Minutes of the meeting of May 10th 1999
Chair George Browder called the meeting to order at 4:05 PM.
1. A quorum was present and the Agenda was approved unanimously.
2. The minutes of the April 12th 1999 meeting were approved unanimously as amended.
3. Dr. Dennis L. Hefner (President's report):
I've got several items to bring before you today; several of which you probably have already head at least a little bit about. First, at the system level, I am pleased that at the most recent meeting of the Board of Trustees we had two of our faculty coming out for special honors. We had Ray Belliotti professor of Philosophy who was appointed a Distinguished Teaching Professor. We will be having a formal ceremony at the fall all-campus meeting. We also had Dr. Barbara Mallette from our School of Education who was a recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Those are both very good news items.
Also at the system level, the task force on general education, that was the task force that is composed of five presidents, five academic vice presidents, five representatives from the state-wide Faculty Senate and five student representatives, have prepared a draft report. A copy of the draft report came into the campus; we forwarded it to Cheryl Drought just the other day. This is not final; it hasn't gone to the board yet, so there is nothing to vote on. I would say that their report looks considerably better than the resolution had looked and they do have, I think, I fairly logical approach to handling it. This is still going to be going on over the next several months at the system level. I would assume, but I don't know for a fact, that it would be going to state-wide Faculty Senate for their review and endorsement. I know that that is the intention of the taskforce. Their recommendations look much closer to what the faculty senate report had indicated than to what the resolution was. There at least seems to be some movement in the right direction.
I did want to mention also that the Board of Trustees at their most recent meeting did support the awarding of an honorary doctorate of science to Robert Maytum. For those that know Mr. Maytum, he is, I think, a very deserving individual. For those that don't know him, he was the chief executive officer for Dunkirk and Fredonia Telephone for a number of years. He really did a number of pioneering ventures in the telecommunications area, here in western New York, and has been a very supportive individual for this campus. We've had nearly a hundred students that have been able to go to school here on this campus because of Maytum family scholarships that they have established through the years. We were very pleased that he will be awarded that honorary doctorate. We will be having that ceremony at commencement.
Summer construction isn't going to be quite as busy as we originally had thought. The architect that was working on the trenching job that was going to effect every single building did not do a very good job with the specifications. We did not accept their specifications and we did not go out to bid. We are having them redo the work. The water system will be fine for another year. It's getting near the end of its life, but it's not in a critical situation, and it's better to be safe than sorry; we want to make sure all connections would work. That particular project won't be occurring. All of the others will be going on this summer.
Good news, the Albanian Refugee Relief Fund raised twelve thousand dollars. Thank you to everyone that contributed and to those faculty and staff who came forward and volunteered their time to assist.
The legislature, as you've been reading in the paper, is gridlocked. There is virtually nothing happening at the moment. You have probably seen in the newspapers, it is quite likely that the legislature will adjourn by the middle of June and they will only come back once there is a budget compromise that has been reached. It will mean that we won't know with complete certainty what our budget is for next year. We do know that we get to keep the tuition money, and tuition is by far the largest part of our budget as compared to the paltry amount of money that the state provides for this institution. Anyway, we will continue going forward with the budget book that has gone out. We think that's a good estimate of where we will end up.
I hope everybody will have a chance to attend commencement. Mary MacDonald will be our commencement speaker. She is very excited about coming back to her Alma matter, and making the presentation. I think she is going to do a wonderful job for us as a speaker.
On another, more personal, level I wanted to let you know that I became a grandfather a couple of weeks ago. I am very excited; it's a granddaughter: Jennifer Elizabeth Hefner. Nine pounds three ounces, my poor daughter in law, and twenty-one and a half inches long. Everybody's doing fine, I've even been out to see her and hold her, and I'm very excited. It's nice to be in another stage of my life.
Last but not least, I did want to remind everyone that this is the day that I have a reception for Faculty Council. As in the past I've invited chairs and also for this reception, have invited all of the members of the taskforces that worked on the Middle States project of assessment. I think they have done an absolutely sterling job. I've had a chance to see the drafts of each of the chapters. The full drafts are going to be distributed in late August for hearings. I think you are going to be tremendously impressed in the work and the thought that has gone into this particular document. I think it's going to make you feel very proud. It has been a great campus-wide effort and I think the results are going to be outstanding.
With that, I just might finish by saying I think it has been a very good year. I know that everybody is looking a little tired. I'm feeling a little tired and that's because we got so much done, but I think it's been an outstanding year, and I've really enjoyed it. I think it is coming to a good conclusion, have a good summer and we'll see y'all next fall.
