Steve Lovett, assistant professor of business administration, stresses a point he makes during the Faculty Senate meeting Thursday." />
Steve Lovett, assistant professor of business administration, stresses a point he makes during the Faculty Senate meeting Thursday.
The Faculty Senate executive committee used their time as a fact finding session for multiple questions faculty senators had about the tuition waiver program and open educational resources, last Thursday.
“The tuition waiver program, as it’s been developed, is part of our tuition and fee structure,” said Ray Lauber, director of human resources.
The program works on a sliding scale, where more tuition is waived the longer the faculty works at ESU and is eligible for spouses and dependents, according to Lauber. This only covers tuition, not fees, books or housing.
Additionally, this only applies to students that have been accepted into a program.
They also discussed an Associated Student Government resolution that was passed last year about open educational resources.
“Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission,” according to oercommons.org. “Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights.”
“This has been and continues to be something that our board of regents is very interested in,” said Steve Lovett, president of Faculty Senate and assistant professor of business administration. “It is now…something our students have said definitively that they’re very interested in.”
There was some concern about the quality of texts on the OER, according to Sheryl Lidzy, chair of the faculty affairs committee and associate professor of communication and theatre.
“I taught two summers ago…and what’s available in my discipline two summers ago is not as quality as what is available,” Lidzy said. “I hope that it becomes more available, but…the good stuff’s not available on the OER yet.”
The resolution will be continue to be considered as the Faculty Senate goes forward.The next faculty executive meeting will be at 3:30 today in the Roe R. Cross room.