Minutes of the meeting of March 8th 1999
Chair George Browder called the meeting to order at 4:08 PM.
1. A quorum was present and the Agenda was approved unanimously as amended.
2. The minutes of the February 8th 1998 meeting were approved unanimously as amended.
3. Dr. Dennis L. Hefner (President's report): I had just a few things I wanted to report to you, but I thought I would start out first with the latest artists' rendition for the natatorium. I thought I would bring these and we'll pass them around and you can take a look at it. This is the outside structure, and this remember is an artists rendition, so there can be some things that are different. For example, we are trying to work it out so they'll do filling in, so we don't have all these stairs in the front, and some of that. Basically the building will roughly look like this from the outside including the windows and so forth. This is based on the schematics, which have now been approved.
I also wanted to share with you what the entryway to the natatorium will look like. There will be an entryway to go into Steel Hall. It's going to be a beautiful structure. It's going to have a twenty- four foot high ceiling. You'll notice that there are people here looking from the entryway into the natatorium. They can do that, we will make sure that the glass is made so that the divers, who will be at eye-level with the people looking at the window, won't be able to see the people looking in at them. It could be a bit of a dist- raction. This will give you kind of an idea of what this edition is going to look like. I wanted to share that with you.
I did want to report, and I can't remember if I reported this before, but we do have the final paperwork in for approval of a number of degree programs. The bachelors degree in biochemistry, which I may have mentioned at the last meeting, also for the education administ- ration credential, which is now reinstated and the masters in education for the biology secondary program. The masters in education for chemistry secondary program and also the masters in education for speech and hearing handicap are all signed sealed and delivered. These last ones have just come within the last couple of days.
I did want to report briefly to you on SUNY days and that we had a chance to go to Albany. Nine students accompanied us to SUNY days. We had meetings with all of our local legislators, with the chairs of the two higher education committees, Ed Sullivan in the Assembly, and with Ken LaValle in the Senate. Each of the nine students then went off to see their local assemblyperson and had an individual meeting with each of them. Basically, the word that I can bring back is that there seems to be even stronger unanimity that TAP will be made basically whole. I don't know if there'll be a few little nibbles around the edges, but basically TAP funds are going to be restored. There seems to be a great deal of interest and I think Ken LaValle's committee in the senate was even the strongest interest in fully restoring the campus budget back to what it needs to be. That means that the collective bargaining money should be made available. That's a little over thirty million dollars. There should be a one-percent increase in non-personnel expenses to help a little bit with tuition. The non-recurring funds problem, which is a seven point nine million dollar problem that needs to be addressed. The enrollment moneys appear that they are going to be added to the budget.
Once you get beyond those particular items, the discretion becomes very fragmented. I don't know what if anything beyond those will be included in the budget. It was reported from several people in the Senate that they are looking at trying to do better than just give us a break from this budget for next year. I didn't hear the same sentiments expressed as strongly in the Assembly, which is kind of strange, because normally it's the Assembly that takes the lead and they've got to keep coaxing the Senate to go along. There does seem to be some changing dynamics that are going on. Maybe it's just the people that I talked to, but I came away feeling very encouraged that we are going to be in good shape next year. I've been thinking about this for sometime, ever since I've been going to Albany, since about the middle of January. It continues to be very strong. I think you would have been very proud of our students had you been there.
I had spent about an hour and a half with the students going through some of the budgetary issues. The budget can get pretty complex pretty quickly, but as the day wore along they got better and stronger at telling their story and relating it personally. About talking to their younger brother, sisters, and what they're hoping for and so forth. They did an absolutely superb job as ambassadors for this campus. I did want to relay that to you.
I also made a copy of an article, that was in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a week ago, talking about student activism on campuses and I thought it was a very interesting article. I think it's pretty representative of students on this campus too. Students tend to be very focused on their activism. They are reaching out on public service activities. I find, when I meet with student groups, every single student group is doing something within the community. I just went through the Williams Center at lunch today and there's a table set up with a raffle for Habitat for Humanity. Obviously, the Super-Dance is coming up. You just see an awful lot of that. I think the students that came to SUNY days were very representative of that. At lunch we were sitting around and talking about what are they doing and what are some of the organizations involved in. I'll tell you it's really really impressive. I think that reflects well on the entire campus, and I think it reflects well on everybody in this room, by keeping them pushed in the right direction.
