Faculty Senate met Nov. 20 in the Preston Family Room in the Memorial Union to discuss the intellectual property bill, the administrative review policy and their new offices.

The new administrator review policy had its first reading, and Marvin Harrell, professor of mathematics, said he was concerned the faculty may be giving up rights to view the evaluations.

“I think Faculty Senate is about maintaining the rights of the faculty…just to say we need to fix it every year doesn’t make sense,” Harrell said. “I don’t think it’s that broke, personally.”

The policy was not signed by President Michael Shonrock last year when it was brought before him, based on advice from his legal counsel that it would violate personnel policy.

Marian Riedy, assistant professor of business administration, said that while the evaluations may not be subject to the Open Records Act, the policy states review documents may be released to members of the organization who need to have access to them.

Zeni Colorado, assistant professor of instructional design and technology, said she had some concerns come the committee on campus governance that there is no longer an information technology oversight committee. The committee would handle issues with things like the recent email changeover, which is what most of the complaints stemmed from.

Members of the senate also voiced some complaints about the email changeover.

The contract with Sodexo also was brought up because of some concern with the catering policy for campus events. Colorado said the contract was going to be under review by the committee to see if changes or amendments needed to made.

The new Faculty Senate offices, which they will move into next semester, are in Morse Hall 205, and their new meeting room is Morse Hall 405.

Gwen Alexander, interim provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said the consultant’s report on the needs of the departments on campus were finished and had been received by Shonrock. Alexander said the report highlighted ESU’s focus on education.

The Kansas Board of Regents approved the Faculty of the Year award, which recognizes faculty for their service to the university. KBOR also asked the senate to review their post-tenure review policies.

Kevin Rabas, senate president and associate professor of English, said the KU faculty senate president had asked them to endorse their Post-Tenure review policy, and the faculty decided to read over the policy and discuss it at the next meeting.

The faculty also discussed the automatic name change bill and the revisions to the intellectual property bill.

The next meeting of will be at 3:30 Dec. 4 in the Preston Family Room.