4a. Una Mae Reck (Vice President, Academic Affairs):
First of all, I'd like take back what Dr. Hefner said, it's been a great year, my first year, very exciting. This weekend I threw the cane away, so I'm on my own. What you have before you, I hope you did pick up an Academic Master Plan. This is a plan process that the Deans, the Associate Vice president and myself have been working on starting last fall. There was an academic planing package that went out to department chairs with worksheets in terms of developing the academic master plans. In that package also went out documents concerning the annual report and also the five-year program review.
I'm presenting this today for a first reading. We see this as a draft as it says at the top. There is still time for discussion during summer months, and at the first Faculty Council meeting in the fall we will bring this back on the agenda for a final reading. What you have here in the left hand columns are existing degree programs. Then you see in the middle column new degree proposals; the next column is the objective and the mission of those new programs. Then you have an external review schedule for all the programs. This is a five-year plan. It will come before this body every year at this time to be projected out into the future with revisions for five years into the future. What this means then, is that if a new degree program is still on the master plan after the final reading in September that gives that particular department a mission plan. That new proposal would still have to go through the governance process on this campus to be approved.
Ken Mantai: What is NCATE...
Una Mae Reck: We have just put NCATE in here, we don't know the date, and we don't know anything more right now. If you see NCATE, or any other like ASHA or whatever, in the external review schedule that means that is taking the place of our external review on the campus. Those programs do not get reviewed twice. Also you will see under implementation date, some have an asterisk or two asterisks, those are pending regents requirements or state certification, so that could change once we have the final information from the regents.
Dick Reddy: I had an opportunity to see this before in the Long-Range Planning and Budget Committee meeting. At that time, I wasn't aware of it, but I assume that there are major differences in degrees of departmental involvement and departmental commitment to these proposals. I know in the case of one department that the chair was unaware of the proposal and only one faculty member in the department was aware of the proposal. I would hope that more involvement was involved in at least some of the other proposals if not all of the other proposals.
Una Mae Reck: I've talked with the deans to make sure that the department chairs are aware and they have assured me they've gone back to departments. That's also why we're also having a first reading, so that we are all aware.
Jon Kraus: The new degree invitation year, is that set for the initiation of the catalog?
Una Mae Reck: We have taken that into consideration.
Jon Kraus: So even if we have a miner in place it would not be implemented until the catalog appears?
Una Mae Reck: We are trying to stick with the catalogue.
5. Chair Browder:
If I ask Mae to not report on the Distance Learning Advisory Committee; I'll explain that in a second. First, let me apologize please for some of the errors in this. Our effort to get this material to you early enough so you could try to digest it was a bit too hasty and there are a few problems. I will explain them to you very briefly so it will facilitate things as we move through them. The Motion from Academic Affairs number three, on the back of the first addendum, is also being withdrawn for the same reason. The change to the bylaws on the backside of that has some wording errors. I believe there is a new copy available on the table. The copy you picked up from the table is the correct wording however there are no substantive changes. These are just simple technical wording differences in order to make sure that this committee functions smoothly. As for the remainder of the handout, which consists of the GCP Committee report beginning on page nine, it should read, "appendix". The report itself that you are being asked to accept and support is only pages one through eight. The rest of the appendix material is informational, only to guide the discussion in the future and to bring everyone up to date. I believe all of this is going to be distributed to the entire faculty eventually in complete form.
On the Distance Learning Advisory Committee we have a problem. We want to adhere to the spirit of the motions that have come forward or that were to have come forward, that these courses will be handled like any other courses on the campus, but there are problems. This program was implemented on a kind of an ad hoc basis a year ago this semester. The administration, which implemented the program in good faith as a trial or experimental course basis, departed and has been rapidly replaced by two other administrations. The result being that there was no proper follow through and that these courses have never been properly approved. We also have a further problem of whatever differentiation needs to be made between incoming courses verses courses that we broadcast and there are a lot of technical problems there.
This is not unique to us; it seems like every school in the SUNY system has done something equally messy with this effort. Probably because of everyone's sincere effort to get the funding for these distance learning classrooms that was available two or three years ago. We initiated this whole inquiry as a result of a red flag that came down from the SUNY Council of Governance leaders. That's what brought it to my attention and I then brought it to the attention of the administration and everybody is trying to get this straightened out now. I would commend everybody for their sincere efforts. We will be studying this in detail next week and consequently will have proper motions before council the first meeting in the fall to get this straightened out, presuming that it's not a Freudian knot, which it may very well be. We'll do the best we can and have something for you then. Are there any questions?
6. Moj Seyedian (Faculty Senate):
The Senate had a meeting on April 22 through 24 in SUNY Albany. Since I've been giving you detailed written reports before and since, not much has happened since the prior meeting, so today I'll just give you a quick oral report.
The most important thing that happened in the meeting of April was the passage of the, so-called, no confidence resolution. That is the resolution about not having confidence in the Board of Trustees. It was passed overwhelmingly, only two votes were cast against it. One of which was cast by the Administrative Liaison to the Senate, and the other one was one senator from Stony Brook.
