While the Salary and Benefits Committee falls under the Faculty Council, the chairperson of University Council and others believe it needs more professional personnel on the team.
"They were asked to look at this issue, and it was OK to the faculty on the committee," said Chairperson of University Council Eric Kelly. "But it wasn't OK to the professional personnel on the council and it wasn't OK with me."
The Salary and Benefits Committee is often called on by the university when gathering input for issues like impending budget cuts, and Kelly would like to see more professional representation than the current slate of seven faculty members and one professional personnel.
In a meeting Thursday morning, the Governance and Elections committee discussed a compromise that calls for seven faculty members and three professional staff on the Salary and Benefits Committee.
That way whenever there is an issue concerning professional personnel, only those three members will vote. By the same token, if a matter affects faculty primarily, only the faculty members of the Salary and Benefits Committee will vote on the issue.
"I think this has a good chance of being accepted," Kelly said.
The proposal needs to be approved by the University Council, Faculty Council and University Senate before it can be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the Ball State University Senate. The constitution is part of the Faculty and Professional Personnel Handbook and was approved by the University Senate in April 2008.
Besides looking for more efficient representation, the University Council also discussed making more efficient guidelines for a program that allows students a second chance at a college career.
The academic clemency program allows students who have dropped out at Ball State to come back five years later, erase poor grades and retake courses in which they received a grade lower than C.
The University Council proposed changing the description of the program to reflect that student be registered for the current term before applying for the clemency program.
The group also proposed changing the minimum requirement from C- to C in order to keep a past grade.
Students must not have already earned a degree from Ball State when applying for the clemency program. This statement was moved to the top of a list of seven points.
"I think it is [a great opportunity] because people who did poorly earlier can come back without too much of a penalty from what happened a few years ago," said University Council Chairperson Barb Willis.
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