Members Represented by Proxy: College of Education and Psychology:  Sheila Alber (pr. Jessie Palmer), Lillian Range (pr. Joe Olmi);  College of Liberal Arts: Charles Bolton (pr. Jessie Palmer), Stephen Oshrin (pr. Bob Smith);   College of Nursing:  Norma Cuellar (pr. Michael Forster), Sybil Harrison (pr. Janie Butts); College of Science and Technology:  Mary Dayne Gregg (pr. Maria Cobb), Charles Hoyle (pr. Jerry Mattson);  Institute of Marine Science: Steven Lohrenz (pr. Susan Hubble).

Members Absent:  College of Business Administration:  David Duhon, Ernest King, Scott Magruder;  College of Education and Psychology: Marvin Lanmon; College of Liberal Arts: Michael Dearmey, Kim Herzinger, David Hunt, Bill Scarborough, Gary Stringer; College of Science and Technology: Grayson Rayborn;  University Libraries: Karolyn Thompson;  Gulf Park: J. Pat Smith;  College of International and Continuing Education: Mark Miller.

1.0 Call to order:  The meeting was called to order at 2:02 p.m.
2.0 Approval of Agenda:  The agenda was approved as distributed.
3.0 Approval of Minutes:  The minutes of the May meeting were approved as distributed.
4.0 Executive Committee Reports
4.1. President's Report: Art Kaul
** Lida McDowell, who has served as proxy for Karen Thrash during 1999-2000, has been appointed to fill Ms. Thrash's unexpired term. Ms. Thrash has resigned from the University to accept an appointment at the University of Michigan.
** University Faculty Senate Association [UFSA] meeting with IHL Commissioner Thomas Layzell, 15 May 2000.
Dr. Layzell reported: [1] the Legislature restored $6 million to the base budget appropriations of the three comprehensive universities [USM received $2 million of the $6 million], suggesting that the actual budget cut for USM was about $800,000 -- not the projected $2.54 million; [2] the appropriation for USM-Gulf Park was $250,000; [3] the Legislature repealed the bimonthly pay requirement for state employees and the governor was expected to sign the repealing bill; [4] the state health insurance fund was approximately $45 million in red as of 31 December 1999, with increased premiums and reduced benefits projected [Note: 7% of enrolled employees drive 70% of claim expenses].

UFSA presented to Dr. Layzell a memorandum stating that member Faculty Senates had endorsed the Southern Miss Faculty Senate's resolutions on the restoration and portability of faculty/staff tuition waivers. [Memorandum distributed to the Faculty Senate.]
** IHL Board meeting, 17 - 18 May 2000.
A proposal for a Library/Technology Fee of $3 / credit hour for Mississippi State was rejected at a committee meeting on May 17 by a vote of 4-to-2 [Nicholson and Crawford voted in favor; Newton, McGee, Klumb and Garrett voted against].  Opponents viewed the proposal as a tuition increase contrary to a three-year board  moratorium on tuition increases.

The IHL Board, with four appointees of Gov. Ronnie Musgrove attending their first meeting on May 18, voted 7-to-4 for a $50 / FTE designated Library/Technology Fee at each of the IHL institutions, effective Fall 2000.  Dr. Layzell told the Board that his staff would bring proposals for tuition increases for the Board's consideration within three months.

Sometimes rancorous debate over the Library/Technology Fee and institutional budget appropriations revealed several provocative policy issues:  [1] a new board member stated the tuition moratorium was "bad board policy;" [2] another new member stated that IHL was inappropriately "micro-managing" the institutions; and [3] another new member suggested that an appropriation proposal constituted "a violation of legislative intent."  The 7-to-4 vote and debate may signal a significant power shift and split on the College Board.