Latter on another resolution was passed by the Senate, again overwhelmingly. The resolution was to have the Executive Committee of the Senate approach the American Association of University Professors to mount an investigation into the behavior of the Board of Trustees over their last three or four years. To see if their behavior was acceptable through governance practice as defined by the AAP and if it is not then AUP would issue a reprimand to do something.
Then we had vice chancellor Brian Stanson, who basically went over his document. It is on student fees across the SUNY system. It's a good account of all various student fees that are levied to students. I'm going to put this all on reserve in the library for anybody who wants to look at it.
We also had a representative from AAUP (American Association of University Professors) present at the Senate meeting. They gave us a good talk on shared governance in American public higher education, which was received very well by all the senators.
There was a committee report from the Operations Committee; they had done an excellent report in terms of full time and part time faculty utilization in SUNY. It showed a trend from 1980 to 1997. I'll put it on reserve for anyone who is interested. That's my report.
Ken Lucy: Can you say more about the average utilization?
Moj Seyedian: No.
Dick Reddy: I haven't seen that report, but it varies enormously depending upon the nature of the institution. Some campuses, even among the four-year colleges have very low levels of part-time utilization; others have considerably higher levels. There are, at this point, in the range of ten SUNY campuses that have a majority of academic instruction by part time persons. They are found far more among the four-year colleges than among the university centers. University centers rely on people that don't show up in the statistics; they rely on graduate students. I don't know whether they've used graduate students in that data, but if you take a look in terms of members of our bargaining unit they are not members of our bargaining unit so they don't show up there. In other institutions, for example, the University Hospitals and Science Centers use very small numbers overall of part-timers. They rely very heavily on full-time people.
7a. Cheryl Drout (GCP Committee):
On April 26th the GCP Committee unanimously decided to forward the GCP progress report to you, and also a proposal that is included with that progress report. The committee has undertaken a great deal of operations over the past several semesters. We were engaged in departmental consultations last spring. We deliberated intensely as a subcommittee this past fall and then deliberated significantly as a full committee this spring. The feeling is that the timeline that's identified in the progress report, in the first eight pages of that report, is a timeline that would be effective for the campus.
What we are asking is for Faculty Council to endorse that timeline for continued campus-wide discussion of general education. For attempting to identify a consensus on exactly what changes the campus wants to make in the GCP. That is essentially, what we are asking you to endorse in the proposal we have before you. There is also in the report a general education core concept. That is being presented for discussion throughout next year, but we are not asking Faculty Council members to endorse that model, it's just presented for discussion and is a focal point for campus-wide discussion. What we are asking is for the administration to provide support for meetings to be held throughout next year. Workshops to be held on campus. For sending faculty to summer institutes next summer. This is the type of thing that we are asking support for, the campus discussion and our aim to achieve a consensus by December 2000.
Jane Romal: I think that we should have some kind of idea how this impacts on lines. If you're asking us to support certain things or not support certain things. There are a lot of initiatives that departments have taken to attract students and I think have held the college in its turnaround of attracting students. If we suddenly loose support for that because we had to put a lot of lines in a given department, people might react differently to it than if it didn't have a line allocation as a result.
Cheryl Drout: It sounds like you're talking about the impact of the specific model that would be done for December 2000.
Jane Romal: Yes, but in the long run, I don't see how we can discuss them at all if we don't have that in our minds. There are bottom lines here, so something sounds great to do and we all agree with it in theory...
Cheryl Drout: I think that can be part of our campus-wide discussions. As we talk about models, for example, the model here we could attach that kind of detailed information. I don't think that needs to be part of our discussion of the timeline.
Jane Romal: No, but we need to know it when we are discussing it.
Michael Grady: Part of the process in the first nine pages seems to indicate exceptions of some of the details. Holding a summer workshop to develop a freshmen seminar class seems to indicate acceptance of the idea of a freshmen seminar class. Holding a workshop among the science faculty to develop an interdisciplinary course makes it sound as if the students are going to be made to have one.
Cheryl Drout: I think what we're saying is that, whatever we agree on as a core concept, we are going to need support from the administration to develop those things. I think we have to ask for that in advance. I don't think we can be asking for that at the last minute, for example, developing freshmen seminar in a given direction. I think we can say that that's something that we want to be working on and that the faculty can still reach agreement on exactly what we're going to do with freshmen seminar and what's proposed here is one idea. It's still going to be under discussion. I see your point, but I don't think endorsing the timeline and the request for support from the administration has to mean that you're endorsing any of the specific proposals.
Chair Browder: The workshops are to determine if these things can and should be implemented, not to implement them.
Jon Kraus: Except the workshops your proposing are on the things you're proposing and it's implicit therefore that our support for your process involves some degree of support for what it is you are proposing.
