questions the faculty have done, maybe the answers aren't as important is they got that at the front end and they realize well I better be addressed in that when I get here because the faculty did it. So there's maybe a middle ground on that that we might want to consider but I don't think we want to hamstring the committee with this huge list. It has to be a smaller list, really important questions. If we can come to consensus, could be like 500 different questions come if we can come to some consensus. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Would you want to make a friendly amendment or would you want to wait until we got questions and then look at it at that point?

Dan Gould: I don't know what the friendly amendment whether I'll take it.

Speaker 1: Well, in sense-

Dan Gould: I'm not sure what it is.

Speaker 1: This motion doesn't specify any sort of process for getting there so the amendment might be-

Dan Gould: It can be a friendly, that one.

Benjamin Horn: Ben Horn, Lyman Briggs College ASMSU. I think another thing that we need to take into account is the over standardization of an interview. When we're getting people coming from a lot of different backgrounds hopefully and applying for this presidency, we need to think about our ability to ask questions targeted toward a specific individual that may become relevant. ASMSU has an election procedure that is similar to the one that's proposed where we basically kicked the candidates out of the room, come up with a set of questions and then have them back and ask them all the same questions and one of the perceived weaknesses that I see in that specific system is that it precludes us from asking questions that we may need to know an answer from a specific individual because it's a situation

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that only affects one or a few of the candidates but not others.

And so I think by excessively standardizing the procedure, we may get transparency but lock ourselves out of knowing specific answers when they become relevant from only a few specific individuals.

Speaker 1: If I could speak to that, at least for the students in the room, I think a number of you have served on search committees where there's typically a couple of stages of those interviews and then the first stage, it's pretty important too to ask standardized questions so that everyone has a fair and the same opportunity to provide equal information before you begin to eliminate individuals but by the time you invite people back, it's a very personalized conversation. So I appreciate your comments and I think everyone who sat on a search committee understands the points you were trying to make and they're important ones. Are there other points about this motion which suggests in essence that this body create a set of questions and forward them to the search committee?

Michael Capelew: Michael Capelewits, College of agriculture and Natural Resources. I actually read this suggestion a little bit differently, which is we will hopefully get a list of questions that have been proposed by the committee and we can respond to that by-

Speaker 1: Thank you. That's a fair ... Yes, absolutely.

Lupitas: This is Lupitas, natural science. I'm the one who opened this can of worms and I agree that that is was my goal was taking hear what their priority is.

Speaker 1: I misstated, thank you.

Lupitas: As long as I'm standing here. Let me say one more thing though, I don't know whether the search committee, especially if they are dominated by the trustees are going to listen to us. I wanted this to be as friendly emotion as possible so that they would not ignore us and so it should not ... I would push against any amendments that make it sound like we're demanding anything because we just don't have any leverage here.

Sandra Logan: Sandra Logan, College of Arts and Letters. This directly relates to what Lisa just said, but what I was going to ask is whether we could in any way include some version of the final statement that Andaluna Borcila made, which involves indicating the do's not the limit of our requests for inclusion in the process. So yeah, if in the most friendly way possible, if we could say this is not the limit of our, uh, request for inclusion in the process, that would be, I think good.

Speaker 1: Other comments.

James Steele: James Steele, Barnet college's social science. I appreciate the provost comment, structured interview questions are really, they do those for liability on ... I study recruitment, they do their reliability early on in the process and it's really good

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way and then as you go farther in the process, one question I have is that to make it more friendly, therefore we request the committee instead of urge, that might be appropriate. Then, the second paragraph, a list of questions that will be asked to each candidate at every step of the process.

Based on June's comment, some of this ... we can't restrict, I'm necessarily the questions that are asked later in the process so do we want to continue to say that Alyssa, questions that will be asked of each candidate in the process versus every step of the process?

Speaker 1: That's paragraph-

James Steele: That's paragraph two. That just seems kind of over intrusive, sort of controlling. My two suggestions are change urge to request in the first paragraph, last sentence and then strike at every step of the process.

Speaker 1: Additional questions, comments.

Catherine Fiort: Catherine Fiorty ASMSU, so this new proposed part would require like two or at least two pools of questions because the first one would be the, everyone's going to get that, and then the second would be, once we know who the candidates are, these are some of the questions that are more personalized that we're going to ask? Just wanted a clarification on that.

Speaker 1: That is not how I understood this suggestion, I think that was the point of eliminating at every step in the process. This wasn't a friendly amendment and it was a, this is a working group apparently, now this is a committee of the whole, um, the last line of the first paragraph. Therefore, we request the committee and the last sentence of the second paragraph, formulate a list of questions that will be asked of each candidate in the process. Other comments?

