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Highlights of the College Park Senate meeting on March 12, 2007

Report of the Chair (James Gates)
- Middle States Evaluation went very well.
Report of the Senate Executive Committee
- Declared February 27, 2007 "Martha Grimes Day" in honor of Martha Grimes, well-known author and university alumna.
Report of the Provost (Bill Destler)
- Campus-wide online teaching evaluations under construction. Working with Virginia Tech to implement system for rollout by end of Fall 07 semester. As incentive for students, public portion of teaching evaluation will be made public if over 80% of students fill out evaluations.
- Plus/minus grading system placed on hold for 2 years. Study shows minority graduation rates would be negatively impacted by officially implementing plus/minus grading. Meanwhile, will implement web site where students may calculate their unofficial GPAs including plus/minus grades (as is done by many graduate schools).
- Middle States Evaluation visit went very well. Campus received "one of the most positive and cleanest reports". There were no required changes or plans for return visits. Official results will be released by this summer.
- College of Health & Human Performance in the process of becoming a School of Public Health next month. Senate approval is strongly recommended.
- State budget remains challenging. Governor recommended a 7% increase (becomes 4% increase taking proposed tuition freeze into account). State House cut university budget by millions of dollars. Negotiations are ongoing.
Reports from Senate Committees
- Approved revised UMD policy on appointment, promotion, and permanent status of Library Faculty.
- Approved renaming B.S. in Natural Resource Sciences to B.S. in Plant Sciences.
New Business
- Emeritus Professor Jerome Dancis (Dept. of Mathematics) argued that university faculty should be included on the Maryland task force on High School Assessment tests for graduation. The task force currently has 17 members including public school superintendents and a public school student. In particular, Dancis believed the current math assessment test should require algebra problems that do not rely on calculators.

Chau-Wen Tseng