Minutes of the meeting of May 8th, 2000
Chair Nancy Gee called the meeting to order at 4:02 P.M.
1. Nancy Boynton: I move that we move the general education to the end of the agenda.
Chair Nancy Gee: So your amendment is to move it below new business or above new business?
Boynton: I think below new business.
Gee: OK, we have a motion to amend the agenda to move the discussion of the GCP program to the bottom of the agenda. Is there a second?
The motion was seconded.
Gee: OK, is there any discussion of the amendment?
Jan McVicker: Can I just ask Nancy why?
Boynton: I'm just afraid we won't get to any other things.
Patrick Jones: I would just say that considering that we had special sessions of the Senate to consider general education and that this is the last Senate meeting, it should stay where it is. It's a pretty important item.
The amendment was defeated by a majority vote.
The agenda was approved unanimously.
2. The minutes of the April 10th, 2000 meeting were approved unanimously.
3. President Dennis Hefner (President's report):
I'll try to keep this nice and brief. I did want to let you know that the Smoking Committee has completed their work. I just got the report handed to me at the end of last week. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly go through it; we're busy with commencement activities. But we will be getting to it soon. There were several recommendations, so there are several options in there. So the proposal needs to be looked at, and I will be reporting more on that later. I did want to let you know that that committee has come forward with its report.
The Legislature has passed a budget in Senate and on Tuesday to the governor. We just got an e-mail in on this, and basically, the budget is roughly what we had from the governor with a few minor adjustments. There was some additional monies added to State Ops, but none of it comes to the campuses. There is $2.7 million for the EOP Program , $1.1 million for Childcare. There will be 5,000 scholarships of $200 each that will be going to students in some type of program; I don't know the details yet. Also, $500,000 to the Marine Disease Pathology and Resource Consortium, and $275,000 for charter schools.
Out of the money that already exists from last year's budget (the mission review money) $1,000,000 of that has to be transferred to full-time faculty. That's no money at all; in fact, it's not even money from this year, it's money from last year. But the Legislature put a restriction on that money. Within the priority needs area there is money coming to the campuses, the Legislature said only $5.6 of the $8.9 million can go to campuses. We were counting on the $8.9 million coming to campuses. Then the $3.3 million is to be held by the system for contingencies. I assume that's to go against $116 million for the shortfalls in hospitals that haven't been addressed yet. But anyway, that was a nasty little one in there.
There is out of the money that was set aside for sponsored research and enrollment growth, the Legislature went in and took $3.4 million out of that and said that that $3.4 million has to be for additional full-time faculty. We add faculty for growth, so that's not a big issue for our campus, but it's no new money, again. And then there is a little clause in there that, even for release of these funds that are being allocated, there has to be a public review process that has to be completed at least five days prior to a Trustees Board Meeting, which will slow things down. So, the budget will be a little slow coming to us. The Legislature was been very intrusive in this meeting, but the bottom line is, no new money. They had $130 million they could have given to higher education, at least giving us $5 million to get us back to break even and they gave us zero.
So, I'll probably be writing nasty personal letters to our legislators. Not our local legislators, they're not very happy with this, but in general to the leadership. It's pretty disappointing. They gave a lot of money to private schools. They did give some money to the community colleges, which needed funds, but none to us.
Anyway, the budget isn't much different from what we planned on. So, it's maybe a $100,000 less that what we had in the budget, so we will get through it.
Good news, if you've been on the Thruway in the last day or two at night, be sure and look towards SUNY Fredonia, because you will see SUNY Fredonia in bright letters. Now the Department of Transportation hasn't given in and given us a sign yet; they won't do that. But on the side of the building we have put in eighteen inch letters 'SUNY Fredonia'. It's in the Fredonia blue, and it doesn't look tacky. We didn't want it tacky. We didn't want it to look like neon, but we did want it to shine and it does. I went out Saturday and saw it, and it really looks good. So, if you want to, drive down Brigham and go by the Fairgrounds, look across on the right. You'll see it. I think you're going to like it. I figured, let's get some free advertising.
Banner seems to have worked really well. There is one little wrinkle that we're going to have to be working out. I met with the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Deans this afternoon. Students did all go away with full loads, but that's made it a little thin for the summer offerings, and so the Deans are going to be going back, meeting with the chairs. We are going to need to make sure that we have enough seats available to take care of students during summer orientation. The good news is there is going to be virtually nothing in Change Center. So there is a backside benefit. But this is something that needs to be taken care of.
