College Senate
Minutes of the meeting of November 8th 1999
Chair George Browder called the meeting to order at 4:01 PM.
1. A quorum was present and the Agenda was approved unanimously as amended.
2. The minutes of the October 11th 1999 meeting were approved unanimously as corrected.
3. Dr. Una Mae Reck (VP, Academic Affairs):
I just basically have two things to talk about. I think attached to your minutes there is a memo regarding the student evaluation of faculty. Last time I told you we would be moving forward with this. An ad-hoc committee has been established.
You can pick up a copy of this, which I am doing for Tracey Bennett in his absence on the recycling issue. It's a status report. You'll see a little bit of information here about what we are doing on our campus. This is a report; it says, "is recycling happening at Fredonia?" Yes it is. "Can we do better?" Yes we can. They're asking for your help and the students help to make it better. These are some of the statistics that have been learned. Executive order 142 requires an annual report to be submitted to the Department of the Environment and Conservation. The 1998-99 results are there. Our total tonnage was 358.4 tons; a comparison here is with SUNY Albany: 652.9 tons. We are less than half the size of Albany, but we recycled more than half as much as Albany did. We look at another area, in terms of purchasing recycled products, Fredonia compares very favorably across the system, and you see a comparison of Fredonia with Potsdam, Brockport and Albany. We are in line with other four-year campuses looking at recycling of glass, metal, and motor oil, but we need to improve in the area of paper. Albany recycles 56.5lbs./FTE while we are at 35.8lbs./FTE.
Our re-implementation program will be, and you can see there are five points that are outlined. The student group Project Environment will work with us to raise awareness. There will be labeled white barrels to hold paper, they will be in each academic building at the loading dock. In addition special carts holding receptacles marked for paper, plastic, and glass will be in specific areas inside all college buildings. We will continue to work with Residence Life and their existing recycling program and we will distribute current recycling information campus-wide. If you are interesting in joining in this effort, you are asked to contact Sylvia Clarke, or Jackie Grant. I'm doing this on behalf of Tracey Bennett. If you have questions I don't know if I can answer them. I could certainly forward them to her. Are there any questions about either of the topics?
Dick Reddy: Will the ad-hoc committee make the recommendations to you? After those recommendations are made, are they going to come in some fashion through the governance process?
Dr. Reck: Yes.
Chair Browder: We have your attachment on the student evaluation of faculty teaching. Is there anything more?
Dr. Reck: That was the first thing I talked about. Are there any further questions?
4. Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senate):
I refer everyone to my written report. I have nothing more to add to the report.
5. Chair Browder (Chairperson's Report):
The first item on the agenda is the election of the officers which was supposed to have been done last month but as I explained then we have overwhelming mechanical problems that prevent the elections from occurring before November. We'll have to adjust the by-laws accordingly.
The Executive Committee has made nominations for chair, vice-chair, and College Senate Secretary. One person is willing to serve as chair and that is Nancy Gee, currently vice-chair. Once person is willing to serve as vice-chair and that is Arlene Hibschweiler. We have two people willing to serve for College Senate Secretary, Patrick Rocheleau and Richard Reddy. The election for College Senate Secretary will be conducted by mail ballot according to the by-laws at the same time as we have other elections on senate and committees during this month.
The election for the two officers: chair and vice-chair are supposed to occur here by the Senate at this meeting. Technically it's supposed to be a written ballot, but unless there are other nominations from the floor... are there any please for chair or vice-chair? There being none, we can simply have a vote of affirmation without a written ballot. Do I hear a motion please?
The chair and vice-chair were elected unanimously.
I will say that for the future, reluctance to serve as Chair of the Senate... I've had a good time, and I strongly recommend that some of you try your hand at it. There is a small remuneration if you want that. Or if you wish there is a waiver of one course, while your doing it, which I would strongly recommend, compared to the size of the remuneration. If you do the job right, it takes a good bit of time, but it's really an education and well worth it. I strongly recommend that next time some of you consider taking that position.