I also wanted to report that we have the date for our mission review. The mission review team from the system office will be coming to campus on April nine. There are six representatives from our campus that will be meeting with the system representative. The chairman of Faculty Council is one of the members of that six-person team from the campus. Obviously the Academic Vice President is another. I don't know if there are going to be any general sessions or not, we are trying to get everything worked out at this time. We do at least have the date, which is good because remember they've got five million dollars sitting in an account for mission review and we have our eyes on some of that money. I'm glad we got a fairly early date in the process.
I did want to give you a quick update on where we are on student applications. We are running about eight percent ahead of last year at this time. Last year we ended up ten percent ahead, so we are looking very good over a two year basis that's almost a twenty percent increase in just two years with applications. We can be slightly more selective this year than we were last year and still meet our higher enrollment target.
The final thing that I wanted to mention today is that if you read the Leader a week and a half ago there was an article on the general education resolution. I was quoted, and it was in quotation marks of course as saying, "Studying foreign language is a waste of time." I was horrified to read that, in fact, I hadn't read the Leader and I was going through my mail and there was a letter from a student who had sat down and written me a letter. I'm reading this letter, and thinking what is she talking about, I went out, picked up the Leader and then I knew exactly what she was talking about. Just to let you know, just in my own personal career, I took four courses when I was in college beyond three years in high school. I found it to be very valuable, especially as I got into the literature courses. Reading literature in the native language, I think, was a great exercise and a great broadening of my education. I wanted you to know that was not what I said to a particular student. I don't know how it was picked up but somehow the student interpreted things I'm saying. There was a letter that I wrote back to that one girl, she had cc'd the Leader, and I also cc'd the Leader. I did want you to know that three lines from my letter are missing from there. If you notice as you get into the middle, not only is it grammatically incorrect, but it makes absolutely no sense whatever that is why.
4. Una Mae Reck (VP, Academic Affairs): I'm going to talk today about three items. Two are attached to your agenda. I want to draw your attention to the Multiple Year Appoint- ments for Tenure Track Faculty policy. You see that we will be implementing, I guess, immediately or as contracts come through in terms of two year appointments. We don't see this as becoming routine. These are for the excellent faculty who have proven them- selves in terms of their evaluations. A two-year appointment is possible at that time. I know other campuses are doing similar appointments and are going even further beyond this. I see this as our first step, I want to see this work and use it judiciously, and I'm sure we can.
Nancy Boynton: It says "for faculty who have completed two years".
Una Mae Reck: Usually the recommendation for the third year comes early in the second year. They won't really have completed two years; they would be in their second year. That would be part of the depart- ment chairs recommendation.
Bob Deming: To clarify this so that everyone understands wouldn't it be better to strike out the "who has completed two years"?
Una Mae Reck: How would you word that differently Bob.
Bob Deming: You're talking about second year faculty, "second year tenure track faculty members".
Una Mae Reck: Ok, that's what we mean.
Ken Mantai: What about bringing people in on two-year contracts.
Una Mae Reck: We've talked about that.
Ken Mantai: The reason being that we evaluate in December before we have any student evaluations, so it's pretty much automatic that they get the second year.
Una Mae Reck: I would hope it's not the word automatic that we would use.
Ken Mantai: It's not automatic, just that we don't have a lot of information.
Una Mae Reck: We don't have a lot of information is correct, but we've thought about that. We've talked about that, that might be the next step, I don't know. We are going to see how we work with this right now. The thing is, when you hire somebody for a one-year contract, actually you're hiring them for two years even if you do a non reappointment because they still have another year on this campus.
Ken Mantai: No.
Una Mae Reck: No? Don't they?
Ken Mantai: It's my understanding that at the end of the first year you can terminate.
Una Mae Reck: You can?
Ken Mantai: Yeah.
Una Mae Reck: They do not have second year automatic?
Ken Mantai: No, which is one of the reasons not to give an automatic two-year appointment. If by chance we've made a mistake, and hope- fully there aren't going to be any mistakes, but if you have made a mistake this way you have the option in the department.
Dick Reddy: Just a clarification on that, obviously our policy, and a longstanding policy, is to offer one-year contracts when people are being hired. There is no bar to that, and I suspect I played a little bit of a role in getting this under consideration because I had an opportunity to take a look at a number of contracts for people from other campuses when I was looking at award applications state- wide. Essentially only two campuses that I could find were not offering something more than a one-year renewal process. A number of campuses were offering two-year initial appointments and some campuses offer three-year initial appointments. In essence we are, even though we didn't necessarily know it, anomalous among the campuses that I could get information on in that regard.