President Bristow of Alcorn State stated that the Council of Presidents received the tuition restoration / portability proposals from UFSA and awaits an IHL cost analysis before making a recommendation.
** USM Legislative Forum, 2 June 2000.
Six area legislators attended a Legislative Forum jointly sponsored by the Faculty Senate and Staff Council.  The legislative retirement pay issue was brought up, with legislators claiming [a] they didn't know the provision was smuggled into a "routine" retirement bill by a legislative conference committee, [b] they didn't know the suspect provision was attached to the bill they voted for [Senator Ron Farris of Hattiesburg was one of 10 senators who voted against the provision], and [c] remarkably, they claimed to be victims of their own flawed legislative process. The Faculty Senate President suggested that applying the state's open meetings law to the legislature, including conference committees [currently exempt from the law] might have prevented the problem with the retirement bill. "The hypocrisy of closed legislative meetings smells to high heaven," he declared.
** President's Cabinet, 12 June 2000
Chief Technology Officer John McGowan announced plans for meetings with each college to provide technology updates.  A "business plan is forthcoming for Broadcast Services, now under the administration of the Office Of Technology Resources.

Vice President for Business Lynda Gilbert has formed a Committee on Campus Master Plan Development, with representatives from the Faculty
Senate and Environment Committee, among others.

October 7 is "Legislative Appreciation Day."
**University Faculty Senates Association [UFSA] meeting, 14 June 2000.
Kaul reported that he told UFSA that the organization must take a more aggressive and public position regarding faculty and university issues. UFSA, in his judgment, can no longer afford to remain silent regarding IHL and legislative actions.  Kaul offered to draft a resolution regarding the controversial legislative pension plan for consideration at UFSA's July meeting, though the issue may be moot in anticipation of special legislative session.
** Concluding Remarks [Art Kaul's Last Hurrah]
Kaul said he was concluding his service as a member and president of the Faculty Senate, noting that he had served on the Faculty Senate for half of his sixteen years at the University. Those years, and especially the past legislative session, have prompted several conclusions about the Faculty Senate's future role.

[1] The Faculty Senate must become more militant and politically engaged, especially at the state level in dealing with IHL and legislative appropriation issues.

[2] The Faculty Senate must seek effective political alliances with the state employees union, the Mississippi Association of Educators, the Mississippi  American Federation of Teachers, and a more close alliance [membership] with the American Association of University Professors. Failure to foster those alliances will only further marginalize university and higher education in Mississippi.

[3] The dissatisfaction and discontent we express with the administration during the current budget/reallocation "crisis" is misdirected. The target of our chagrin should be the College Board's apparent willful refusal to equitably fund the University with legislative appropriations that acknowledge productivity.  For example, E&G support/FTE in FY 2000 was $7,302 for MUW and $5,913 for Southern Mississippi, a difference of $1,389. Southern Mississippi's support [$5,913] was $575 below the average for ALL IHL institutions.  President Fleming has repeatedly stated that parity funding based on productivity would add a minimum of $6 million to the University budget.  If that estimate is correct, Southern Miss would be facing no budget/reallocation crisis next year!

Another target of our chagrin must be the lip service and inconsistent commitment to education, especially higher education, by the legislature. [Recall, the track record of faculty pay raises over the past 15 years shows no raises, on average, in one of every three years.

[4] To address those issue will require the Faculty Senate to pursue a new and aggressive role of political action and the assertion of statewide leadership to press the case.  The Faculty Senate must cease being a parochial governance institution.  In the words of a bumper sticker recently spotted near the University:  "Quit Bitching, Start a Revolution."

[5] Finally, the Faculty Senate will elect officers today.  I have no endorsements to make -- but I do have a recommendation.  A new criterion in your voting calculations for Faculty Senate officers should be that person's ability or potential for effective political engagement with the IHL and the legislature.  The Faculty Senate must assume a more powerful political role -- and we must elect leadership able and willing to perform that responsibility. Let the revolution begin.

