President Pat Long spoke at the faculty senate meeting to update the professors on the Baker University Board of Trustees meeting.
Long said during the meeting, the trustees went to different locations around Baker’s campus and talked about each place and, at most places, about what could be improved.
“We changed the whole board meeting this time,” Long said.
One stop was made at Parmenter. The Lincoln Room was viewed to talk about contributions to the university. The BOT then visited Mulvane Science Hall to discuss the renovation projected for 2008.
“It’s always a good visual,” Long said. “The science building is one of the biggest needs on campus.”
Budgets were also discussed. Long said suggestions have been made about doing the budget process every three years instead of every year. Professor of Biology Darcy Russell said she thinks it is much smarter to do it this way.
“Doing a budget one year at a time is crazy,” Russell said. “It’ll be hard to get it started, but I think that it was a very wise thing to do.”
Two amendments for the faculty constitution were voted on. The first one was about an executive committee that discusses what the faculty senate members will talk about at the meeting. This way the meetings go faster and are more directed on what should be discussed. This committee also speaks with Long and then brings back that information to the faculty senate.
When someone gets elected to the position of executive committee, which serves for one year, he or she does not represent his or her department anymore. So another representative from their department needs to be on the faculty senate. This was the second amendment.
“On the first ballot, 16 passed and there were no no’s,” Assistant Professor of Philosophy Tom Peard said. “On the second one, 17 were yes and zero no’s. So, both passed.”