Roger Byrne: It seems, by reading this, that the recommendation for the two-year teaching contract comes to the department chair after the vice president and dean have already recommended reappointment. It seems by the way this is written that the recommendation goes up the line and then it goes back down again for another consideration for a two-year term.
Una Mae Reck: No, it would come at the same time as the reappointment. Maybe we need to change our wording, but that's not what we meant.
Bob Deming: The wording that I have in mind is as follows:
Second year tenure track faculty members "who have excellent evaluations from students, peers, their department chair, respective dean and the vice president of academic affairs" may be recommended.
Una Mae Reck: Ok, the second item then is on the back on that page in terms of verification of credentials on our campus. In the process of going through all the twenty-five faculty positions it came to my attention that we do not require an official transcript on our campus. Sometimes we have and sometimes we don't, but there is no policy. This policy would then cover us for everyone and we will be requiring that through the personnel office. They will be in charge of collecting official transcripts from everyone. As I recall, I thought it sort of odd myself that I was never asked for an official transcript and neither has the president.
President Hefner: We found out that there actually was an audit on this on the campus a number of years ago and basically the auditors were told that these were held in the department offices, because apparently that used to be the policy years ago, that department offices held them. In checking around most departments offices have not been securing them, so we are in a sense in violation of state policy, but it's pretty easy to correct, but many of us are going to be getting a letter.
Una Mae Reck: We appreciate your understanding and patience with this, but it is necessary.
Jon Kraus: It seems curious that you want this from the candidate themselves, rather than from the institution which they attended.
Una Mae Reck: It would be an official transcript, so it has to be from the institution itself with the embossed stamp and everything. That's typical procedure.
Jon Kraus: It strikes me that it would only be fair if the institution had over a number of years failed to get these sorts of things that it would accept the financial responsibility for getting them from those institutions. If you really want them, you ought to pay for them. If that isn't resolved here, we can bring it up at the labor management meeting.
Una Mae Reck: Bring it up.
Moving along, the next item does follow, but it is not in sequence as I'd planned. You have another packet that I hope you picked up like this. This is the academic planing process that we will be following. What you have here is an overview sheet. There are three components, you can see the diagram.
The annual report will be submitted to the president and across campus also. On the next page, you'll see some outcomes for each of those components. The next page deals with the academic master plan scheduled timelines. The fourth page is a sample of what the academic master plan might look like in the end. It will be a chart- like type of thing listing the existing programs the proposed programs and the program review schedule. The next page deals with an outline of what annual reports will consist of in terms of faculty, departments, the deans' report, directors, interdisciplinary programs and the vice presidents report. There is also a timeline there.
There are other components, when we presented this to the Long Range Planning Sub-Committee we did have samples in terms of annual reports and guidelines and outlines. There is more detail than what you see right here. In the five-year program review is a timeline that will start this March with several programs.
Accredited programs will not be going through this process. There would be an internal report by the department and external review person(s) as appropriate. All of this will be submitted and going through Academic Affairs committee and then Faculty Council. On the next page are the components of the internal review document that would be submitted to the external review person(s). Part of that, as you can see, would be the academic master plan, which we already created for annual report and so forth. There were worksheets submitted by departments that were submitted too, but are not here.
You are welcome to talk with your department chair to look at the worksheets that go with that process. I know we are doing this for the first time; this is the roughest time, the first time you do it. I think one of the questions that came through the subcommittee was with the Academic Affairs annual report. Has there ever been one? No there is none right now. Where will it be distributed, just to the president? No, it will go cross-campus as we see appropriate. Departments would have a copy and so forth.
Nancy Boyton: Do we know which departments are doing this next year?
Una Mae Reck: The five-year annual review? Not yet, I'm meeting with the deans in the next couple of weeks. They have been talking to the departments to see which ones feel comfortable in going first.
Jan McVicker: I'm curious for the faculty reviews that are in the timetable, what if you had faculty members who are contributing courses or publications or a service beyond their disciplines, beyond their departments. Should they continue to list that service, teaching, and scholarship on their faculty report for their chair?
Una Mae Reck: I think that since this is a new process I would work with your chair and your dean. Like I said, I'm sure we have not thought of everything.
Dick Reddy: In terms on the faculty reports, the most recent rounds that we've gone through, there has been a gap over the past year or so, did in fact have a listing of courses being taught. There was a form that had that information on it including the recorded number of advisees. Is that something that is intended here as well?