4.2  President-Elect's Report: Sherry Laughlin  No report.
4.3.  Secretary's Report: Shellie Nielsen
S. Nielsen thanked everyone for their patience, support and help with her duties maintaining the web site and producing the minutes this year.  She noted that the President's report on Senator's email copy of the May minutes was incorrect, but the one distributed at this meeting was accurate.
4.4.  Secretary-Elect's Report: Michael Forster
Proxies received were read and an attendance roster was passed.
5.0.  Old Business
5.1.  Handbook Task Force
D. Goff distributed copies of the recommendations for Chapter 12 and noted that, unlike the other chapters, the committee did not have as many specific recommendations but rather found issues that needed to be addressed.
RECOMMENDATION 12.1 AND 12.3:  These two recommendations were straight forward and were addressed together.  12.1 recommends removing a typographical error.  The word "proxy" appears in the wrong place in a paragraph.  12.3 suggests replacing the term "Vice President" with "Provost" to reflect the new title of his office.  D. Goff moved and D. Dunn seconded the motion to accept the two recommendations.  The motion carried unanimously.
RECOMMENDATION 12.2:  This refers to the language about salary appeals in the appeals section in Chapter 12 in particular the sentence which states, "The University Faculty Salary Appeals Committee advises the Vice President in appeals involving contracted remuneration."  The Faculty Senate has already adopted a resolution asking the University to develop a real faculty salary appeals process.  The Senate has already described the current process as basically non-functional.  This recommendation is asking for the University to follow through on our earlier Senate recommendation and have the language in the handbook reflect that.  D. Goff moved and J. Palmer seconded the motion to accept the recommendation.  The motion was approved unanimously.
RECOMMENDATION 12.4:  This refers to the paragraph about Presidential Review (4.19) in the Scholarly Misconduct Proceedings section of Chapter 12.  The committee is asking for "reasonable period" to be defined.  The committee did not recommend a specific time frame but would like to see the administration commit to a time frame.  D. Goff moved and S. Hubble seconded the motion.  The motion passed unanimously.

D. Goff now turned to the issues raised in Chapter 12.
ISSUE 1:  This issue dealt with the level at which an appeal originates.  The document states in the Overview 2.3 that "Faculty Appeals Proceedings originate with responsible departmental personnel bodies and, at the option of dissatisfied parties, may proceed to responsible college deans, . . . "  The question raised by the task force is whether or not the appeal should originate at the same level as the decision being appealed.  No firm recommendation was made other than to ask the Senate for input.  After a brief discussion and a consensus that the Senate would like to recommend that the appeals process originate at the next level, D. Goff moved and K. Austin seconded the motion .  The motion was passed unanimously to adopt the recommendation.
ISSUE 2:  This issue had to do with the role of College Advisory Committees.  Under the section 2.5 Decanal Appeals it states, "Excepting only appeals involving extraordinary discrepancies, College Advisory Committees must honor the qualitative assessments of departmental chairs and departmental personnel bodies in matters concerning appellants' professional qualifications, accomplishments, promise, and value within the structure of departmental goals and objectives."  The committee felt that the spirit of this section seems contrary to a true appeals process in that strong disagreement with  "the qualitative assessments of Departmental Chairs and Departmental Personnel Bodies" are as likely to be the basis of an appeal as are procedural and due process issues.  The issue questions should the appellants be allowed to present substantive and relevant evidence as the basis for disagreeing with qualitative assessments?  J. Palmer  and J. Rachal felt this new language needed to be in the handbook.  Therefore, D. Goff moved and S. Hubble seconded the recommendation that states,  " Appeals may be based on disagreement with qualitative assessments of Departmental Chairs and Departmental Personnel bodies, and that appellants should  be allowed to present substantive and relevant evidence as the basis for this disagreement". The motion passed unanimously.
ISSUE 3:  This issue dealt with recusals similar to the one the Senate dealt with in Chapter 11, and asks for consistency.  The Senate passed a similar recommendation 25-8 in chapter 11 not requiring members to have to recuse themselves from voting.  D. Goff moved that members from academic departments are not required to recuse themselves.  D. Alford seconded the motion.  The motion passed with one no vote -D. McCain .
ISSUE 4:  This issue is similar to the language in Issue 2 about the faculty having the ability to disagree with the qualitative assessment of a lower body and the ability to produce relevant material to support that contention.  He asked for the language to be consistent with the language in the issue we just adopted.  D. Goff moved and S. Hubble seconded the motion for consistent language.  The motion passed unanimously.
ISSUE 5:  This issue questions what the Vice President for Research's role is in Promotion and Tenure process in regards to the following statement in the handbook:  "At the conclusion of all vice presidential appellate proceedings, the Provost and the Vice President for Research submit independent recommendations and all related documents to the University President".  This seem  to be a hold-over from the days when the University had more Vice Presidents actually running the University rather than Vice Presidents as departmentalized as they are right now.  D. Goff pointed out that at one time the Academic Vice President, the Vice President for Research and the Executive Vice President all signed off on Promotion and Tenure recommendations at the Presidential level.  D. Cabana related his recent experience with the Vice President for Research and the Graduate Dean giving input to the Provost like an additional committee regarding his promotion.  They are not in any procedures outlined and it added another layer of bureaucracy without him being advised of this.  K. Austin pointed out a case in her department regarding a denied promotion. Upon inquiry, the Provost responded that he had relied heavily on the letter from D. Cotton.  D. Goff noted that in Chapter 11 under terms of procedures for Promotion and Tenure, there is nothing that states the role of the Graduate Dean or the Vice President for Research. D. Goff then suggested that we adopt a resolution to ask that for both Promotion and Tenure decisions and appeals, the role of the Graduate Dean and the Vice President for Research be clarified.  S. Hubble agreed and noted that the same situation happened to a colleague of hers.  K. Austin questioned whether it was a way of stopping the number of promotions this year.  J. Rachal wanted to go beyond clarifying their roles to specifically prohibiting them from taking an advisory role.   J. Palmer pointed out that the handbook is not being followed.  After further discussion, it was pointed out that the Vice President for Research is over the grant money procurement not research .  J. Rachal noted that when Don Cotton was interviewing for his job, he was the most open-minded on the issue of research being about unfunded research as well as grant procurement.  D. Goff then interjected that the Vice President for Research is mentioned in Chapter 11 in terms of Promotion and Tenure proceedings.  J. Palmer felt that the procedures needed to be questioned.  D. Goff felt we needed more information about these individuals roles and therefore asked to table this issues as well as ISSUE 5 which deals with the flexibility of the President in considering the record and evidence in the appeals.  These two issues were tabled for the fall agenda next year.