The other thing I wanted to report to you on were the Provosts new Task Force on assessment and more information on the recycling motion, which you passed last time.
The Provost seems to have dropped another shoe. You may remember that when the General Education Task Force that he appointed, partially as a result of our vote of no confidence, produced its report we were essentially promised that general education assessment would be designed by each campus. Now, before he's even created the committee which will review our general education proposals, he has actually created and has working a taskforce which will now apparently take charge of the assessment of all teaching and general education, in particular its effectiveness.
The taskforce consists of twenty-two people, five of whom are Albany administration, two of whom are Albany bean counters, to make sure the beans are counted correctly in an assessment I assume. Seven of them are campus administrators, the usual Albany representation: one from one from Health Sciences; two from Community Colleges; one from Empire State; one from Brockport and one from UB. In other words one four-year campus. Three campus institutional research people, that is bean counters from the campuses: one from a community college, one from Albany and one from Potsdam. The one from Potsdam is also their assessment officer. A fourth is a professor who is the assessment officer at Buffalo State. There will be six faculty: one in Life Science from a community college; three in psychology, one from a community college; one in math one in English. The person in English is our president of the Senate, who assured us that assessment would be campus based as one of our victories. I keep crying, "the sky's falling" sorry but I felt that I needed to give this information to you. Once again it'll be awhile before the results of all this start coming down, and I have no idea where it's headed.
Dr. Reck: Just another piece of information about the same topic. I am on the listserv evidently, and I get the minutes from the taskforce. This membership list has been forwarded to all deans and to the department chairs and hopefully the department chairs will share it with the faculty. As I get minutes, I will do the same process. They will go to the deans, department chairs and hopefully shared with the faculty so that you can keep abreast of the minutes.
Chair Browder: The final item I had to report on was the recycling committee that you charged us to appoint. I've asked twice for volunteers. The only faculty volunteers I got were Adam Brown, who of course put forward the motion, and David Swift both of whom are temporary or adjunct faculty. No full-time faculty have volunteered. I have three students nominated by student government. One of whom is the president of Project Environment, which you asked us to include on the committee. As you just heard the president has consulted with Tracey and with the student environment club he said, but I guess it's this Project Environment group and has produced this report. I guess what I would like to hear from you is in light of this do you want me to continue to try and put together a faculty committee to participate in and monitor this process?
Dick Ready: Just a clarification. Are the two insufficient? It was my impression that it would be a joint committee of some kind that would involve faculty and...
Chair Browder: Yes, you all asked the Executive Committee to create a faculty/student/administration committee to do this and I have not been able to do that so far.
Dick Ready: You mentioned five names that are currently...
Chair Browder: Yes, but two adjunct faculty that might not even be here after May. I don't see how such a committee can do anything. I'm willing to create that committee with its present constituency if that's what you want.
Jane Romal: It should have permanent people on it.
Chair Browder: That's the way I feel about it.
Carolyn Briggs: What does it involve though? What would they do?
Chair Browder: Essentially they will have to meet and be informed and consult with people in the administration. Tracy Benett's office, for instance, who are informed on the actual mechanics and problems of recycling on this campus, so they can see what is and isn't practical to recommend. Essentially their job is, as you proposed it last time, to make recommendations to the President on improving our recycling. The President is already consulting with the student group and with Tracey on this.
Karen Mills-Courts: Are you essentially saying that we can't find people to sit on this committee.
Chair Browder: No one has volunteered. I'm assuming that if I keep beating the bush, I'll finally find some people but I haven't had time to go knocking on doors yet.
Karen Mills-Courts: It seems if people are not actively interested in serving on such a committee given the presentation I saw in October here maybe we should drop the whole thing.
A motion was made and seconded to drop the formation of the committee.