Una Mae Reck: Yes.
Dick Reddy: one other question in terms of departmental reports. It does not say in here, but it would probably be a good idea if those departmental reports were available within the department for depart- ment members. In some instances the paper gets generated, but is kept with the chair and goes foreword to the dean without any document being available to department members for their own review. With some of the issues that are being discussed here, it would be helpful in terms of generating additional communication.
Una Mae Reck: I agree.
Ken Mantai: Did you say that departments undergoing NCATE accreditation will not have to go through this?
Una Mae Reck: The five-year program review, yes.
Ken Mantai: NCATE will include pretty much everybody.
Una Mae Reck: Well this is in terms of education programs.
Ken Mantai: But the academic departments are going to have to undergo the NCATE accreditation too.
Una Mae Reck: I'm just saying where the programs are housed in terms of education. With NCATE, the academic departments participate, but they're not going through the actual accreditation. We need infor- mation from it and how it contributes to the programs, but they are not the ones that are examined as closely as where the programs are housed. It's only the education programs that they are looking at. You have other programs in your department that are not education, those programs would be in the five-year review.
Jane Romal: I have a question about the previous thing. Are these multiple year appointments going to go into the handbook so we should vote on it?
Una Mae Reck: I don't know, what's the process?
Dick Reddy: Just in fairness, I believe it has been college policy in the past to permit departments to recommend those things if they wished. Departments have obviously been discouraged from doing so, but in some instances these sort of appointments have indeed been offered, so I don't think that this is really a change in college policy.
6. Moj Seyedian (Faculty Senate): I would like to refer everyone to my written report. I would like to add one item, the Senate has started a new project and the aim of the project is to foster research on SUNY campuses and increase junior faculty research productivity. What the Senate is going to do is send an invitation to all the professors at the SUNY campuses with the objective of matching these people up with junior faculty members. I hope we get some good response from this campus.
7a. Idalia Torres (Governance): Elections for long range planning and budget are coming up. The ballots are going out tomorrow. Elections for the rest of the committees are coming up soon.
7bLen Faulk (Graduate Council): This is actually the first formal report of the new Graduate Studies Committee of Faculty Council. We represent all the graduate education departments on campus. The Graduate Studies Committee will function much as Academic Affairs does for undergraduate degrees. In so doing, we'll be reviewing courses, new courses, changes in policy and so forth, and directly reporting to you changes in degree programs and so forth, not actual course changes, similar to what Academic Affairs does.
Today what I have to report to you is a revision to the Masters in Education in Reading program. The State Education Department told us yes you can reactivate it. Why do you deactivate it if you've added two more courses in reading concentration? The change is essentially confirming the thirty-six hours. We are at some point going to change the curriculum again, but we need to do that through our process here. In the interim, we are going with the thirty-six hours to meet the State Education requirements.
Dick Reddy: What were the two courses?
Len Faulk: It's actually two additional courses in the reading concentration. The choices are still available within that concen- tration.
The curriculum change was passed unanimously.
Len Faulk: At some point I wanted to briefly mention the status of the search committee for the associate vice-president.
Chair Browder: You've still got the floor.
Len Faulk: Just to update you, we have been meeting almost every other day for the last couple weeks and we are now down to a short list of candidates. We've gotten written responses and conference calls. We are ready to submit to affirmative action our final short list and we are planning to bring three or four candidates to campus. We are following the time schedule and we want to get this done as soon as possible. We are planning to have the first candidate on campus a week from this coming Thursday and Friday the eighteenth and nineteenth. Another candidate the following week the twenty- third and twenty-fourth. Then one of the two candidates after break. We will be sending out schedules as soon as we can on that.
7c. David Ludlam (Academic Affairs): We've dealt with two pieces of business this month. The first one was a series of new courses, which were necessary for the GCP, and the second was the interdisciplinary program proposal on ROTC, military science program. The committee reviewed the program and felt that the materials were in order. We have two recommendations that we wanted to add to this. One was that it calls for sixteen credits, we wanted it built with four zero-credit labs which would make for a total of 12 credits. The second part is that transport- ation somehow be considered. The ROTC people pay a one hundred and fifty-dollar stipend. In figuring the mileage it comes to at least that. ROTC might be able to provide some sort of transportation, rent a van, or whatever it might be.
Roger Byrne: Are Fredonia Faculty giving the courses on this campus?
David Ludlam: We just review programs, we don't know what it is.
