Faculty Council discusses adding more online classes

The council also covered representing non-tenure faculty.

By Rachel Allred

Published Nov. 6, 2009

Faculty Council discussed including non-tenure faculty in council affairs, broadening e-learning programs and assisting a South Korean university during its meeting Thursday.

Academic Affairs Vice President Steven Graham said more online courses would broaden the university's reach and are something the university should consider adopting.

"When I'm talking about e-learning I'm thinking of mostly trying to get courses that might be offered mostly or exclusively online that would increase access for students both in terms of distance or convenience," Graham said.

Graham said a report from a few years ago stated 4 or 5 million students were taking online courses. A report that came out this week stated there are as many as 12 million students taking classes online and that growth could be attributed to advances in technology, he said.

"Younger students really grew up on this stuff," Graham said. "They prefer to communicate on this medium."

Graham said engineering and science courses might be added in the future to make the university more competitive. Professors who create online courses would be able to create copyrights on their work as well.

The main focus now, Graham said, is to gain more support and teach faculty members.

"What we've focused most of our efforts on has been to try to build faculty development activities, put instructional designers on campus, basically provide faculty with the kind of support they would need," Graham said.

Chairwoman Leona Rubin presented a proposal from MU Extension to provide ranking and representation of non-tenure faculty. Rubin said MU Extension would like to give titles to these faculty members.

"It will add 260 non-tenure track faculty to the list," Rubin said. "Currently we have a little over 600 non-tenure track ranked faculty, which means they have titles in the system."

Council member Clyde Bentley said the council needs to find ways to represent more people.

"At the University of Missouri we have 6,561 employees who are in the teaching and research category," Bentley said. "This faculty council represents 1,244 of those."

Bentley said collected rules for the council provide for the inclusion of non-tenure track.

"We don't have something to actually put people on the council, but the wording here would allow non-tenure track faculty to be eligible for appointment," Bentley said.

Non-tenure faculty could join various committees on campus, Bentley said. Council member Victoria Johnson said this would be positive for the university because faculty members could learn from each other.

"It seems whether faculty or part-time or full-time, if they're consistently working here and they do research, they do teaching, they need to network with us," Johnson said.

Other council members, such as council member Harry Tyrer, said they have some apprehensions.

"I'm really concerned about getting somebody who is teaching one course and that's all they do and then someone imposes some committee work on them, and they don't feel they can turn it down," Tyrer said.

The council also discussed a possible partnership between MU and South Korea.

The country's government has offered MU $1 million to provide advice and support for a South Korean university that will provide English intensive classes.

"They are negotiating with a contortion of schools, which includes MU, to put a unique type of campus on Korean soil," Rubin said. "They're giving the University of Missouri a million dollars to develop a business plan and potential curriculum."

If MU decides to proceed and South Korea approves MU's proposed curriculum, Rubin said South Korea would pay MU several million dollars in exchange for its support.