Jan McVicker: I know that you asked us in College Senate last month if there was anyone willing to, but I don't remember if you asked that on Proftalk.
Chair Browder: Yes I did.
Jan McVicker: Did you also ask it on the professional list?
Chair Browder: No I didn't.
Mike Grady: I think it's just a question of getting the administration to do what they've supposed to have been doing all this time. It seems to me that just a one time effort, possibly student based would be enough to get this moving. I'm not sure that we really need a permanent committee. I think Project Environment can handle the job.
Dick Reddy: I would like to speak against the motion. It strikes me that if we have two people who are willing to serve and have energy and interest. There's no use to appoint them if they're going to be around for another month, but if they're going to be around in the spring semester, then it strikes me that they are the people whole are self-nominated as faculty members who want to participate. To deny them the opportunity to participate and to deny the faculty the opportunity to participate I think would be wrong.
The motion to cancel the motion from last meeting to create a faculty committee to study the recycling problem on campus and make recommendations for its improvement was defeated unanimously.
Nancy Gee: Maybe the senators can poll their constituents. Maybe they could go and ask people if they would be willing to serve on the committee.
Chair Browder: Would you please go knocking on doors for me, and report back to me any favorable result. I would greatly appreciate that.
6a. Jan McVicker (GCP Committee):
On the back of your agenda is a very brief recommendation from the General College Program Committee. The committee is basically wishing to extend the current moratorium on the submission of new course proposals to the existing GCP, until we adopt a new program. Since we are in the process of trying to revise our own program and also comply in some way with the Trustees program. We felt it was probably not wise to continue accepting new courses for the existing program. We did want to make the exception for new faculty hired since Fall '98. We are basically extending the moratorium.
Nancy Boynton: I can understand the need to extend it, but saying until a new GCP has been adopted could take a long time. I would feel much more comfortable with this resolution with an ending date on it.
Jan McVicker: We have to submit some kind of a program to Albany in the spring semester to comply with what the Trustees are asking. That doesn't mean that that's the end of the discussion for our own GCP revisions. The GCP committee is going to be recommending to the campus; that's why we're in the process of consulting with all departments.
Nancy Boynton: I could see extending the moratorium through the spring semester, but I don't like not having an ending date.
Chair Browder: The ending date is there. We have to submit new courses. The current GCP is terminal.
Nancy Boynton: But what's the definition of when the revised GCP has been adopted.
Jan McVicker: At the last meeting, as I recall, of the College Senate there was a timeline that was submitted by the GCP committee. That was the implementation as fall of 2001. We have submitted a request for a waiver to the General Education Committee that's going to be reviewing these policies based on us having it in place fall of 2001.
Nancy Boynton: Can we put the date on? Can we amend this to fall of 2001?
Jan McVicker: To get accuracy fine...
Chair Browder: We have to begin considering courses for the new GCP starting in the fall semester at the very latest. The old program is dead period, so there is no reason to have any more proposals ever for the old program.
Dick Reddy: Just a clarification in terms of sequence though. A student who is admitted in the spring semester of 2000 would still be under the current General College Program and would continue to fit under that General College Program until such time as he or she graduated. Is that not correct?
Chair Browder: That is correct.
Dick Reddy: So that the staffing of GCP courses coming particularly into mind part III courses, is something that the college is committed to and must continue to do for at least another four years. There is an ongoing responsibility for maintaining the major portions of the program or having accommodations so that the person could fulfill requirements with the new program in some fashion or another.
I have a bit of a concern of continuing on this moratorium, for what in some instances could be as long as four year. It strikes me that the person who has been here for some time, may have a very good course for Part IIIa or Part IIIb hasn't presented before could develop it and not be able to have it a part of this program. That would be a problem because you would want this program and maybe even the new GCP to include a course like that.
Nancy Gee: I see the conflict; I thought the Title Three Grant when it was first released was for the development of GCP courses, so if we put a moratorium on that, aren't we saying...