Len Faulk: This is a program, obviously, that doesn't fall within a department. It's a program that doesn't have a link, so it will report to the Associate Vice-President. The way it works is the program now resides in St. Bonaventure. Their faculty will be coming to our campus the first two years.
Roger Byrne: The courses that they would take here would have Fredonia course numbers on them?
Len Faulk: Yes.
Roger Byrne: If a student needed to appeal something would they appeal here, or would they appeal at St. Bonaventure.
Len Faulk: They would appeal here.
Jon Kraus: I don't understand part of this. This does say sixteen academic credit hours, but it adds up to twelve.
Len Faulk: The academic credits that the program is asking for is sixteen. Academic Affairs is recommending the other list.
Jon Kraus: Why is it that if the program is passed and we build up a certain number of students in the junior and senior year why would they go to St. Bonaventure? Why would not the instructor come here, as instructors will come here for those in the first and second year?
Len Faulk: There are several schools that are in a partnership with St. Bonaventure and I think in terms of the leadership development core it has to be a certain number, it is a fairly large number. It could grow to the point where it could be held on campus. It's always a possibility, but I think early on the sense was that students would build, but that at this point it's hard to say whether they would have a large enough core.
Una Mae Reck: It had to do with size, I guess that's true, but also what was explained to us is that they saw the benefit of the students interacting with students from other campuses in those upper level courses. There are also activities that could not take place on our campus either. They have special facilities for them.
Ted Steinburg: I have followed the discussion of this on proftalk over the last week and I would speak very strongly against this proposal simply on academic grounds. I don't think that any of us feel that our students leave here after four years having gotten as much knowledge as we would like them to have. As I look at the syllabi of these courses I'm not sure that I feel happy with students getting almost a semesters worth of credit for things like learning the branches and organization of the US Army, the duties of an officer, drilling, and military briefing. I think what we are doing is taking away almost a whole semester from what our students could learn in academically respectable courses which these are not.
Len Laulk: Point well taken. I think this is a career development program, obviously. It has some technical aspects. I guess as a career development program and the way I look at it is that we are providing an opportunity for career development, which we do for students now in a variety of areas. We provide up to twenty-four hours of internships for example as a part of their hundred and twenty hours. In that line and some of those internships have seminars and some of them do not, but we still accept that.
Karen Mills-Court: What department has twenty-four hours of internships?
Len Faulk: That's college policy.
Karen Mills Courts: I strongly support what Ted Steinburg just said. I do not think that this is an academic program of integrity. I don't see any reason why this campus would want to affiliate itself with an organization that does not meet any of our own standard affirmative action criteria. That seems to be unethical and very serious mistake. They not only do not provide faculty that have been through the traditional search based on traditional values, but they explicitly do not meet our own criteria. I think it would be unethical.
Jan McVicker: I want to second what Karen just said about the affirmative action aspect of this program. As someone who is trying to bring gender issues into greater visibility on this campus I see this as absolutely going against all kinds of work that is being done to try to bring issues of ethic into our classrooms and into our teaching.
President Hefner: When this proposal was brought forward to me I did a little searching into what we had been doing here on campus and what we had been doing before. I did discover that we have always had an ROTC program. It's true the courses weren't being offered here, but we've had a contract with Canisius College, and we have one student who is already in it.
We require now that students drive up to the Buffalo area twice a week in order to be a participant. When the military came to us and offered to make the courses available here I though, first of all, it would be good for our students that are so inclined to have that opportunity available to them on this campus. I also strongly believe, and I've seen some of the talk on Proftalk, that I want military that is composed of officers that come from a wide diversity of background. I think having individuals that have gone through the coursework that we offer here on this campus will be bring individuals into the equation who are going to be coming with a very broad, hopefully strong humanistic background. I would also add that I don't think that this is a vote for or against war. I'm not for war, but it is to provide opportunities for students. When they came to me I felt very comfortable in saying let's go forward. I truly think it is a good addition to our campus.
Minda Rae Amiran: I just wanted to speak to our past experience which was that we would have between a hundred and a hundred and twenty kids in the program until the junior year. Then they had to make a commitment and the program would go down and in fact go down so markedly that that's why it left our campus.
For those two years that the students were in the program, I don't see that it provided anything of value for them. I had advisees in the program that told me quite frankly that there was a lot of just nothingness, and it gave them an easy A. For students who were academically weak that was often an advantage of the program. They could get credits that would keep them at twelve hours for the purposes of TAP in which they didn't have to do anything that was demanding and where they could get a good grade. I just don't think that it was of any value to them or that having that possibility here was of any value to them.