J. Rachal brought up further  recommendations for Chapter 11 in the handbook.
RECOMMENDATION 1:  (XI-14, 12.1) This dealt with inconsistencies or contradictory statements within the application for promotion in rank and application for Tenure.  In one place it states that for Tenure, you can add anything to the dossier once the process has begun, and in another place it states that additions may be only "at the discretion of the committee".
RECOMMENDATION 2:  Under Departmental Promotion Committees (XI-14, 12.2), it states that the chairs of departmental promotion committees are elected by a majority of the other members.  He recommends that a similar statement should be made about chairs of departmental tenure committees under  (XI-16-19,13.1-13.5) Departmental Tenure Proceedings.
**J . Rachal moved and D. Goff seconded to adopt these two recommendations that the handbook be consistent with regard to these two items.  When asked to clarify one way or the other on the addition of material, he felt that a faculty should not be able to add.  D. Goff stated that the committee discussed this issue and felt that if you get something that you take issue with in a departmental  evaluation and it goes to to the college level, you could respond to the departmental evaluation and add to the dossier before it goes to the next level.  Otherwise it would be cause for an appeal.  The recommendation then would be to put in Bold type the statement "Candidates may supplement their dossiers with additional information, including a response to negative recommendations, at any level of the promotion process." and delete the statement in XI-17, 13.4 that says "ALSO AT THE DISCRETION OF TENURE COMMITTEES . . ." The motion carried.