Catherine Fiort: If we're going to strike the word blind than we need another.

Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, what would you like to-

Catherine Fiort: Bring new language.

Speaker 41: Uninformed.

Speaker 1: That's so nice.

Speaker 41: As to, uninformed as to.

Speaker 1: Uninformed in the fourth line of your printed ... uninformed as to. Strike the word blind, uninformed as to the rest of the search process.

Speaker 42: We also had been put [inaudible 01:15:43].

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, thank you.

Marty Crimp: Marty Crimp, colleagues of engineering, I'm a little concerned about the line as a whole and as individual members. Are we asking the committee to not act as a committee? I think that should be stricken, I think we can urge the committee. I think it's a mistake for us to ask them to do things as individuals.

Speaker 1: Okay, so here's what we have now. We applaud the efforts of the presidential search committee for transparency, particularly holding the input sessions and posting the notes from those sessions. However, now that the listening phase has come to ... the input phase has come to a close, we the faculty and students are uninformed as to the rest of the closed search process. The notes from the input sessions reveal wide diversity of opinions across campus regarding the qualities of the search committee should prioritize. Therefore, we request the committee to reveal to the university community their priorities for the candidates. It is the practice of search committees at Michigan State and elsewhere to formulate a list of questions that will be asked of each candidate in the process. And then the last three paragraphs I have no suggested changes, yet.

Marty Crimp: Marty crimp college of engineering again. I'm looking at the fourth line in the first paragraph, the faculty and students, that's rather limiting considering this as coming from the university council.

Dr. Beck: Yeah. We just probably say the university council.

Speaker 1: Or we.

Dr. Beck: Or just we.

Speaker 1: And then it comes from university council, so. Any last changes before we vote on this reworked by the committee of the whole motion.

Speaker 2: We're going to do clickers.

Speaker 1: Are we doing clickers again?

Dr. Beck: We're doing clickers.

Gary H.: You haven't ... then you want to call a-

Speaker 1: We need to send a vote total to the presidential search committee when we send it so that we have an actual total.

Gary H.: This is calling the question.

Speaker 1: So John, even though you're leaving.

John: Oh, I'm not leaving.

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Speaker 1: good, because you're going to at least explain what we're supposed to do even if we don't have time to do it. So yes is in support of the motion as it's been re-read, no is a against, forwarding this a motion and obviously the last, C, is abstain. Are we ready to vote? Please, all right.

Speaker 2: You Ready?

Speaker 1: Vote. We have lost at least a couple of people since the last call. Okay, I think we're good. Okay, so 69 in favor of forwarding the motion as it was read, eight opposed, eight for abstentions? So we'll record again. Pardon? Oh, I'm sorry, six. I was reading 8% and that's the six. Okay, thank you. This will be sent to the individual members of the presidential search committee. Our last agenda item is beginning to work on a planning process that will help us clarify the work priorities of academic governance throughout this academic year. John, even if we don't have time, why don't you do sort of an overview of what we're doing and why and how we'll proceed when we finally get to.

John: Up there? Oh, good. Hi, I've worked with a number of you on campus either in faculty Senate or in your individual colleges or departments. My name is John Berk and I'm with the School of human resources and labor relations. I was asked by Faculty Senate and by Robert Dooca and others to prepare for a discussion either at faculty senate or here on really two questions and when we get together either at Faculty Senate or here at University Council, whichever way. The two questions are basically to get ready for the new president, but not necessarily to wait for that new president to be in place. So the two questions just to put them in the back of your mind because the fact that either here or at faculty senate will be taking on those two questions.

First question really is what should be on the list of asks that we bring to our initial conversations with the new president, what are the kinds of things that are on your mind that you want to make sure that the new president understands and that they understand them in the form of questions that is things that you desire, things that you want to know? Second question really is what are the actions that we should be developing and leading that should not wait on or be dependent upon the arrival of the new president? Because I think that there's a kind of a waiting moment that's going on right now and it doesn't necessarily have to be a waiting moment. That is that governance can take a certain amount of the initiative to move forward and should not think that it's all hanging frankly on the arrival of a new president on the campus. So it's really asks on the one side and actions on the other and that is what is going to be done within a work session by all of you when that happens, whenever that gets scheduled. Well, thanks so much.

Speaker 1: So there is an adequate time, sorry John, to do that today, but we will get back to that. Finally before adjournment, are there comments from the floor?