Cheryl Drout: I think to a degree that's true. I think you can certainly support a discussion of all the faculty as to whether the faculty want to have, for example, more interdisciplinary science courses, or not. We need funds to bring in speakers and hold workshops to talk about these things for the faculty to even decide whether they want that or not. We are asking you to support that process without making a specific decision about whether the courses we have in our math and science area will or won't be interdisciplinary.
Dick Reddy: Perhaps another way of putting it then Cheryl is that there are really three elements that are involved here. The first is a proposal that we go forward in some fashion. The specifics that are indicated in the first seven or eight pages or so are essentially indicators of how that might go, they are examples but are subject to a good deal of change. Then the final portion in the appendix, which is really a suggestion also of some things that might be considered. The only thing that we are really approving per se is the "let's go forward" proposal.
Cheryl Drout: Right, I think one of the things we are responding to is a timeline that, at least in part, has come from the Board of Trustees that's suggesting that the campus should be reviewing its general education program. Initially with a quicker timeline than what we are proposing. As we are going through that process and examining those recommendations it makes sense for the campus itself to make its decision about where we would like to be headed in general education.
Jon Kraus: It looks like there is a lot of work, which has gone into this. It seems to me that there are two ideas. One of the points that you are suggesting is that we need to do GCP better. The other things in this however, you're suggesting things that we need to do that are substantially different, and I was wondering what your rational for a couple of the thoughts were. Although you say it's an appendix, implicit is what you have here, what you're targeting for the forty hours. Two things, which are somewhat interesting, contrast to what we had prior to the adoption of GCP all those many years ago. One is, you are removing the requirement that students have to take at least two three hundred level courses outside their major, which part three had and which is nowhere here. The other thing that's eliminated is requirements for international courses and a substituted emphasis in interdisciplinary courses. I was wondering what your rational for that substitution was.
Cheryl Drout: I disagree with your interpretation in that we foresaw some of these courses, like Culture Society and Self, as three hundred level courses and so we still imagined six credits of three or four hundred level courses. We also didn't see the international focus as removed in that we saw Culture Society and Self potentially introducing a culturally oriented role in the curriculum.
Michael Grady: I still don't quite understand why the appendix is here at all if it's not part of the report. If we vote to accept the report, are we voting to accept the appendix or are we not voting to accept the appendix?
Cheryl Drout: I don't think you're voting to accept the appendix. One of the things the committee was asked to do was share some ideas and models. Just for informational purposes, we are sharing with Faculty Council some of the things we've been looking at.
Chair Browder: If you're concerned about this we maybe should move to getting a motion on the floor. If someone would like to move the motion, that is, with the committee report, then we could modify or amend it in any way that makes people more comfortable.
Jane Romal: Standing committee reports are motions on the floor.
Chair Browder: Ok, thank you. Then if you feel concerned with the wording of the motion you may propose an amendment.
Michael Grady: I propose an amendment that the appendix to the report is not part of the proposal.
Nancy Gee: The appendix is not mentioned in the proposed motion.
Michael Grady: Maybe it's not, but this would make it clear.
Chair Browder: You want that inserted after the first sentence?
Dick Reddy: Just as clarification. The report has several components in it. Maybe Cheryl can help us with this. It looks to me as if the report could be construed as being the first page and then there is a progress report, which goes on for a number of pages, and then there is an appendix. There is a question about what approval of the report means. Is it endorsement of the cover page, which concludes the proposed motion, or is it endorsement of the progress report, which may be either one thing or may be one thing plus the appendix?
Cheryl Drout: The committee intended it to be the progress report, pages one through eight.
Chair Browder: So it someone would so move that, we could clarify this by saying, "the April 1999 progress report."
Dick Reddy: That would mean that the appendix is not a part of it, which would make it unnecessary to deal with that motion if that's what you're intending to do.
The proposed motion was amended to read, "the Faculty Council endorses the April 1999 progress report of the General Education subcommittee..." by a unanimous vote.
A question was called and approved by a unanimous vote.
The motion was approved by a majority vote with one opposition.
Ken Lucey: A question was asked before and an answer was not available, may I proffer an answer?
Chair Browder: All right.
Ken Lucey: The percentage of full-time faculty within SUNY in 1992 was 72.2%, in 1997 that had dropped to 67.8%. During the same period in 1992, the percentage at Fredonia was 77.75%, five percent higher than the average and now in 1997 according to this report it's 62%, five percent below the SUNY average. So from 1992 to 1997 the percentage of full time faculty dropped by 15%, not a mark of excellence.
7b. Idalia Torres (Governance Committee):
We have some of the proposed amendments to the bylaws. The motion is on the floor if you have any discussion. The first amendment would be the change of the name of Faculty Council to College Senate. That all references in the bylaws to Faculty Council be changed to College Senate and any references to any of its members be changed to senators.