The number one priority on this campus, I've said many times, I'll say it one more time, is getting students full class loads and making sure that we serve student needs. So that will be an item and the Deans will be going forward with meetings with Department Chairs later this week, so we can make sure we're all set for the orientations this summer.
I did want to remind all of the Senators that the Fiesta is this afternoon after you complete your meeting. I, however, will be leaving at 5:00 and will have nothing to do with the subjects. I have to be over there, because there could be others coming in by that time. So, that's alright. I don't get to vote anyway, so it doesn't matter.
And then the last item. I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful and productive summer. I think it's been an excellent academic year. There have been an awful lot of things that have moved forward this year. I greatly appreciate all of the effort that each and every one of you has made to made this a wonderful institution, and you really do a good job in working with our students. So, thank you very much. And with that I return it back to you.
Nancy Gee: Are there any questions of Dr. Hefner? OK, let us move on to the Vice President's report.
4a. Mae Reck (Vice President of Academic Affairs):
The first item is the Academic Master Plan, for its first reading. Does everyone have copies? What I'd like to do, is just walk you quickly through to tell you how it has changed from the last plan of 1999-2000. This one is now, the new one is for five years out in the future through 2005. Remember we said we would look at the plan every year for two readings: one in May (this meeting) for a first reading, and the second reading in September at the first meeting of the College Senate.
What has been taken off, if you look at the first page, there was an MAT in Spanish and an MAT in French. That were taken off since we're not sure if we're doing it at the state level in those areas that is necessary for masters' degrees. What we've added, you'll see in about the middle of the page, a Jazz Minor, and you'll see further down an MS in Business Administration with an Accountancy Concentration. Those are the changes on that first page.
If you turn to the second page, there is a change just in name up at the top, the MSED in ESL/Bilingual Education, and at the bottom of the page, you will see there is no longer a Minor in Sports Psychology.
Any questions or comments? This is the first reading. If there are changes or suggestions during the time of first reading and the second reading, I would suggest the department chairs talk with their appropriate dean.
4b. Joe Straight (Ad Hoc Committee on Student Evaluation of Teaching):
There are copies of the first draft of the form here, if I could have some help in passing these out. The Ad Hoc Committee on the Student Evaluation of Faculty Teaching was formed by Vice President Reck in the fall and I am here today to make an interim report on the campus committee with the prospect of returning to this body in the fall to make a final report. The committee has been working on three components of this. One is the course evaluation form that would be a recommended form that departments could adopt to use. The second aspect of it is a list of recommendations about the process of giving and handling the student evaluation forms and I believe that one was attached to the agenda. And then the third aspect of this is something that the instructors could read before handing out the student evaluation, giving students the same instructions, and gathering these in the same way.
So, in regards to the form itself, this is again a first draft. The company, I forget the name of the company that is working for us on this.. Let's see the computing consultants were National Computer Systems. The form, that actual form, is blue and white. We've already noticed some things that we'd want to change about the form. For example, it is supposed to have a place where the students could code the course reference number. We need some way of identifying the course and the section and we thought we'd use the course reference number, so where it says course and section number, there will be a place for them to write in the course and section number, but we'll use the course reference number to actually identify a course.
We've had some suggestions about rewording the question on how often did you attend class. We've had a suggestion to add under "whether you had reasons for taking the course" (number 2) to add minor or concentration, so students in elementary education who have the various concentrations can indicate that that was a reason for taking the course. And we've had a number of other suggestions on wording of the questions. So giving the, we're looking for your input here. If you have any suggestions to make, the committee would welcome them. We're going to be asking the company to put together a second draft for us, and we'll be sharing that with the campus. We'll be taking it to the chairs retreat this summer, having further discussion on it, and maybe coming back to you in the fall with some final recommendations.
Any questions?
Joe Chilberg: Are the feedback that we presented through our departments going to wend its way up to you folks or...
Straight: Uh huh. Through your chair.
Chilberg: I just want to make sure, so we're not really going to address that here today.
Straight: Yeah, several departments I know have had a discussion of this in their department meetings and we are starting to get some feedback on that, yes.
4c. Mae Reck: Another handout that you should have picked up is the membership of the Library Advisory Committee. At the first meeting of the committee, I will be at that meeting to charge the committee and to review with them that they are to give a formal report twice a semester to the College Senate. This is for your information. I worked with Nancy Gee and the College Senate Executive Committee in getting the membership for this committee.
5. Nancy Gee (Chairperson's Report):
OK, it's my report. I just wanted to remind you that when you are making comments and asking questions, please make sure that I recognize you, and make sure you state your name before asking comments and asking questions. George is going to discuss modifications to the guidelines on consensual relationships.