Chair Browder: That's development for the new GCP.
Jan McVicker: It seems to me that we are not going to foreclose the courses that have already been submitted for any part of GCP while we are in transition. You're right to say that current tenure faculty would not be allowed to submit new courses for the old model, but we would still be accepting course proposals from new faculty, so there will still be new courses being developed for parts of this GCP. This proposal is being driven simply because it's taking the committee a lot of time to try and develop a new model and try to get our model to comply with the Trustees and all the politics involved in that. To constantly be in the process of approving new courses for the old model which we are trying to move the faculty away from seems to us to be counter productive for everybody.
Chair Browder: You do raise a good point though that we haven't even talked about. I think very obviously what the committee will have to do is apply new courses for the new program to continue meeting the requirements for the old program.
Karen Mills-Courts: So the moratorium wouldn't include those courses that are proposed for the new program.
Chair Browder: Oh no!
Karen Mills-Courts: I don't see that in here. The moratorium says that essentially anybody hired after fall '98 can propose a new course for the old program and anybody proposing for the new GCP can propose a new course?
Chair Browder: As soon as we have anything in shape we will be soliciting proposals for the new model.
Jan McVicker: We can't have people submitting proposals for a new model that doesn't yet exist. We are in the process of constructing a new model at the moment.
Karen Mills-Courts: Might it not be wise to simply institute a moratorium across the board and encourage everyone to be thinking about designing courses for the new model, rather than devoting energy designing courses for a model we're fazing out.
Chair Browder: You mean the new faculty be also excluded from proposing new courses?
Karen Mills-Courts: That's where they're going to want to be going very soon. It would seem logical. We will have a model by the spring semester.
Chair Browder: Are you proposing a friendly amendment?
Karen Mills-Courts: Is that what you call it?
Dick Reddy: It may or may not be friendly George.
Chair Browder: The last sentence would be stricken essentially. Actually, since I don't think we can accept it as a friendly amendment, I think we have to get a formal amendment.
Jan McVicker: The committee continues to exempt new faculty from the current moratorium to try and allow new faculty to contribute and get them involved in the overall college curriculum. I don't know that the committee would see this as a friendly amendment.
Mac Nelson: Point of order, there is no such thing as a friendly amendment, they're all amendments.
Chair Browder: One requires a formal vote.
Dick Reddy: One thing that I think is true though of new tenure track faculty however is that they usually are participating, many participate in the General College Program under arrangements that have been made previously with the department. A history survey course is taught as a part IIb or IIc and the department has agreed long ago, probably before they even got into graduate school that this was the way the course was going to be taught and was going to fulfill the requirements in some fashion. The vast majority of people will be teaching under those departmental rubrics. It's only in the development of a new course that is unique to that individual that this process would be involved. I don't think, on a wholesale basis, new faculty members would be excluded from general GCP participation if they did this.
Chair Browder: And I don't think we're going to be inundated with a groundswell of courses for the old GCP anyhow. Did you want to make a formal amendment to the motion Karen?
Karen Mills-Courts: Yes.
The amendment to strike the last sentence in the motion was seconded and defeated by a majority vote.
Mark Grady: I was wondering if honors courses are included in the moratorium. New honors courses come up pretty frequently and if this is going to last until 2001, it might put kind of a damper on the honors program.
Joan McVicker: Most honors courses are not repeated from one semester to the next. They are special cases and GCP designations.
Chair Browder: That's just sort of handled automatically. They are never sent through as formal approval of each separate one.
The motion for a moratorium on new GCP submissions for the old program was passed unanimously.
6b. Mac Nelson (Calendar Committee):
Last time we presented a schedule to you and various people thought it would be a good idea if we waited a month and talked to our constituencies. I am here simply to answer questions about the recommendation for the calendar for 2002-2003 and the committees' recommendation is, I presume, back on the floor.