Len Faulk: That's a good point, one of the issues here is should it be counted as course credit and two should it be graded. I think we have that decision.
Mike Grady: How many other campuses in SUNY have ROTC?
Len Faulk: I don't know the number.
Mike Grady: But there are others?
Len Faulk: There are others in SUNY.
Mike Grady: There are a lot of students that want this. I'm not so sure we should say we're not going to offer it because we don't like it. The fact that a lot of students want this program and we have an opportunity to provide it, seems to me that we should.
Amin Sarkar: In this area, there are many students after high school that join the military. I think an addition of SUNY Fredonia to the ROTC program would be a contribution to the local communities. I would support this program.
Ted Steinberg: I would like to respond to a couple of responses so far. First of all, I don't see these courses as being like intern- ships. As far as our students wanting this, we just heard a report that our applications are up twenty percent over the last two years. We obviously don't need it for that. I went to college in the sixties when there were lots of ROTC programs and I don't recollect that it significantly humanized our involvement in Vietnam, so I don't think that's an argument in favor either. I see lots of arguments against it and I see none for it.
Karen Mills-Courts: I have listened carefully to those who have spoken. I still think that the bottom line is that we cannot give any kind of implicit support to an organization in which ones sexual preference can still destroy one. In which "don't ask, don't tell" remains a bottom line. To allow an incredibly visible uniformed, and as I recall, marching presence on this campus is to suggest that we support it. It isn't to suggest it, it's a fact, we will be giving support to that. I think people need to think very carefully about that. Balance that kind of ethical problem against whatever kinds of gains we think this is providing and I still fail to see any gains.
Jackie Swansinger: I think one of the things that has to be involved in whether or not we make this an ethical decision is on the one hand I have real problems with the notion that because they are in the military we can't talk with them, we can't debate with them, we can have no influence on them. I think that's giving up the whole point.
Karen Mills-Courts: I'm not suggesting that.
Jackie Swansinger: So, I don't see that they shouldn't be here, just because they are in the military. That right there is almost self- defeating. On that basis there are tons of people that we could argue shouldn't be here because they don't think quite like they really ought to. I think the whole point of the campus is to be able to offer these kinds intellectual debates and questions. As much as I understand what Jan was saying about the conference this morning and violence against women. I think the whole point is to bring those people who are involved in such activities including young officers to be in the military into discussion of these questions and not marginalize them and then decide that only those who have no other option should go into the military. Those who are not middle class, those who do not have our values should be the ones that are excluded from this education.
Karen Mills-Courts: But on what grounds do we exempt this one department from the same kinds of affirmative action criteria that we set everywhere else on this campus?
Nancy Boynton: I was just curious. What kinds of weapons would be brought to our campus?
Len Faulk: They are rubber M-16's. They won't be shooting rifles, rubber bullets or anything else. It's mainly for drills.
Ken Lucy: It seems to me that there are at least three quite distinct issues that have been discussed here. The academic worth of the ROTC courses themselves, the ethical issues of affirmative action and then there is the component of the academic contribution that Fredonia makes to the students that may go on in the military.
Just one small piece of anecdotal evidence is that recently the philosophy department had email form a young lady who was a philosophy and ROTC student who has gone on and had her career in the military. She says that her career would have been impossible without the training in how to think, which she had acquired as a philosophy major at Fredonia. I think, at least with regard to the contribution we could make to these potential soldiers, I see that as highly significant.
Jon Kraus: Yes, there are separate issues here. If the ROTC courses are going to act discriminatory in any way, there is no doubt that they are discriminating against gays. The military is probably the foremost institution in American social life, all about integration of society. It pains me to have to talk in support of the military an institution which on many grounds I have an aversion.
One of the criticisms of accepting such a program is that you think the components of the course are not worthwhile. I cannot judge nor evaluate just from that basis alone. It seems to me the most important criticism is the aversion our people have to the military. Militaries do different things at different times, in America, the military has carried out peace in Bosnia-Hertzegovina and we are considering putting one in Kosovo.
They have certain kinds of values, I would like to think that we have a crack at influencing the values of the people who go on elsewhere in life. The most important thing about the military is it's been very isolated from institutions in America. Bringing a portion of that institution on campus, they can then interact with us. I don't think that the things that we don't like about the military are a really great reason for saying we refuse to have anything to do with them because they are bad. Militaries are necessary even if they do bad things at times.
