Members of the Executive Committee of Academic Council will meet to respond to a letter sent from representatives of the American Association of University Professors.

The letter, which was sent to university officials two weeks ago, criticizes MSU officials for not adequately involving MSU faculty in major university decisions.

Jon Sticklen, committee chairman, said he just had time to read the letter and wanted the executive committee to discuss it and draft a response.

"There are inaccuracies in the letter that need to be addressed," said Sticklen, also a computer science and engineering associate professor.

The executive committee also decided Tuesday to allow fixedterm faculty to continue sending in nominations for the search and rating committee for the permanent provost.

Sticklen said a glitch in the system caused more than 600 fixed-term faculty in the College of Human Medicine to not receive the packet of information telling them how to nominate people for the committee.

The executive committee debated whether to open nominations to just the faculty who were affected or reopening nominations for everyone.

Council member and English Professor Kenneth Harrow said by opening the nominations to everyone, they were going to cause confusion amongst the faculty.

"This is a small problem and if we open it up to everyone we're just going to complicate things," Harrow said.

Nominations for the committee from fixed-term faculty will be open until Monday at 5 p.m.

Academic Council met before the executive committee on Tuesday and heard reports from the Writing Task Force about its ideas for changing the Tier I and Tier II writing requirements.

"We're still in the exploratory stage, and haven't written any final recommendations yet," said James Porter, chairman of the task force and professor in the Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures department. "We've been hearing from the colleges about what's working and what isn't."

Julie Lindquist, chairwoman of the Tier I committee and Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures associate professor, talked about making the writing requirement two semesters long with rhetoric being the focus of the first class and themes the focus of the second half.

"We've looked at what the current curriculum looks like, what's happening in peer institutions and talked to professional organizations," Lindquist said.

Porter said the task force hopes to have a final report written by Oct. 15, and is still seeking input from faculty and students.

The committee also heard a report from June Youatt, assistant provost for undergraduate education, about the evaluation of MSU's ombudsman Stan Soffin.

The report, which President-designate Lou Anna Simon said was the first formal review ever done of the position, was conducted last spring, and was introduced at the meeting to inform the council members.

Youatt said she was told positive things about Soffin during the review and suggested that he be renewed as the ombudsman.

"The independence of his office is critical to the work he does," Youatt said.