The Executive Committee of Academic Council discussed the policy to fill the vacancy of vice president for research and graduate studies during its Tuesday meeting.
Bob Huggett will leave the position on July 1, allowing only months for a replacement to be found. MSU President M. Peter McPherson recommended the vacancy be filled internally to save time and money.
"History shows it will take us beyond the point of Dr. Huggett's stay at the university to do an external search," McPherson said in a conference call during the meeting. "In difficult times financially, it seems to me that given we have exceptional people here to take on the function, it is easier for someone who knows us to do this job in these difficult times."
The position will be filled according to the procedure for selection of specific administrators, which requires a committee to offer suggestions for qualified tenured university officials.
The Academic Council will discuss committee formation at its Feb. 24 meeting with a special Executive Committee of Academic Council meeting to be held afterward.
Bob Banks, assistant provost and vice president for academic human resources, will accept suggestions in the meantime for committee candidates to review potential candidates.
The Executive Committee on Academic Council also discussed the composition of a new ad hoc committee on gender identity. The six-member committee will include three students - counseling graduate student Kathleen Boin, physiology senior Dan Weber and political theory and constitutional democracy junior Adam Raezler.
The committee representative will be Jackie Wright.
Two faculty members will be selected by the committee, pending more information from Paulette Granberry Russell, senior adviser to the president for diversity and director of the Office of Affirmative Action, Compliance and Monitoring. Russell suggested six names to the committee, but did not provide accompanying information.
Jared English, chairperson of ASMSU's Academic Assembly, MSU's undergraduate student government, also proposed a university policy in regards to professors' old exams during the meeting.
The goal is to enforce academic integrity across the board, especially if the professor grades on a curved scale.
The policy was referred to University Committee on Academic Policy, the University Graduate Council and the Student Affairs Advisory Council with response to the Executive Committee on Academic Council required by March 16.
Provost Lou Anna Simon also addressed the committee on the progress of the future of liberal arts. Simon said she is on schedule to make her recommendations the week of Feb. 15, taking into account not only the focus group general report, but also individual comments she has received since its publication.
"There are a number of things in there we have the power to do right now, but we just haven't done them," Simon said. "We have to read the report for what it says and, when you think about it, what it didn't say."
After the meeting, Executive Committee of Academic Council Chairman Jon Sticklen addressed the members who are considered faculty-at-large.
He commented on the lack of communication between Academic Governance and standing committee conversations.
"Our job is to include the rest of the faculty in decision making, if not information," he said.