Isaiah Hawkins: Isaiah Hawkins, again, college and music. I would just like to make a comment in

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relation to that, that I think that should be a university council agenda item for the future because there are a lot of priorities that members of this committee that are not members of faculty Senate would love to have discussed. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Thank you, that's good input.

Andaluna Borcil: I'm wondering if faculty senate and ASMSU, we come together, but I wonder if there's a different dynamics there. I'm sorry, my name is Andaluna Borcila, James Madison College and I didn't get up here to ask that question. I really appreciate your initiative, but I did get up here to ask what people think about the news that just came out that news being that I'm a former president, Louanna Simon is charged with lying to the police and the NASA investigation. I'm trying to think about how to react to that, but one of the things that prompted me to think about is as we have an ongoing investigation, how important it is that the candidates for this position of president of MSU be external candidates. I have other thought as well, but I just wanted to bring this to you because we've had a history in the past of not really talking about really important things that have just come up and we're at as a community here. I know this news is new for some others, don't know, it just came out. That was my first reaction to it, thank you.

Robert Ofoli: Yeah, I understand that just came up, but that's not why I'm here. Robert Ofoli, College of Engineering, I guess I keep going back to when Peter Macpherson was hired, where the policy at MSU at that time was that the search committee goes through that process, they come up with however many top candidate and the person who gets the position comes from that group, that last group of candidates. Yet when Peter was hired, he wasn't even among the top three so what I'm more concerned about understand the questions and I support it and all of that, but I guess at the we really need to figure out what exactly is the process this time because I don't know if I've actually seen in written anywhere. That perhaps we're gonna work on this, we're going to come up with say four candidates, and the president who a job will be one those candidates so everybody knows who we stand.

I haven't seen that, I don't know if you have seen anything like that and I think I think that's very, very important and also do not understand why that many trustees want to be in on the primary selection because that's another problem that we kind of look at and then we'll walk out when we look at and we'll walk away. Too many things happen at this university like that where we know what the problems are, but we're not really willing to face them and bring them out and the people who are in the higher places to make those voices heard do not say anything. They voices stay silent and then we end up in funny situations. So I think that's something that somebody needs to come from the committee and explain to us, what exactly is the process. They've gathered all the information from the various constituencies around the university, now they need to come in and tell us, this is exactly what we're going to do so we can hold them to that.

Speaker 1: Thank you. Other comments from the floor?

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Benjamin Horn: Benjamin Horn, ASMSU in Lyman Briggs College. Bouncing off of that, at the University Committee for Student Affairs last Friday, trustee Byron was present and I asked the question on whether there was an effort ongoing to codify a presidential search process in the bylaws of the board of trustees. She said that there was not And so I think in order to address these concerns of what is the process, how do we determine an equitable structure for a presidential search committee, et Cetera, et Cetera, et cetera, as we're talking about bylaw changes, the university council should at some point this year set forth a recommendation to amend the board of trustees bylaws to codify the specific structure and process of a presidential search because I feel like that would solve many, many of the issues that we're facing with this current process regarding the formation, the structure, the personnel, and the transparency issues.

Speaker 1: I think when you see, Thank you, I think when you see the proposed bylaw changes that are being submitted by the ad hoc committee, some of your concerns will be responded to in that. Perhaps not as much as you'd like to see, but it'll be a starting place. Dr. Johnson.

Jennifer Johnso: Hey, Jennifer Johnson, college of human medicine. Two thoughts, The first is We have potentially 20 minutes left, I wanted to acknowledge Dr. Borcila, I think it's important that as a university we're able to talk about hard things together. My second comment was that I also, I was wondering if there's anything with Dr. Beck that we can do in 20 minutes or if we can have homework because this body isn't getting together again until the end of January and I don't know how we're going to accomplish things if we don't have goals. So the goals are a priority for me at least.

Dr. Beck: Let me just work off that this microphone for a second. First of all, the important thing about having a facilitator like me help you in a meeting is for to have you talk to one another, and let me just suggest as Dr. Moriarty is seen me work with faculty Senate for a number of times at her request and the request of others. The point is not necessarily to have a formal structure like you have in here, there are nearly 100 of you are more than 100 reviews in here and only a handful have ever gotten up at the microphone and spoken.