Chair Browder: By the way, after we've gone through this I will ask your approval. We will also submit any approved amendments to the full faculty meeting at the beginning of the next academic year, rather than going through the expense and mess of the mail ballot.
Dick Reddy: We would need a full faculty meeting in order to do that. We usually have all college meetings, which are different.
Chair Browder: Is it not possible to split the house for that purpose?
Dick Reddy: My guess is that you'd have to have a separate meeting so that only voting faculty would be there to discuss and vote on it.
Chair Browder: Would it then be possible to adjourn the full meeting and ask the faculty to stay for such a vote? We will take that procedure rather than the mail ballot, which generally tends to be problematic.
Any discussion of the change of name motion?
The proposed name change was approved by a unanimous vote.
Idalia Torres: The second motion is that all references to Graduate Committee now be refered to by its former name of the body.
Minda Rae Amiran: What was the reason.
Chair Browder: Graduate council was changed to committee because we had the old name of College Council and it became a subordinate body of the College Council. Now we can reestablish the preferred name.
The proposed motion was approved by a unanimous vote.
Idalia Torres: The third motion, article 4 section 2E defining ex-officio members of the council, be changed to read ex-officio, non voting. This constitutes not a change in bylaws, but merely specifies clearly the existing status of ex-officio members.
The proposed motion was approved by a unanimous vote.
Idalia Torres: The fourth motion, article 5 section 3A-1 be changed to read, "This Committee shall have three representatives elected by and from each of the areas represented in the Governance Committee."
Chair Browder: As a point of clarification, members of the Graduate Committee must serve as liaison on to all the other standing committees in order to provide coordination. They are overextended so they are asking to enlarge the committee in order to have an adequate number of liaison people.
Dick Reddy: This refers to the Graduate Council then?
Idalia Torres: No.
Chair Browder: This is an addition that was available at the door, I'm sorry I forgot to announce that.
The proposed motion was approved by a unanimous vote.
Idalia Torres: After that it's the result of the Standing Committee elections. For the GCP committee, Jeremy Smith from music was elected. For the Natural and Social Sciences and Professional Studies, Tim Overbeck of speech pathology was elected. For Professional and Management Confidential, Mark Wilcox from speech pathology was elected. For the Governance Committee, James Shokoff from English was elected. For Professional Management Confidential, Idalia Torres was re-elected. For the Professional Service Committee, Susan Royal from Music was elected. For the Student Affairs Committee, Jeremy Smith from Music was elected. For two seats, Vivian Conover from advising and Melinda Karnes from Education.
Chair Browder: The last bylaw amendment will be proposed by David Ludlam from the Academic Affairs Committee.
7c. David Ludlam (Academic Affairs):
I believe this was in your red packet. We had four proposals from Academic Affairs. One has been withdrawn; we will take the second proposal first, which is the change in the status of Professional Education Council to become a standing committee of Faculty Council.
Chair Browder: This committee is required in order to meet external accreditation standards.
David Ludlam: Correct.
Dick Reddy: Just a clarification as to why this is mandated. This is it mandated by whom, for what purpose.
David Ludlam: NCATE requires some sort of faculty review process as a part of its accreditation program. It exists also in other SUNY schools, so it's not just an NCATE requirement. It's something that most of them have. Its main purpose is for coordination. It could do some things that Academic Committee could not do because we don't have representation across campus; there are only five of us. If something comes up that history needs to be involved in, for example, the history department is on that committee.
Chair Browder: It's also required that this body be subordinated to the campus governance.
Dick Reddy: Just a clarification about its name. There are two different names here. Is the name that you're going with the name that's on the handout as opposed to the in the proposal? Is it Professional Education Council for Teacher Education.
Chair Browder: That is the full name yes.
Minda Rae Amiran: So if it proposes a program, that proposal would go first to Academic Affairs and then to Faculty Council.
David Ludlam: Yes, its location in the flow is below Academic Affairs and Academic Affairs then brings it to council.
Roger Byrne: Who actually appoints the school superintendent?
Chair Browder: The rewording clarified that, I believe; did it not. It was supposed to have. I think it's supposed to be appointed by the director. Is that not clarified in the rewording?
Roger Byrne: It just says that the school superintendent would be appointed for a two-year term by the respective department chair or director.
Chair Browder: It should be the Director of the School of Education. We'll get that clarified before the motion is submitted to faculty, thank you.
The proposed motion was approved by a unanimous vote.
David Ludlam: Let's go back to the first proposal from the committee, which was the one from the English Department. The English Department is asking for an exemption from the college's forty-five hour rule, which I believe in actuality, is the seventy-five hour rule.