Chair Browder: We seem to have, as two people have pointed out, have separate issues here. We might handle this more efficiently if someone wanted to make a motion about the credits not counting towards the GPA as a modification to this program.
Robert Colegrove: What are you voting on?
Dick Reddy: George is suggesting that there are some academic issues. One of the options that was made available to us was the idea that any credits that are earned would not be counting towards grade point average on the basis of an issue which Minda Rae brought up. That it could be an easy A and it could be used by some students under some circumstances to increase their GPA without any real intent to perform in the program or without any real academic merit. If we are focusing on academic issues then an academic issue would be whether the credits earned would count towards a students grade point average. My motion was to make certain that this would simply count as credit and not towards grade point.
Robert Colegrove: Would they still count toward graduation?
Chair Browder: The hours would still count. The quality points would not.
Nan Bowser: Just a point of clarification. If the course is graded S/U, credit bearing the U grade will count in the calculation of quality point average according to current academic policy. S grades do not carry any quality points.
Karen Mills-Courts: It's not clear to me why we are discussing the nature of the courses and how they should be graded when we have not yet decided whether or not they should be on campus at all. It doesn't make sense to me why we have moved in this direction.
My second point is in response to Jon, that indeed every college campus I knew in the nineteen-sixties had ROTC programs. I think that is perhaps the empirical evidence as to how much influence we really do have on the military. My main point right now is that I don't understand why we are talking about the nature of courses.
Chair Browder: Well two questions have been raised about the program. One is whether or not it has academic value or worth that should be factored into the degree program here. The other is whether or not we should have it. The issue on the floor now is a motion concerning the academic credit and we must speak to that now.
Jan McVicker: I'm curious whether this has become before the students at all?
Len Faulk: No. I don't believe so.
Ted Steinberg: I obviously feel very strongly about the contents of these courses and if this were to be an extra-curricular activity, I might reconsider somewhat. If these are credits that will count toward graduation, whether they get a grade or not, they will still take away almost a full semester from academic pursuits. If this is the case, I would then speak against the motion.
The motion to amend the proposal so that credits for the courses be graded S/U passed by a vote of 17 to 9.
Michael Grady: Just a point of clarification. It does say sixteen academic credits and that adds up to twelve, so are we voting on sixteen or on twelve.
Chair Browder: Twelve.
Dick Reddy: The question earlier made by Nan about the nature of weaponry on campus and whether there would be weaponry on campus. As in the proposal from St. Bonaventure it does say that rubber M-16 riffles are used in some training as our real M-16's for pre- marksmanship training. I am looking at the document itself and it is clear that they do pre-marksmanship training during the time that they are on campus. Real M-16's would in fact be a part of that process in training on campus.
President Hefner: Having been in the meeting and asked that specific question that will not be occurring here on this campus. There are some summer camps that students would be going to and it would be during the summer camps. There will be nothing other than the rubber M-16's that they would use for some drilling. It's in the contract.
Chair Browder: In other words there is no pre-marksmanship training in the 101-102, 201-202 courses which are on this campus?
President Hefner: Right.
Jan McVicker: I just have a question about space. It seems to me in the brief time that we've been looking at this proposal I remember something about a request for facilities on this campus. Can somebody tell me where this is going to be? Are they going to have a department office? Are they going to secretarial help?
Len Faulk: They have asked for an office and obviously the space for classes, which would be on Tuesdays, but not for secretarial help.
Jan McVicker: Is there any activity fee money from the student activity fees that would be directed toward this program?
Len Faulk: No, absolutely not.
Ken Lucey: I would like to ask the people arguing against this proposal to speak specifically to the twelve-hour internship analogy.
Ted Steinberg: We have had some experience in our department a number of years ago of people getting internships that turned out to be fairly worthless. They were sent for the coffee, donuts, and such. We changed out policy so that that wouldn't happen. We have made the internship, and I think this is true across campus, something that was intellectually as well as practically useful. I simply don't see that in this. I don't see that branches and organizations in the US Army, customs and traditions in the US Army, land navigation have any kind of academic respectability for which we would give college credit. If it were an extra-curricular activity, I suppose that's possible, but this is not material for college credit.
Nancy Gee: I'm just wondering if there is a deadline on the contract and given the amount of debate we consider running this by our faculty giving more opportunity for discussion.