George Browder: After we approved the guidelines on consensual relations, we had some discussions with the president, who was concerned about a few details. And the committee has agreed to make the changes that are indicated on the sheet, and they will be made unless there is some contrary discussion from you.
In terms of definitions, the reason for inserting staff and resident directors was to make the list more precise and the reasons for removing 'other college employees' (including students), was that it seemed kind of vague and also, people thought that referred to Dorm Directors, and apparently, they are not considered college employees, so we did want to make that correction. The reference to students was removed because we expect to have a similar guideline covering students and that would address student affairs much more appropriately than guidelines in the Faculty Handbook.
Under the other definition of what is meant by "intimate consensual relationship" we wanted to insert the word "normally," I'm not quite sure exactly why, but it's there. Under the, the more important one is under "non-compliance with professional standards as prescribed by the AAUP." We are recommending changing the word "inquiry" to "investigation." The president feels that he is obliged, when he gets even an anonymous complaint that he has to conduct at least in some cases a minimal inquiry to see if there are any grounds at all to the complaint. So, our guidelines refer to an investigation that would follow if there is an indication that there are any problems. Comments? If not, these changes will be made.
6. Moj Seyedian (Faculty Senate Report):
Since we have a tight agenda today, I will be very brief. We had a Senate plenary meeting during the last weekend of April. And I will just mention a few of the important resolutions that were passed. Here is onene of them. It is about assessment of undergraduate education. The resolution is that "Any approach to the assessment of undergraduate education of the State University of New York, the largest and most diverse system of higher education in the world, must be comprehensive, comprehensible, complex, cost effective, collegial, constructive and primarily campus-based." [laughter]
Here is another one. This was put forward by the executive committee, I guess because of the resolutions that it received from several colleges concerning the general education. I won't repeat the "whereases" and go to the resolution: "Therefore be it resolved, that the University Faculty Senate urges the Provost to augment the composition of the Provost's Advisory Council on General Education as it continues its work so that faculty are the predominant constituents and also that both the faculty and a faculty co-chair of the committee be appointed in consultation with the University Faculty Senate President."
This one is, "Therefore be it resolved, that the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities shall be established to recognize extraordinary achievement in a scholarly and creative activities at a level comparable to that of the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching." This is a new Chancellor's Award for Excellence.
OK, here's another one that says, "Be it resolved that the University Faculty Senate supports the efforts of SUNY in establishing, coordinating, and enhancing international programs intended to further educational research and public service."
And, finally, remember we passed a resolution in here in support of Binghamton's resolution about general education. And we weren't alone; several campuses finally sent their resolutions to the SUNY Senate. So we had a little caucus there and they adopted our version, so Fredonia's version was used. However, the people thought that Fredonia's version was not polite [laughter / applause], so we toned it down. We toned it down and after toning it down it still looked a lot like Fredonia's very much. People thought there were action items on it and to the point.
But the problem started when we took the resolution to the floor of the Senate and people didn't like it. And we had a lot of amendments, amendment after amendment after amendment, and so finally what I have in my hand doesn't look much like Fredonia's resolution [laughter], although in spirit it's similar.
Whereas the Board of Trustees and its own policies give the responsibility to the faculty to determine the curriculum of the individual campuses and,
Whereas the faculty have made every reasonable effort to develop on their campuses general education programs that are in compliance with the Provost's guidelines for implementation. These delays in the review and approval of these efforts at the level of the Provost's office may require last minute changes of a significant nature that may disrupt fall semester course offerings and discredit the professional image of each campus in the eyes of incoming students and their parents.
Therefore, be it resolved that no SUNY campus should further disrupt its currently planned Fall schedule to accommodate implementation and thereby jeopardize the professional quality of its planned curriculum and,
Therefore, be it resolved that the faculty of the SUNY system urges the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, and the Provost to follow a reasonable time table and a professionally appropriate consultative process that recognizes the professional competence and responsibility of the SUNY faculty for its own good.
7a. Cheryl Drout (GCP Committee):
After two special sessions of the College Senate, the GCP Committee is ready to recommend the conceptual timeline for the revised general education program based upon its sense of the Senate's deliberations. The conceptual framework outlined below is recommended to the Senate for adoption. Accompanying this motion is a demonstration of how the committee perceives such a framework fitting into a more fully developed model. The committee moves that the College Senate accept the following conceptual framework for a revised general education program. So the document that we have currently represents what we are moving. And I would like to add just two points of clarification. None of the categories in the model have been restricted to be outside the major, and all of the categories are created as separate individual requirements, in other words, not overlapping.