Jane Romal: I'm surprised that other departments don't feel the same way. We heard biology say that they don't have enough courses in areas and other things. It surprised me that we're addressing this is an overall solution.
Jon Kraus: Will Academic Affairs Committee be equally supportive if departments come to them to exempt their methodology courses and their world presentation courses and such from the forty-five hours?
David Ludlam: I can't speak for the committee; I think we understood the need here for it. I hope that when the Professional Education Council is in place that this is something that they will address. There are problems across campus with this. English happens to be the one that has come to us first. I was surprised, just as Jane had said that we haven't heard this from other people also.
Jon Kraus: As a follow up, how many of these courses are brand new verses how many have already been part of the established curriculum?
David Ludlam: All of them are part of the established curriculum. Only Literacy and Technology has been added last year.
Jane Romal: By whom? This college, or is this the kind of curriculum that the state requires.
Robert Deming: This is a department requirement. These courses are appropriately offered interdisciplinary.
David Ludlam: If this were elementary education, for example, our methods courses and then we have a concentration which is almost the equivalent of a major in some cases would add up to many course credits. That's why we understood the problem in the English department. They are limited by the seventy-five hour rule; the sixty-six hour rule would make their life a lot easier. We made the suggestion in committee that the English Department offer a BS in English, but I don't think they really liked that idea. We are trying to come up with a solution to it. This was our first solution. If you do not find that this one is satisfactory, we'll have to go back to the drawing board and see what we can come up with.
Jane Romal: Sixty-six would still not be as many as they are asking.
Minda Rae Amiran: That isn't the point at all. The point of it is that often students who have completed our core and taken the ed. requirements go to high schools where they are required to teach literature that they don't know and haven't studied. It's looking for flexibility for a course or so.
Dick Reddy: I'm not clear, as to what the circumstances are. The situation is coming up here because five courses are currently being offered by the English Department as methods courses for students who are in their secondary education program. Are their other BA departments offering these programs? History comes to mind as a possibility. They are teaching their methods courses; is there an analogous situation there that is effecting them? It's informational, but I think it's important for us to understand what the circumstances are.
Jackie Swansinger: We don't have as many methods courses in history. One of the discussions in our department that is going on is how can we go about increasing some the methodology without sacrificing content and we've been debating that for quite a while, trying to make a proper combination. We would very much like to make sure that the content is solid, yet at the same time be meeting our responsibility for methodology. This is something that we will probably bring up again next year.
George Browder: In Social Studies, and I think in every other program, all the methods courses are listed as education. Therefore, they fall under the thirty-hour education requirement as opposed to the concentration or major and the discipline being taught.
Jane Romal: Why doesn't English do that? If they take thirty other hours plus this fifteen, so they are in effect getting forty-five hours of education courses. In history, they are taking thirty hours of education including their methods courses in English. So it means to be an English teacher you're taking thirty hours of education in some other thing, what, running a VCR? How many education hours do they get?
Minda Rae Amiran: They take nine hours of education courses plus fifteen hours of student teaching plus an additional methods course, so they have fifteen plus twelve hours of education.
Jane Romal: But in history they are all included in the...
Minda Rae Amiran: We have one substitute course. In other words, education allows us to substitute one of our courses for a course of theirs that would otherwise be required.
Jane Romal: So that would get us down to four special courses then.
Bob Deming: To clarify further, ED419, is a methods course in secondary English. It is an ED course but it is taught by English faculty. In addition to these five courses, the English major has to take thirty-six total hours including these and the required sequence in education, except for Multi-Cultural Education, which is satisfied by taking two of these, plus methods and student teaching.
Dick Reddy: One more clarification, based on some comments that Minda Rae made a couple of minutes ago, the idea was that this was to free up students to take one additional course or perhaps two additional courses. If that's the case, why are we exempting fifteen hours as opposed to three or six? I just don't understand that.
Minda Rae Amiran: It's to allow flexibility.
Robert Deming: The problem now is, by the time our secondary students take the thirty-six hours in English required for the major and the required courses in education, including methods and student teaching, they have only three electives. That's too few electives, this would allow them to take additional electives and allow them to be better prepared to do what they are being trained for. But they cannot exceed the forty-five-credit time.
Nan Bowser: As a point of clarification, history is not similar to social studies secondary education which is interdisciplinary to the extent that this problem has not come up in other disciplines. Someone asked if this is something that we would be likely to encounter elsewhere. I don't see it happening anywhere else.
Chair Browder: Not at this point.
Robert Deming: You're discussing the problem that requiring additional pedagogy courses similar to these would create a diminishing number of content courses. I don't believe any other secondary program has had this problem.
Nan Bowser: And it wouldn't, because social studies is interdisciplinary in nature. There is no one department that would be excluded form the seventy-five-hour rule.