That doesn't mean that you haven't been involved in the meeting, but the hope is that by coalescing around those two questions, that there'll be a kind of small group dynamic in the room that would allow people to really get their own ideas out, talk about those in depth, have those were reported out, and ultimately have those then something that you can work on in subsequent meetings, which is the way that we've done it within faculty senate. So I'm happy to have Gary send out those two questions in advance of the January meeting. But the importance is really you talking to one another at a depth that really allows you to wrestle with those questions and the kinds of different provisional answers that everyone is really bringing to those questions and ultimately it's up to you then at university council to decide what you do with the various things that you've come up with.

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So just to kind of lay that out as a, as a process, I'm happy to have those questions shared out in advance with the idea that if you are the body that I'm going to be working with, I'm looking forward to having you in deep conversation with one another about those because the fact that it's about the future of the university. I think that the important thing that you can really think about is agency and power that you had the ability by really taking on some of those kind of questions and taking them on with a depth to say that again, you're not waiting for a new chief executive officer for MSU to show up.

There are things that you should be really taking on and making your own personal priority as university council and that's really what that second question was to get at. The first question though, is to really get at making sure that you're all on the same page or at least number of pages on the kinds of things that you might want to put before a new president when he or she arrives.

Speaker 1: Thank you.

Catherine M.: Real quick, Catherine again, ASMSU. I do want to point out something that was a huge issue for students last year and that was the amorphous at large members of the steering committee putting things in the university council agenda. There is a process by which to go through it and it's through steering and it's through faculty senate and it's through other things, I don't get together with my ASMSU steering committee and request things to just or just put things on the agenda so I would just ask for us to be very cautious about that. I understand that it's always in goodwill and I understand that you guys are amazing people and I love working with all of you, but I don't want to get to the end of the semester where we have three things on the agenda that the at large members of the steering committee put on so I would just caution towards that. Thank you.

Speaker 1: I think that the at large members of the steering committee can not put things on the agenda, so anything that ends up on the agenda should go through a vote of the steering committee and you should be included in that sense. You're a member of the steering committee, so that's the process and I apologize for any things that have ended up on the agenda without going through that process.

Dr. Beck: I'd like to ask, I don't know if it's appropriate for the steering committee, the First Amendment, the first motion we passed, the transparency, I abstained on it but I personally favor it, but I'm a little worried that maybe we didn't talk enough about risk and I don't know if Gary could find out like there wasn't much rationale other than they're scared of being sued. Has any council ever been sued? Has any university Senate been sued? Because when we had heated debates, people said the board of trustees are terrible, they lied, they did this, is it libel? And if you are somebody in here that stood up and somebody's sues you .... Luckily most of us haven't been sued.

I've been brought up by a licensing board for something said in the paper about me and I had anxiety attacks for two months. I just think due diligence it might be, is this a real threat or no threat at all? And if there is a threat, the members of

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this body, does the university insure us, do they cover us legal costs-

Speaker 1: Against one another.

Dr. Beck: Again, I'm not saying maybe the steering committee will not decide to do it. Personally I favor having an open transparent minutes, but just to do due diligence on the other side.

Gary H.: That was why I raised the issue with the minutes that I did for exactly the concerns that you raised.

Speaker 44: If it can be more specific then we would just-

Dr. Beck: Has any senate ever been sued, has any council ever been sued?

Gary H.: Not to my knowledge.

Speaker 1: Any other comments from the floor?

Andaluna Borcil: I just wanted to respond to Dr. Ofoli and to just say that we have now passed two resolutions from university, one with regard to voice, but no vote for the board of trustees, members of the steering committee. The second one with regard to being involved with questions that will be asked the candidates. Based on what Mary Finn said at the Faculty Senate I think it's important that we keep tabs on this and that we keep passing resolutions, maybe not comprehensive ones that have many, many different steps, but one's like this and perhaps just.

Philomena: Can you share what was the response of the search committee to their request?

Dr. Beck: Could you identify yourself for the record?

Philomena: Oh, sorry. Philomena Nunes, FREP. Can you share what was the response of the search committee to the request that the board of trustees be ex-officio and nonvoting members?

Speaker 1: The written response was that they would give us a written response, that they had not yet decided and they would give us a written response. We did get an email from someone else who that was not an official response from the search committee that said that essentially the search committee was looking favorably upon this and that they were going to send it to the legal team, which we did not understand, but we have not gotten an official response from the search committee, a written response, but we will be getting it written response and as soon as we do, the written response will be sent to university council. We will also ask for a written response to this resolution. If there are no other comments, seeing no one at the microphones, Is there a motion to adjourn?

Speaker 46: Motion to adjourn.

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Speaker 1: Second?

Speaker 2: Second.

Speaker 1: All in favor.

Audience: Aye.

Speaker 1: Thank you for your engagement.

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