Len Faulk: One of the issues is if we were to start in the Fall that it would have to be part of the course offerings and they are going to go out shortly.
Amin Sarkar: Regarding giving credits: We do give credits for learning the various branches of the US Government. We do give credit for learning the various rolls and performance done by various government officials, elected or un-elected. We do give credit for learning the various other aspects in non-military areas also. This would not be against those principles. They are part of the society and we give credit for many other topics and exercises that are not really academic in nature. This would be not very far from those kinds of exercises. Military focuses on organization, values, I think this would be a good thing for our community and students.
Jane Romal: Who's paying for this? Are we paying for them as adjuncts?
Len Faulk: Everything is provided by the military. Book, instructors...
Jane Romal: But I still haven't seen any real reason for them to come. Why we want this twenty students, who are nuts about the ROTC, in contrast to some other twenty students who are not. It seems like a lot of controversy for twenty students.
Dick Reddy: I think we need to have broader awareness on campus and broader discussion on campus on these issues. In light of the hour, I move that we table the motion.
The motion was table unanimously.
Jane Romal: I would like to see a forum for discussion.
Nan Bowser: Just because the decision is not made at this meeting does not mean that the courses cannot be offered in the fall.
Ruth Antosh: I'd just like a clarification. What has the Academic Affairs Committee's role been? Have we seen the syllabi?
Chair Browder: You have the syllabi right here.
7d. Amin Sakar: (Professional Service): No Report
7e. Jon Kraus (Long Range Budget and Planning): In view of the hours, I will defer the report.
7f. Cheryl Drout (GCP Committee): I would like to present a few announcements quickly. You have a list of additions to the GCP. There will be a curriculum workshop this summer. The committee is holding a GCP open forum for students to discuss GCP and education. The open forum is Monday March 15th from six to seven in G-123 in the Williams Center.
7g. Michael Dimitri (Student Affairs): Mark Miceli is our new chair and at our last meeting we discussed the extended hours of the library.
8. Chair Romal (New Business): I want to move that we have a forum to discuss ROTC.
President Hefner: It seems to me that this is the forum. I don't know what you're talking about with another forum. I did bring it up with the Student Cabinet and they thought it was a wonderful idea. You might be disappointed when you get all the students together to find out that most of the students say hey there's a chance for scholarship. This is the forum, I don't see taking any other program that you would come up with and running it through the Student Assembly before bringing it in here, I think that would be a very terrible precedent. You are the Forum. Don't abdicate your responsibility.
Chair Browder: I think the intent was a voter faculty forum was it not? And the request will anyone sponsor a forum?
Jane Romal: Yes.
Roger Colegrove: This information was given to us earlier. We could have shared this with all of our staff and faculty members. If they are interested or feel passionate about it they should be coming here. Even though it's five-thirty we're still sitting here to discuss it. If they're not going to come now, why should we set up another meeting time that we're all going to have to go to just so other people can attend? They should be coming here.
George Browder: I do not see a move to sponsor a forum. I assume you will take this back to your constituents for discussion before our next meeting
Dick Reddy: If there could be some sort of a question and answer sheet that would make it clearer what the program would look like. Just a clean statement of what this is that is currently being considered would be helpful.
George Browder: Would one copy to all departments and the library be sufficient? Can you do that Len?
Len Faulk: Sure.
8. The meeting was adjourned at 5:32PM
Attendance:
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[x] Susan Besemer
[ ] Carolyn Briggs
[x] Sylvia Clarke
[x] Robert Colegrove
[x] Mike Conley
[x] Vincent Courtney
[x] Charles Davis
[x] Marianne Eimer
[ ] James Jackson
[ ] Lisa Marrano
[ ] Gregory Prechtl (on leave)
[x] Carol Schwerk
[E] Joyce Smith
[x] Martha Smith
[x] Terry Tzitzis
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[x] Ruth Antosh
[ ] Patricia Corron
[x] Robert Deming
[x] Daniel Ihasz
[x] Scott Johnson
[x] Kenneth Lucey
[x] Jeanette McVicker
[x] Karen Mills-Courts
[ ] Malcolm Nelson
[E] Stephen Rees
[x] Theodore Steinberg
[x] Jackie Swansinger
Natural and Social Sciences:
[x] Seyed-Mahmoud Agazadeh
[x] Nancy Boynton
[x] Roger Byrne
[x] Michael Grady
[x] Lucy Kabza
[x] Jon Kraus
[x] Lawrence Maheady
[