RECOMMENDATION 3:  This recommendation deals with the third year review form generated from the Provost's office in September 1999 which does not conform with the Handbook.  D. Goff suggested to table this for further review.
RECOMMENDATION 4:  This recommendation asks for consistency between the Chairs and Deans rank for Promotion and Tenure recommendations.  J. Rachal suggests removing the tenure requirement for Chairs, thus making Chair and Dean recommendations required in all cases, irrelevant of their own status.  The position  (Chair or Dean) should supersede the issue of the supervisor's own tenure or rank status.  J. Palmer pointed out that the status is relevant at other levels, but clarified that at the departmental level, the chair should be allowed to have input.  J. Rachal moved and S. Nielsen seconded the motion to adopt the recommendation.  The motion carried with 18 yes and 9 no votes.
5.2.  Budget Process Resolution
The following revised resolution was presented by J. Rachal based on the resolution presented last meeting from concerns from the College of the Arts.  The revised version represents the deletion of some points that were already moot.  J. Rachal moved and D. Alford seconded the motion to adopt the revised resolution.  T. Green  liked the premise but did not think that we would ever have a role in the budget process.  D. Dunn pointed out that this is in line with the AAUP Guidelines.  S. Nielsen stated that at the last President's Budget Presentation, M. Forster asked if President Fleming could assure us there would be a Faculty Senate representative on the budget committee in the future.  To that, President Fleming went on record and said, "YES."  It was then noted by D. Goff that someone had publicly stated that faculty had been involved in this process, and noted that we had been informed but not involved. M.  Forster wants the resolution to reflect the AAUP language.  S. Hubble suggested adding  "as outlined by AAUP Guidelines" to the last sentence after "decision making, . . ." as a friendly amendment.  The motion carried with the addition of the friendly amendment.  The text of the following resolution is available on the Senate web site.

Budget Process Resolution

The Senate perceives that faculty have not had adequate advisory and consultative roles in the budget process.  Without faculty input, the elimination of faculty and staff positions is of particular concern.  The Senate acknowledges that faculty have had opportunities to be informed of the decisions once they have been made, but is not aware of any role that faculty have been allowed to have in making those decisions.  The Senate believes that it is necessary that faculty have a formal role in budget decision making, as outlined by AAUP Guidelines, especially since such decisions concern faculty welfare, the students we teach, and the environment in which we work.

5.3.  Pet Insurance Resolution
K. Austin asked if Linda McFall could look into this.  L. McFall noted that it would not cost the University anything, that it was just a matter of getting a group rate.  This insurance would be strictly optional.  D. Dunn pointed out that at the Executive Meeting we discussed looking into this and any other optional benefits.  K. Austin noted that the individual who was just hired to investigate these optional benefits was a victim of the budget cuts and was the one looking into the pet insurance.  S. Hubble suggested  and D. Alford  clarified a friendly amendment to the resolution on the floor stating, "We encourage human resources to investigate diverse options regarding insurance."  The motion carried unanimously with the friendly amendment.  The text is available on the Senate web site.
5.4  Environmental Resolution
This resolution of recommendations presented at the last meeting is the outcome of the ad hoc Environmental Committee's  Tree Survey of the campus.   D. Dunn recommended that we adopt it before any more trees are lost from the Walker Science Building construction zone.  The resolution passed unanimously.  The text is available on the Senate web site.
5.5  Recommendations for Compilation of Lists for Senate Elections
S. Hubble distributed the revised resolution from S. Lohrenz.  She noted that the revisions were just procedural, keeping the integrity of the original resolution.  The recommendation passed unanimously.  The text is available on the Senate web site.   
6.0  Committee Reports
6.1 Academic and Governance: Mary Lux
M. Lux stated that the committee's most significant project this past year was the development of a post tenure review policy.  The committee brought forth  a couple of resolutions dealing with  post tenure review and faculty representation on budget hearings.