Dick Reddy: Just a quick observation. I was very pleased to see that the committee continues with the idea of a full week at thanksgiving time. It strikes me that that was a bad mistake when there was the idea to change that. Our students simply, for a whole variety of reasons, aren't around on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during those periods of time. They won't be around on Friday or Thursday either before that, but at least we retain the ability to try to teach some classes and give some exams during that period.
Mac Nelson: Point taken.
Diana Ruiz: I just have a question. A concern about how early our fall break is. It's rather early, and I don't know how the rest of the school and students feel about it being so early. It's only a month after we come to school and then we have Labor Day in between there. I don't know how that's going to effect the students, because then they have to wait all the way until November for another break.
Mac Nelson: That's correct. We do try to make the fall break conform to the Jewish calendar, and in this case Yom Kippur is September 27th, so we put it essentially about a week earlier than it otherwise would be, because we'd like to do that. We could certainly accept a motion to make it a week later.
A motion was made and seconded to move the fall break of 2001 back one week into October.
Ted Steinberg: I think we go to great lengths here at Fredonia to try and make the campus multicultural and to serve the needs of the students. There are a large number of Jewish students here who will have to miss on that day if there are classes on Yom Kippur. I would urge us to vote against this amendment.
Jan McVicker: Students would need to be away from campus on Thursday, is that correct?
Ted Steinberg: Yes.
Jan McVicker: As someone who went to a school that had a very large Jewish population, the Binghamton calendar conformed more to the Jewish calendar than it did to the Christian calendar in accommodating students. There were actually two long weekends in the fall semester. There was nothing called October Break per se. We had long weekends for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The entire campus got two long weekends. It accommodated the Jewish students' holidays and gave everybody else a couple long weekends in the fall semester.
Jane Romal: How long was your thanksgiving break then?
Jan McVicker: It was not a week. It started on Wednesday.
Ted Steinberg: I don't think we're talking about that. I know that students will have to miss for Rosh Hashanah a week before, but it seems unfair and certainly not in the spirit of multiculturalism to make them miss days in two successive weeks.
Mac Nelson: Just to point out, I don't have statistics, but I know that we are not able very often to make the fall break coincide with Yom Kippur. It's one year in four or five, it doesn't happen very frequently. The committee is rather pleased that we could do it this one time.
Minda Rae: I'd just like the make a point for people who may not know, that Yom Kippur is the most holy holiday in the Jewish calendar. It's sort of the equivalent to the combination of Christmas and Easter. There is no single Christian holiday that is as sacred a day in terms of the commitment that Jews are supposed to make to it. I think there is often some confusion amongst people who, quite understandably, don't know much about Judaism think that the major Jewish holiday is the one that coincides with Christmas. That holiday is really a very minor holiday in the Jewish calendar.
Dick Reddy: I might also point out that it does create a problem for Jewish faculty and staff members if there are classes that they would normally meet as faculty and not be able to meet on that day.
Chair Browder: Any further comments?
Jan McVicker: Just another observation. For spring 2003, if we can give a Monday travel day for Christian students to come back from Easter it seems that we can make some kind of accommodation to Jewish faculty and students, weather we call it fall break or something else.
Karen Mills-Courts: That's exactly what I wanted to suggest. As Mac just said we do that only once every three-four years, which does not seem appropriate. I don't understand why they are not recognized independently. I know public schools in the eastern part of this state close of Yom Kippur. I'm not at all certain why we aren't able to do that.
Chair Browder: We don't do it in the second calendar that's up for approval?
Mac Nelson: It is not a standard practice. Our statement is that the faculty are asked to be flexible about the needs of Jewish students on Jewish holidays.
Chair Browder: I understand that. My question is we have the calendar for 2001-2002, 2002-2003. What I'm asking is for 2002-2003 is Yom Kippur not...
Mac Nelson: Yom Kippur as I recall is very early in 2002. It's something like September 17th. We could of course take a day off then, but that would I think be much too early to integrate with our fall break.
