Faculty Senate, which works to change policies on campus, has been reevaluating processes such as teacher evaluations and faculty computer use.

For the last year and a half, one of the Faculty Senate committees has been studying the teacher evaluation process to see if it’s the best method, said Lesley Peterson, president of Faculty Senate.

“Students evaluate faculty at the end of every semester,” Peterson said. “As a faculty, we’re very concerned that faculty be evaluated in a fair and helpful way. We’re all accountable, and we need to be evaluated, but are the measures by which we’re evaluated fair and appropriate?”

The current faculty evaluation process should be reconsidered, said Lindsay Hanlin, a senior.

“Usually I just want to get done with (the evaluations),” Hanlin said. “I’ll just mark ‘A’ all the way down from numbers 1 to 15, just so I can get done quickly. A better way to do it would be to have an incentive, so we don’t feel like we’re wasting our time.”

Faculty Senate is also looking at the rights of instructors with their personal computers, Peterson said.

“What rights do faculty and staff have to university computers?” Peterson said. “Am I allowed to install software on my computer, or do I have to have IT come install it? We just need to clarify that policy.”

Shared governance, which includes SGA along with Faculty Senate, allows for policies to be written by anyone on campus, said Scott Infanger, president-Elect of Faculty Senate.

“For example, (what is) going on I think is student senators that want to make a policy to make UNA a tobacco-free campus,” Infanger said. “What the students are doing with SGA is they’re going to have SGA endorse it, and SGA will send it back up to the shared governance committee, at which point shared governance will send it to Staff and Faculty Senate for consideration. Then, once everybody endorses it, it is endorsed by the administration and becomes university policy.”

A smoking ban still seems pointless, said Ashley Scruggs, a senior.

“I think that there’s better things (for leaders) to be worried about than smoking,” Scruggs said. “I’m on campus all of the time, and not once have I been bothered by the cigarette smoke. I’ve never inhaled it, an I’m a senior whose been at UNA for four years now.”

Another example of the work done by Faculty Senate involves the faculty handbook, Peterson said.

“If you look at the faculty handbook, it outlines everything from hiring policies, to what you have to do to be promoted to what the job is of a department chair,” Peterson said. “All of the responsibilities of faculty are outlined in the faculty handbook, and the administration is constantly reviewing it and noting possible changes.

But, they can’t change a single word in the faculty handbook without it going through senate.”

This procedure is great for ensuring communication, said Terrance Hayward, a junior.

“I think it’s a great method because it doesn’t put the power with one person,” Hayward said. “There’s a chain of events for changing the policies. It will have to be discussed between several people before alterations are made.”

Faculty senate also works to create policies for plagiarism, Peterson said.

“There’s an academic affairs committee in the senate as well,” Peterson said. “They got involved, for instance, in drafting the academic honesty policy, (which outlines) the way that professors deal with plagiarism. A big part of what we do is reviewing and participating in policy changes.”