Faculty Senate Chair Lynne Curry thinks today’s senate meeting will be an important one.

Robert Augustine, dean of the graduate school, and Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, are scheduled to discuss graduate assistants teaching classes at Eastern.

The faculty senate chair said graduate assistants teaching classes at Eastern is important because it affects the faculty and how they operate.

Augustine developed a report about graduate assistants teaching at Eastern and the entire senate has received a copy of it, which will allow the senate to ask questions, Curry added.

“By making him come in, it will be like an open forum,” Curry said.

The English department has implemented a program, which started in Fall 2005 and allows three graduate assistants per semester to teach Composition and Language as well as Composition and Literature.

The biology department started a similar program this current semester. The program allows graduate assistants to teach Biological Principles and Issues. Students often take the 1000-level course to fulfill the general education requirement.

In other business, William Hine, dean of the college of continuing education, will speak about a new initiative at Eastern designed to involve the retiremed community around Charleston.

The Academy of Lifetime Learning is a new initiative, which the senate knows very little about, Curry said.

“One of the reasons why I asked (Hine) to come in is to inform us about it,” she said.

ALL is a program for retirees living around the Charleston area. The program’s goal is to provide non-credit programs designed to develop relationships within the retired community, according to the College of Continuing Education’s website.

Other items on the senate’s agenda include reports from a variety of committees such as the executive committee, the student-faculty relations committee and the faculty-staff relations committee.

The senate cancelled a previous meeting scheduled for Aug. 28. Curry said one of the senate’s jobs is to nominate faculty for committees, which usually takes place in the spring.

The senate then schedules a follow-up meeting in the fall to ensure the committees are properly staffed.

The Aug. 28 meeting was supposed to be the follow-up meeting, but the senate did not feel the need for a follow-up meeting because all committees were properly staffed, Curry said.

Today’s meeting will take place at 2 p.m. in Booth Library Room 4440.

“It will be a busy meeting because of the guests and the committee reports,” Curry said.

-To learn more about the Faculty Senate, click here.

-To learn more about the ALL program, click here.