May I make one more point? We are here usefully discussing this, but of course it's the Presidents decision finally and I'm sure he reads the minutes rather carefully. If there is a strong feeling that there should be every year a day off for Yom Kippur, whether it fits with fall break or not, he'll hear that and he will discuss it with the Calendar Committee and he will make that decision.
Diana Ruiz: If we do not move October Break back, is there any way that we could get a day off in October. It's just a long time from September to November with out any days off for the students on this campus and faculty. It's just a point of concern.
I'm not going to be here that semester, but I know there's going to be five-thousand other students who are going to be here and that's almost seven weeks that they don't have a day off. I see the one calendar year we have seventy days in spring 2002, and then we have seventy-one class days in fall 2002 and then we have seventy days in spring 2003. I don't know if that's feasible that maybe somewhere in October we could have a day, maybe Columbus Day, so that we have that little break in there so that students can like relax and the faculty can relax because it is a long wait.
The amendment to move the fall break of 2001 back one week into October was defeated unanimously.
Jan McVicker: Is it appropriate here to make a recommendation to the Calendar Committee to try and institute a day off for Yom Kippur?
Chair Browder: After the calendar is voted on you may make such a motion as a formal recommendation from the committee if you would like.
The calendar was passed unanimously.
Jan McVicker: I move that the Calendar Committee strive to implement an annual holiday to recognize Yom Kippur.
The motion was seconded.
Mac Nelson: The committee will certainly take this under advisement.
The motion was passed unanimously.
Diana Ruiz: I motion that the Calendar Committee recognize that if a day off for Yom Kippur is early in the calendar year have a day off somewhere between Yom Kippur and Thanksgiving.
The motion was seconded, and approved unanimously.
7. The meeting was adjourned at 4:50PM
Attendance:
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[ ]
[ ]
[x] Carolyn Briggs
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
[x] Mike Conley
[x] Vincent Courtney
[x] Marianne Eimer
[ ]
[x] Carol Schwerk
[x] Joyce Smith
[E] Martha Smith
[x] Terry Tzitzis
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[x] Ruth Antosh
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
[x] Scott Johnson
[ ]
[x] Jeanette McVicker
[x] Karen Mills-Courts
[x] Malcolm Nelson
[ ]
[x] Theodore Steinberg
[ ] Jackie Swansinger
[ ]
Natural and Social Sciences:
[x] Seyed-Mahmoud Agazadeh
[x] Nancy Boynton
[x] Roger Byrne
[x] Michael Grady
[ ]
[x] Jon Kraus
[x] Lawrence Maheady
[ ]
[x] Dick Reddy
[x] Jane Romal
[x] Amin Sarkar
[x] Cynthia Smith
[ ]
Student Association:
[ ] Jennifer Farnham (SA President)
[ ] Shamus Hayes, (VP, SA)
[x] Diana Ruiz, Senior Rep.
[ ] Pam Wright, Junior Rep.
[x] Heather Koski, Sophomore Rep.
[ ] Andrew Fidurko, Freshman Rep.
[ ] Vacant, Graduate Rep.
Ex. Officio Member:
[ ] Dennis Hefner (President)
[ ] Tracy Bennett (VP, Admin.)
[x] George Browder (Chair, Faculty Council)
[x] Michael Dmitri (VP, Student Affairs)
[x] Len Faulk (Associate VP, Academic Affairs)
[x] Nancy Gee (Council Vice-Chair)
[x] Jean Malinoski (VP, Development)
[x] Una Mae Reck (VP, Academic Affairs)
[x] Patrick Rocheleau (Council Secretary)
[x] Paul Schwartz (Dean, Arts & Humanities)
[x] Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senator)
[ ] Stephen Stahl (Dean, NSS & PS)
[ ] Charlie Davis (Governance Chair)
Guests:
Minda Rae Amiran
Tracy Rrepka (Leader)