Attendees: Stone, Ishino, Adams , Wickert, Medick, Sparrow, Harper-Jones, Forsyth, Ferris, and Shaw

1. Welcome

• Chair Stone noted that the next three meetings of the Steering Committee will meet on:
  
  October 24 (Wednesday)
  November 28 (Wednesday)
  December 19 (Wednesday)

• The Chair reminded the Committee of the Dr. Robert Hollingworth lecture on September 19.

  It was noted that the Provost Office and William Latta had reviewed the use of room 209 Olds and concluded that the office was being underutilized. Any Steering Committee member that has a key to the office should turn them in to Dr. Shaw. A discussion followed as to

  Reasons why the office had been reclaimed by the University.

  Stone announced that several of the original Steering Committee members had decided that it was time to step down and let others carry on the activities of the FEA. They are Professors Funk, Vanosdall and Reid. They all agreed to keep active and to help the FEA in any manner possible. Roger Funk will take over the duties of the list serve and will be our representative to the Academic Council for the upcoming year.

  Stone brought the Committee up to date on the role of the FEA in having a voice on the Academic Committees. The last year the FEA had representation on the Academic and Faculty Councils. This was a result of both of the bodies voting to have our voice heard. The Bylaws of the University do not have a specific provision for faculty emeriti representation. Stone spoke to the University Committee on Governance in the spring of 2007 and they voted on making a motion to change the Bylaws to give us representation. This will be proposed sometime during the 2007-2008 academic year at the time that all Bylaw changes are being proposed. The Academic and Faculty Councils will meet this week and Dr. Potchen will introduce a motion to again give us voice without vote for the 2007-2008 academic year. An update will be given at the next meeting.
  
2. The minutes of the 8-22-07 meeting were approved with the noted corrections.
3. FEA Bylaws
• The implementation of the Bylaws requires that elections must be held and officers put in place.
  
  The Nominations Committee developed a slate of candidates for the positions of Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary/Treasurer. After some discussion it was decided to vote on each position separately. The Steering Committee selected Gary Stone to fill out the position of Chair for the remainder of the academic year. Several candidates were proposed for the position of Vice Chair. Two were nominated by the Nominations Committee and one from the Steering Committee members in attendance. Professor John Forsyth was elected to the position. The position of Secretary/Treasurer was not determined at this meeting because the candidate proposed by the Nomination Committee (Forsyth) was elected Vice Chair. No candidates were nominated at the meeting and so it was determined to develop further candidates and to elect the Secretary/Treasurer at the next Steering Committee meeting. It was decided to wait until the October meeting to select the Chair positions for the four Standing Committees. Stone said that he would get back with the Nominations Committee and work to get another slate of candidates for the remaining positions. He indicated that he would email the entire Committee to get additional candidates. Professor Adams agreed to be the FEA representative at future Board of Trustee meetings. Stone indicated that Roger Funk agreed to be our representative at the Academic Council meetings and Stone said that he would continue to meet with Faculty Council.

 

4. Updates
1. MSU Retiree Association

• Professor Wickert reported on the activities of the MSU Retiree Association. He indicated that the next newsletter deadline would be October 10 if we were interested in getting anything in the publication. He said the next meeting of the Big 10 retiree groups would be held at Purdue University. He also said that there was no objection mentioned at their Board meeting about the FEA having representation at the Academic and Faculty Councils. Stone said that they would be fully informed of information coming from those meetings that would be of interest to them.

2. Professor Ishino gave an interesting report based upon an article in the September 5 issue of the Wall Street Journal.
   
• There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 3:30