Jane Romal: Yes, I understand that, but I also understand that evidently people who are majoring in English are having a lot more courses, whether they are called ED or not than other disciplines. If you add the ones that are required as ED plus these fifteen in English then that means that a major part of what they take here is these education courses rather than these other things.
Jackie Swansinger: I'm told that this is a point of clarification, but I'm not entirely sure anymore. I think we do need to consider the fact that teaching: a degree that involves both a major and teaching, is a professional program and so therefore, in many ways your credits increase. There is no way around that. I think in some ways the intent here is to try and maintain some quality of the liberal arts major. It allows the concentration in content and, at the same time, to have enough of the professional courses so that those people who graduate from here are able to do both of their responsibilities. That's a part of this.
Dick Reddy: In light of what I believe I've heard I'd like to make an amendment to this motion that it would essentially mean that two courses from this list of five courses would be exempted from the forty-five hour major requirement. That would provide for students to be able to take additional electives, but it would not be saying they could take an additional five courses.
The amendment was seconded.
Ted Steinberg: That amendment rises out of a misunderstanding of what's going on here. Students are taking a program in pedagogical avenues. They then go to schools and teach literature; they need the full major in literature, which they are not able to get because of these pedagogical courses. The proposal exists to allow them to take pedagogical courses and get a full major in English so that they will be prepared to go into the schools and teach the literature that they are expected to each. Your amendment would limit that unnecessarily. There is no good reason to do it, and there are lots of good reasons not to.
Scott Johnson: I also wanted to say that these five pedagogical courses don't have to be replaced with English courses. We're not saying automatically that we're going to add five new English courses; we're not adding anything else. We are not replacing these with other English requirements, so they may or may not take other English courses.
Jane Romal: Well then, it doesn't solve your problem.
Scott Johnson: We had to do that for transfer students, because transfer students come in and only have two years. If we all of a sudden essentially add five more courses they will never be able to get through in four years, and I don't think we're prepared at this point to make it a five-year program.
Jan McVicker: This would allow students instead of only being able to take one American Literature Survey course they could take another American Literature Course, so when they go into the classroom they actually have some knowledge. This would expand their options.
Scott Johnson: One other point I wanted to make is that with the new Regents requirements coming up, and the report I left over on the table, it's become very clear by a number of organizations that our pre-service teachers are expected to have more content areas. However, we can't give up teaching courses, pedagogical courses. We can't sacrifice how to with what to.
Jane Romal: I just think there are lots of very good teachers at this college who have never had any education courses. I went through that kind of program, and I don't think it makes any difference. I don't think people should be taking so many education courses, yet that's what we are committing them to do.
Dick Reddy: I recommend that we table this motion at this point in order to be able to get more information about what is taking place. There seems to be a good deal of misunderstanding about what the proposed structure of the major program is and whatthe need for the motion is.
Karen Mills-Courts: I think Jane Romal's point that many fine teachers on the college campus have not had education is correct, but I don't know how many have had any experience in high schools. It's a very very different place than we live in here, perhaps even your news in the last few weeks might have shown that. People leaving here to teach in any high school, not just inner-city high schools where they have some problems need a good deal of training in methodology. That methodology takes many different kinds of approaches. It's not simply how do you teach a course. The methodology is how you teach students and how you teach the diversity and difficulty of the students that are now in our high schools. That's a very complicated process.
Michael Grady: I just have a question. We have one person from English that said that no one would ever take more than two classes.
Minda Rae Amiran: Nobody said that. I certainly didn't say that.
Michael Grady: Well that's what spurred the amendment.
Minda Rae Amiran: I certainly didn't say that, I said it would probably allow many students to take one or more courses that they weren't going to take five more courses because that wouldn't fit their program.
Michael Grady: My question is would anybody take five more courses. If not, then why ask for five.
Minda Rae Amiran: It would not be very reasonable to foreclose the possibility. I don't think it's very likely, but who am I to say.
George Browder: There is a forty-five hour limit on the discipline and this just simply opens up the possibility for the student to take all of those hours in English content courses. That's all, it doesn't expand the forty-five hour limit in any way.
Jon Kraus: I'm sure there is nobody here that does not want out student who teach in high schools to be well prepared. The core of the problem comes down to, not necessarily for the same reasons, that other majors may think in order to make their students more proficient at whatever they do, they might wish that their major was a substantially larger number of hours. It is a big increase. I certainly would be a supporter of a slightly smaller increase, but you're setting a big precedent. I understand your rational, it's very understandable, but it is a significant precedent.
Bob Deming: I urge you to defeat the amendment for this reason. If you look at the rational, the first statement of the rational, "secondary education students are allowed to choose four elective courses in the thirty-six hour major or seven elective courses if they take the full forty-five hours. What this does is let them take more relevant important and useful content courses and exceed the forty-five hours. This motion can only improve the quality of the secondary education students.
