MINUTES OF THE FACULTY MEETING -- SEPTEMBER 9, 2004

ATTENDEES: Drion Boucias, Marc Branham, John Capinera, Skip Choate, Jim Cuda, Tom Fasulo, John Foltz, Don Hall, Glenn Hall, Amanda Hodges, Marjorie Hoy, Phil Koehler, Norm Leppla, Oscar Liburd, Jim Maruniak, Heather McAuslane, Michael Scharf, Jerry Stimac, Simon Yu, and Myrna Litchfield

Meeting convened at 1:15 PM

Pesticide Storage Shed: Capinera opened the meeting by reporting on the status of the Pesticide Storage Shed. It is flooded, and if anyone has anything stored there they should forget about it for now until EH&S pumps it out. Capinera has talked to IFAS about relocating the storage shed because it has proven to be a bad site. It is uncertain whether these losses would be covered by insurance. The question was raised about other damages received due to the hurricane: would faculty and/or department receive compensation? Damage would generally be covered by UF insurance, but would depend on inventory reported and amount of depreciation.

Matching funds: The dean has more matching funds for graduate assistants for the spring semester. Now is the time to request these matching funds for any new graduate student and requests should go through the Graduate Coordinators Office.

Budget: Last year's budget allocations were passed out to the faculty. We still do not know what the budget will be for this year due to People Soft, it is not yet completely intelligible with this system.

Defibrillator: A lot of departments on campus are looking into obtaining Automated Electronic Defibrillator (AED) units and we should consider purchasing one for this department. Nancy is willing to be trained on its use and keep track of it, and anyone else who is interested could receive training also. The AED does not require a medical background, is easy to use, and will cost approximately $2800. This needs to be stored in a secure place but not so secure that it could not be easily accessible. Discussion followed with the faculty in favor of obtaining an AED.

Veterinary Entomology Position: Phil Koehler reported on the results of the Search Committee. There were 22 applicants (1 withdrew) and the committee chose two of the top applicants to be interviewed. This position is 40% teaching, 50% research, and 10% extension.

Jeffery K. Tomberlin: Currently Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist, Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University located in Dallas. Received his Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Georgia, M.S. in Entomology from Clemson University, and B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Georgia. His current position is mostly extension and he has no formal teaching experience. He will be here on September 30th and October 1st to present research and teaching seminars.

Phillip E. Kaufman: Currently Research Associate, Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Received his Ph.D. in Livestock Entomology at the University of Wyoming, M.S. in Vegetable Pest Management at the University of Wisconsin, and B.S. in Animal Science at the University of Illinois. His current position allows him to conduct research and he has had some teaching experience. He will be here on October 4th and 5th to present research and teaching seminars.

Vacant Positions: Dr. Jones is not inclined to release any vacant faculty positions now. The raises that the faculty received was to come from the increase in tuition and student enrollment, however, IFAS will have to cover the cost of this increase by not filling positions.

Faculty Senate: Marjorie Hoy reported on the Faculty Senate meeting. President Machen addressed the Senate. Dr. Hoy suggested that the faculty go online and check out the Faculty Senate Web Site. Go to UF Home Page to About UF and click on Administration. Scroll down to Faculty Senate and click on it. You can pull up any information that you would like to view including the comments from President Machen.

Some of his concerns were that this is a new era of shared government and that the faculty needed to get involved and be representatives if it is going to work. He is going to make a major effort to acquire funds to support faculty raises. There will be a new survey for faculty to participate in and President Machen said that he takes these surveys seriously. We have a larger enrollment and a lot of new faculty here at the UF this fall. The Faculty Union was not discussed.

Raises for Staff: Raises and bonuses were discussed for staff. Capinera stated that he would like to see the bonus system that was in place a couple of years ago be reinstated if there are funds available. The question was raised "could faculty contribute to the funds for staff?" Yes, if faculty wished to contribute funds they would be accepted. Bonuses would come from either grant or share funds. He would also like to address some of the worst/lowest salary situations in the department, if funding allows this.

People Soft System: People Soft (PS) was discussed and Capinera stated that it would take at least six months to be up and running completely. Right now it is taking twice to four times as long to get things done in the accounting office, but hopefully this will decrease as everyone gets used to PS and the problems are ironed out.

Oi: Voted on Faith Oi to be appointed to Graduate Faculty; vote was unanimous.

Graduate Students: Don Hall announced that we now have 20 new graduate students and 4 students continuing in the Ph.D. program. We now have a total of 100 graduate students. Dr. Hall announced that the faculty from FAMU would be here next Friday, September 17, 2004, to meet and discuss the Ph.D. Cooperative Agreement Program with FAMU. The meeting will be held at 1:15 in room 1014. There have been only a few students that have enrolled in this program. The FAMU faculty have some issues they would like to discuss as far as procedures are concerned, such as number of credit hours students should register for at FAMU and/or UF. Anyone who is interested can attend.

Dr. Leppla announced that Dr. Moses Kairo has accepted the Center Director position at FAMU.

Hurricane preparedness: It was suggested that faculty might want to move their state vehicles to the parking garage if Hurricane Ivan strikes, as was done for the last hurricane. One state truck that was left in the parking lot was almost hit by a downed tree during Hurricane Frances. Steve suggests that everyone turn off and unplug their computers and enclose them in a large plastic garbage bag, especially if they are close to a window. Large garbage bags can be obtained from the custodial staff.

VP Search: The search for the VP is going on but there isn't much happening. There is a firm that is collecting the applications and initial interviews will be held at the airport in Orlando. Final interviews will be held on campus and candidates will be available to faculty for questions. The search committee will have some input as well as faculty and alumni. We have some in-house as well as outside applicants.

Meeting adjourned at 2:05.