The committee also considered the development of a university wide policy on release time for service on graduate committees.  The committee gathered information from the colleges and found a marked lack of consensus among the persons contacted. (Many felt overwhelmed by the demands of graduate committee work; others felt this service was an important component of their service to the department, college and university.)  The committee recommends that each college develop their own policies.  M. Lux thanked the following members of her committee:  Lida McDowell, Susan Hubble, Janie Butts, J. Pat Smith, Charles Bolton, and David Hunt (for Alexandra Jaffe).  A. Kaul thanked M. Lux and her committee for their work and leadership role on the Post Tenure Review Policy.
6.2 Administration and Faculty Evaluations:  Kimberley Davis
K. Davis noted that the main objective of the committee this year was to deal with confidentiality.  She noted some problems that came up with the Administration Evaluations this spring, as reported by J. T. Johnson, Director and Research Consultant, who compiled the results of the evaluations.  Most notably, some departments failed to participate and a few other departments tried to submit the forms 3 weeks after the deadline date.  About 12% of the faculty submitted handwritten comments, which were rejected  and shredded ,  when typed comments were specified and about 7-10% of the faculty failed to indicate the name of the dean or chair being evaluated.  J. T. Johnson is doing this by himself and spent over 32 hours on this project due to the failure to provide information correctly and adhere to the deadline dates.  In discussion, it was pointed out that one of the chairs did not administer the evaluations until 3 weeks after the deadline date.  Another area did not do it at all.  J. Palmer noted that until it gets into the handbook, we will continue to struggle with this process.  M. Forster felt that all Senators needed to push for the administration of these annual evaluations so that all the input would not be wasted.   It was also suggested that the Senate reiterate our resolution from several years ago that stated that those annual evaluations would be part of the administrators annual evaluation process.  K. Davis has a list of those departments that completed the evaluations and J. T. Johnson sent the composite to the Provost.   
6.3 Archives:  Shellie Nielsen
S. Nielsen and M. Forster have been trying to update the archives this year.  The archivists have organized the information beautifully.  Email requests went to former Senate Presidents requesting any materials from their year in office.  Upon further inspection, both found lots of missing minutes from 1992 forward .   S. Nielsen plans to work to complete and update the files next year.
6.4 Athletic Liaison:  Trellis Green
T. Green thanked everyone who helped at the tent this past year.  He assumed this would continue next year.  The committee dropped the faculty benefit in ticket discounts in light of the budget problems.
6.5 Awards:  Lillian Range  No report.
6.6 Benefits and Work Environment:  John Rachal 
The benefits committee comprised of K. Austin, S. Alber, M. Nettles and J. Rachal met several times this year.  They passed a lot of resolutions and had a very successful year.
6.7 Constitution and Bylaws:  Allan McBride No report.
6.8 Elections:  Steven Lohrenz
S. Hubble noted that they finally concluded the elections resulting in the new Senators for next year.  She thanked everyone for the vote on the resolution that will  help make the election process more efficient next year.
6.9 Environment (ad hoc):  Dick Conville
T. Green noted that the committee had a very busy year.  They got a resolution passed, met with the President and the Vice President numerous times to where they felt they have had an impact.
6.10 Faculty Development:  Karolyn Thompson  No report.
6.11 Technology:  Dean Dunn
D. Dunn summarized the committee's activities during the year.  In November 1999, the Technology Committee's resolution of 22 September 1999 was passed by the Faculty Senate, recommending that personnel related and strategic documents now available only on the USM Web page be reformatted in Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) format, so they may be printed on desktop computers and printers.  This resolution also requested that the Faculty Senate be contacted for membership nominations to the newly constituted Technology Resources Management Steering Committee, which apparently replaces the former Technology Assessment and Utilization Committee.  Unfortunately, neither of these recommendations were acted upon by the Administration.  In particular, given the present perception among many in the university community that teaching resources, faculty positions, and staff positions are being cut for the 2000-2001 Academic Year to provide revenues for "Technology acquisition," it is unfortunate that decisions on campus technology related issues and technology purchases are being made without any direct input from faculty.