The amendment to the motion was defeated by a majority vote.
A motion to table the motion was defeated by a majority vote.
A question was called and approved by a majority vote with one decent.
The motion was approved by a majority vote with one decent.
David Ludlam: Currently we have a W, WP, WE, WX for withdrawal form a course. Withdrawal with no finding is WX. Withdrawal passing is WP. Withdrawal Failing is WE. Withdrawal from college is W. What the committee is proposing, with Nan's suggestion, is to simplify the process: that we have W for withdrawal from college and WC for withdrawal from course. We wanted to actually do it the other way around, but Nan said that that would be confusing because W in other places means withdrawal from college. Nan has statistics on this.
Nan Bowser: Last academic year, fall ninety-seven and ninety-eight. In fall ninety-seven there were four hundred and ninety withdrawal grades. Thirty-eight of those were WE, I think that's like eight percent. In spring of ninety-eight the total number of withdrawals was six hundred and sixty five of which seventy-nine were WE with a percentage of about twelve percent.
I think our main concern in the registrars office has to do with not adding withdrawal grades on and being placed in a position of having to call faculty, as we try to do, while the student is before us. More often, the student has to ask the faculty member to secure a grade. The students plague the registrars' office for this. It is becoming an increasingly difficult thing for us to do. Since there is no punitive quality point change associated with the WE, we just question why there is the assignment of grades. We've looked at mid-semester grades to see if there is any correlation between grades that are signed on the withdrawal form, there doesn't appear to be any. We'll continue to do it if that's what you want to do. In that case, I would ask you, if the student comes to our office without a grade assigned, could we then put in a WX and not send the student back to you. The assumption being that if the faculty member doesn't want to assess a grade, let us put in a WX. That's the only alternative I can see.
David Ludlam: We have two possibilities. We can go with what the committee is proposing. If you don't like that, someone could possibly amend it to do Nan's amendment. The committee is proposing that we go with just a W and a WC.
Dick Reddy: In practice, there will be a withdrawal form. It will simply be that form. No grade will be put on it. The instructor will sign; the advisor will sign. You're office will put down WC.
Nan Bowser: Right.
The motion was passed unanimously.
9. The meeting was adjourned at 5:xxPM
Attendance:
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[x] Susan Besemer
[x] Carolyn Briggs
[x] Sylvia Clarke
[x] Robert Colegrove
[x] Mike Conley
[x] Vincent Courtney
[x] Charles Davis
[x] Marianne Eimer
[ ] James Jackson
[x] Lisa Marrano
[ ] Gregory Prechtl (on leave)
[x] Carol Schwerk
[E] Joyce Smith
[x] Martha Smith
[x] Terry Tzitzis
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[ ] Ruth Antosh
[ ] Patricia Corron
[E] Robert Deming
[ ] Daniel Ihasz
[x] Scott Johnson
[x] Kenneth Lucey
[x] Jeanette McVicker
[x] Karen Mills-Courts
[x] Malcolm Nelson
[E] Stephen Rees
[x] Theodore Steinberg
[x] Jackie Swansinger
Natural and Social Sciences:
[ ] Seyed-Mahmoud Agazadeh
[E] Nancy Boynton
[x] Roger Byrne
[x] Michael Grady
[ ] Lucy Kabza
[x] Jon Kraus
[E] Lawrence Maheady
[x] Kenneth Mantai
[x] Dick Reddy
[x] Jane Romal
[ ] Amin Sarkar
[x] Cynthia Smith
[x] Richard Weist
Student Members:
[ ] Jennifer Farnham (SA President)
[ ] Jason Enser, proxy, (VP, SA)
[ ] Annette Sophia, Senior Rep.
[ ] (vacant), Junior Rep.
[x] Pam Wright, Sophomore Rep.
[ ] (vacant), Freshman Rep.
[ ] Todd Catalano, Graduate Rep.
Ex. Officio Member:
[x] Dennis Hefner (President)
[x] Tracy Bennett (VP, Admin.)
[x] Jean Malinoski (VP, Development)
[ ] Michael Dmitri (VP, Student Affairs)
[x] Una Mae Reck (VP, Academic Affairs)
[x] Len Faulk (Associate VP, Academic Affairs)
[x] Paul Schwartz (Dean, Arts & Humanities)
[x] Stephen Stahl (Dean, NSS & PS)
[x] George Browder (Chair, Faculty Council)
[x] Nancy Gee (Council Vice-Chair)
[x] Patrick Rocheleau (Council Secretary)
[x] Idalia Torres (Governance Chair)
[x] Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senator)
[ ] Jefferson Westwood (Parliamentarian)
Guests:
Minda Rae Amiran
Cheryl E. Drout
David Ludlam
Marjorie Maconey Plaister