Faculty Senate elects leaders, discusses courses

Elections of a new executive board, approval of three new courses and the vice provost’s report were some of the topics covered Tuesday, April 22, at the final Faculty Senate meeting of the semester.

• Karen Hoblet, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing, was elected before the meeting to replace Linda Rouillard as president. The remaining positions on the executive board were voted on during the meeting. The results are
• Kristen Keith, associate professor of economics, as vice president and president-elect.
• Lucy Duhon, university library chairperson and associate professor, as executive secretary.
• Mary Humphrys, associate professor of business technology, as the University of Toledo representative to the Ohio Faculty Council.
• Fred Williams, associate professor of pharmacy, and Marlene Porter, instructor, director for outreach, and assessment, grants and development liaison, as at-large representatives to the Health Science Campus.
• Scott Molitor, associate professor of bioengineering, and Mike Dowd, associate professor and chair of economics, as main campus at-large representatives.

Faculty Senate later approved three new courses, one education and two English, which may be added to the course catalog by this fall, according to Hoblet.

The new courses include “Thinking, Knowing, and Learning, “Playwriting” and “Writing in the Community.”

Vice Provost John Barrett also presented a report to the senate that discussed a state initiative to lower the required amount of credit hours to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from 124 to 120.

“It’s not that we don’t have the authority to approve the 120 [hours],” Hoblet said. “We haven’t had enough time to analyze the 120-hour minimum to see if that will serve our students well in terms of quality education.”

The wording and content of the report caused a debate within the senate. Barrett’s report laid out the plan to propose this change to the board of trustees. The provost’s office was under the impression the faculty senate “lacked the authority” to make the change.

Faculty Senate also discussed adding classes to UT’s core curriculum.

The senate elected to give provisional approval to the proposed courses, which the core curriculum council will debate Friday.

According to Hoblet, senate will vote on the new courses in the fall, “to dot the ‘I’.”