MEMBERS ABSENT: Desai, Merritt-Damron, Cowell, Beaver, and Reichenbecher.

The meeting was called to order at 4:00 p.m. by Faculty Senate President Elaine Baker. She welcomed everyone back for the new school year and introduced the following new Senators: James Sottile, College of Education; Mike Cornfeld, College of Fine Arts ; Chris Dolmetsch, College of Liberal Arts; Don Tarter, College of Science; Sam Januszkiewicz and Bonnie Beaver, School of Medicine. The minutes of the May 16, 1996 meeting were approved as distributed.

1.ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Presidential action on Senate recommendations:
  
  

  All recommendations from the May 16, 1996 meeting have been approved.
  
  
  

• General announcements:

  Parking spaces for graduate assistants is being coordinated by Lennie Deutsch, Graduate Dean. Spaces have been found for all graduate teaching assistants who have requested them; he will also make accommodations for those needing short-term parki ng for loading and/or unloading purposes and will continue to oversee the whole permit process for graduate assistants.

  The curriculum of the Community and Technical College will no longer be coming through the Faculty Senate. Other changes are planned; once those are completed, constitutional revisions will have to be made to reflect that unit's reorganization.

  A salary sub-committee has been formed to review salary policies and bring any recommendations for change to the Senate. The members are Lynn Pupplo-Cody, Susan Jackson, Stuart Thomas, and Mike McGuffey.
  

  Senate members are encouraged to explore the Electronic Senate, the web site created for information about the Senate as well as for the purpose of receiving input from the campus community about concerns and/or suggestions.
  

  
  

  The Phased Retirement policy is currently being implemented and is being coordinated through Sarah Denman's office. Application procedures seem vague in several areas and will need to be clarified. In addition, the criteria for eligibility for those persons between the ages of 55 and 60 has yet to be resolved.
  

  
  

  Information regarding the expenditures of the Faculty Senate for 1995-96 as well as projected expenses for 1996-97 was provided through a printed handout.

  The following committee appointments were announced:
  

Staff Council's Legislative Affairs - Dennis Lebec

Staff Council's Physical Environment - Edward Scheiner

---Committee on Inter-Institutional Cooperation - Marty Amerikaner

2.REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT:

The President had no additional information to report since the general faculty meeting last week.

Jan Fox, Asst. V.P. for Information Technology, Josephine Fidler, Director of University Libraries, and Andy Brann, Head of Technical Services in the library presented information regarding the expanded scope of information retrieval and the a dditional services available once the new facility is completed. Even though Morrow Library will still accommodate three library units as well as a large segment of the physical collection, the whole "library," regardless of physical location, will becom e a strategic hub for the region--it is a much broader concept than just the Marshall campus. The on-line catalog will be web-accessible and many additional pieces can be linked to the web.

A new document delivery project is currently underway which includes the transmission of scanned images of articles as well as electronic access to periodicals not held at Marshall.

Allan Stern moved and it was seconded to extend the discussion 10 minutes. Motion carried.

Several questions about future costs of electronic access, the printing of retrieved articles and parking for the new facility were asked. In general, although it's hard to predict future costs in a rapidly-changing publishing world, paper formats wi ll almost certainly cost more than electronic access because of the shift to the electronic medium. With regard to parking, it was noted that the university is actively pursuing land acquisition nearby for parking. (Today's report can be viewed on the S enate home page by retrieving the Agenda for the meeting.)

Bert Gross made a special presentation of a plaque to Caroline Perkins for her past service and contributions as former ACF representative. With regard to + and - grades, WVU has asked for a year's postponement to further study the issue; that re quest was granted. A faculty proposal has been made to the Board of Regents to provide all faculty with electronic access in their offices as well as the appropriate computer training. Bert noted what a formidable task it is to just get a grasp on our o wn campus as to what our current level of faculty access is.

After the Board meeting on October 11, a final draft of Policy Bulletin 36 revisions will be distributed to campuses for comment and any suggested modifications. The Faculty Personnel Committee will be asked to review the document, and discussion by the Faculty Senate itself is encouraged so that areas of concern can be addressed and acted upon.

Caroline Perkins moved and it was seconded to extend the discussion for an additional 5 minutes. Motion carried. The removal of faculty from the grievance process is a big concern that was discussed briefly and specifically noted for f uture discussion leading to a faculty resolution.

Baker called for any volunteers for liaison senator for either the Athletic Committee or the Academic Planning Committee. Ben Miller volunteered for the Athletic Committee; Baker will make some persuasive phone calls for the other vacancy.