Other than these resolutions, the Technology committee largely served as a "trip-wire" to notify faculty of technology related concerns as follows:
1)  In October 1999, the committee warned university faculty of Web sites posting Internet-accessible course lecture notes, and provided a suggested copyright statement for professors to attach to their course syllabi.  In Spring 2000, two of these Web sites began posting notes for courses at Southern Miss.
2).  In November 1999, the committee warned faculty of a new virus threat posed to the community by VBS/Bubbleboy, a "self-executing" computer worm, or virus program that could infect computers merely by viewing E-mail messages, instead of the previous type of viruses that infected host computers when the user opened a file attached to E-mail messages.  The committee also notified faculty of the imperative need for Intel/Windows computer users to update their anti virus DAT files, and to keep their virus scanning software current.
3)  In March 2000, during the Spring Break week, the university committee was infected by an outbreak of one of these "mail itself" or self-executing virus programs.  As predicted in November 1999, the "Pretty Worm" virus was written to locate the address books of Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Internet Mail, to make changes to the "infected" computer's E-mail box.  The committee provided a warning to the university community of this virus, information on disinfecting files, and on updating anti virus scanning software, using files available by ftp from the School of Engineering technology's server, "borg.st.usm.edu".
4)  In June 2000, the committee notified the university community of an outbreak of another "self-executing" computer virus, the "I Love You" computer worm.
6.12 University Club:  Kim Herzinger No report
6.13 Transportation Committee:  Bill Scarborough  No report.
6.14 AAUP:  Michael Dearmey  No report.
6.15 Faculty Handbook Task Force (ad hoc):  David Goff  No report.
7.0 New Business:
7.1  Election of New Officers
President-Elect S. Laughlin read the following Senate nominees presented by the nominating committee.
President-Elect:  David Beckett,  Susan Hubble, and Jesse Palmer.
Secretary-Elect:  Darlys Alford, Bob Coates, and Mary Frances Nettles.
A. Kaul asked for nominations from the floor.  Hearing none, the elections proceeded.  M. Forster clarified that anyone rotating off the Senate should not be voting.  J. Palmer noted that he was on the ballot and also held two proxies.  He asked if the bylaws addressed this.  S. Laughlin stated that they did not address this and that last year she ran into the same problem and did not cast the proxy votes.  Susan Hubble was elected President-Elect in the first round of balloting.   In a runoff between Darlys Alford and Mary Frances Nettles, D. Alford was elected Secretary-Elect.
7.2  Passing of the Gavel
The gavel was passed from Art Kaul to Sherry Laughlin , who thanked A. Kaul for all the time and effort this year.  She pointed out that he kept pushing us and we got a lot done this year thanks to his leadership.  He showed very good judgment about what he has brought to the table and he's been like a bulldog in getting things through.  She noted that, although he was rotating off the Senate this year, he would be our 2nd representative to the State Senate Association along with the President.  Laughin noted that they are trying to get him elected President of the State Senate Association.  S. Nielsen was thanked for her job as Secretary this past year.
8.0 Announcements:
S. Laughlin pointed out to the new Senators that Senate business is conducted through committees.  She asked Senators to sign up for committees either today or sometime this summer that they would be interested in for next year.  For new Senators, she noted that information about these committees could be found on the Senate web site.  A new committee will be formed in response to A. Kaul's comments.  It will be called Government Relations or possibly the Political Action committee and its charges will include monitoring legislation pertinent to USM and to IHL, trying to keep our legislators accountable to us, informing us of what's going on at that level and recommending action.  She asked for anyone interested in this committee to let her know right away. She noted that J. Borsig is developing a lobbying plan, and we wanted to be a part of this.  The particular political issues that she is interested in are 1) the open meetings law, 2) the retirement issue, either repeal it or give us all of it, 3) changing the 1944 law as to how the IHL board members are appointed,  4) funding for the Gulf Coast Campus extension and 5) working with the Administration to get Parity funding.  Any other issues should come to her as soon as possible.  On another note, all new Senators' email addresses should have been added to the list serve.  The minutes, meeting notices, agendas and other information are all transmitted via email.  Anyone without email capability needs to let the officers know and arrangements will be made to get the information to them.  All new information regarding meeting dates, committee assignments and charges etc. for the year will be posted on the web site before the beginning of the Fall term.
9.0 Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, Shellie C. Nielsen, Faculty Senate Secretary