I would like to bring before the committee an additional amendment that is found on the second page.
After the Senate's straw vote on Monday, May 1, a number of the faculty and administration expressed concern that the results have slighted students closer to the social sciences at the introductory levels. The diversity among these disciplines is such that exposure to only one is inadequate for students to understand what the social and behavioral sciences involve.
Furthermore, the committee itself has been uncomfortable with the constraints imposed by the Provost's mandate, specifically in regard to creating a 30 hour program that does not include more than one natural or social science. Although the Senate addressed the problem in the area of natural sciences, it did not do so regarding the social sciences.
Therefore, the committee offers the following amendment to the proposed general education program shaped by the Senate Straw vote.
Be it Resolved, that the general education program be amended to include the following under part I, social sciences: social sciences will be six hours in two different disciplines, no more than one of which may be in business, education, history, communication, or speech pathology.
Chuck Telly: I would like to speak against this. And we were talking about it with a lot of people and I think that what we're here for in the GCP, is what we're here is do is to keep the liberal arts, to keep the liberal arts and I was reading Alan Bloom's book this morning and he was talking about how we've given away the university since 1968 and all the rest of that. And I think that what we're here for in the GCP program is trying to maintain the liberal arts thing. What that means is to keep courses that the students will not take and would not take unless we have them, and courses that are the kind of courses that are very important for their education. As some of the Europeans, as some of the Europeans call it, the kultur.
And I think that the things that we want to maintain are science (we voted for six units), English (we voted for six units), math (we voted for six units), those four things and, oh, ah, history. And so what we, the social sciences the students are going to take anyway. I see no reason that we should put it in the GCP program and have them take them. If we're going to add something to the GCP program, let's add a language, another course in language or let's add another course in math. Why are we putting in social science? I know that the president was for it last time, but what are we doing? Why are we doing it? They are going to take those courses, that's what they did in '68, anything that easy or a little bit simpler, or something that meets their, meets their needs. What we're trying to do here is to give them kultur and that's why were trying to stick to the liberal arts things, and I for one would vote against it.
Julius Adams: My recommendation, I realize I'm not a voting member, and I apologize for looking like I'm coming to this late, but as the Director of the School of Education I have some realistic concerns as it relates to the GCP and our students. I am in favor of six credit hours for social sciences. My students will not take Intro to Psychology unless they are forced to take Intro to Psychology. It's not something that they automatically take in the School of Education. It is a concern to someone who teaches psych foundations courses. And one-third of my courses in Adolescent Development, Developmental Psychology, and Educational Psychology now have to be introductory, just so they will get the basic information prior to my being able to teach the content. I'm teaching introduction and content at the same time.
The other issue that I have is related to the foreign language requirement. In education, we are bound by the Regents. The Regents do indicate that you need a foreign language requirement or an equivalent. And looking at the cut-off that was presented in terms of 85, a grade of 85 on the Regents exam as a cut-off that would then waive 116. 58% percent of my students would now have to take the foreign language requirement that they don't have to take now.
Nancy Gee: That's an important issue, but it's not the amendment. So, can we come back to it?
Adams: I apologize.
Gee: That's OK.
Adam Brown: I'd just like to read something off. One of the faculty members in the Psychology Department was unable to attend, but he had these comments to make and it addresses some of the things pointed out earlier.
When the GCP Committee was formulated, I was optimistic that the college could accomplish two goals. (1) to evaluate our existing program, and (2) to revise the existing program without undue influence from the Board of Trustees. The stamp of the Board of Trustees is unmistakable. Since the Senate is voting on a list of requirements, I am worried that it is too late to point out that this GCP would never have been constructed by a diverse group of scholars, who had in mind the single goal of providing students with a well-balanced view of the disciplines and the creative thinking processes of the arts, humanities, and sciences.
The section titled complex mandates is most telling. While the discipline of history is moving toward a global view along with the worldwide thinking in general, SUNY is unduly concerned that its students have a local view of history that will reinforce their high-school point of view.
The section called simple mandates has a set of prototypical rubrics such as the arts and social science. However, when one evaluates the set of departments that presume to following these rubrics, the meaning of these categories become obscured and the idea of a broadly based education fades away.
The curriculum allows many opportunities for a student to devise a narrow view of the otherwise broad range of thinking and discovery that exist in an academic environment. In order to implement the proposed program there will be some obvious changes in the strengths and weaknesses of existing programs. As representatives of the Senate, we should take these changes quite seriously. Some of the changes, that I predict, will make Fredonia a less attractive college alternative. Your success and the success of your department or area of representation depends on the ultimate success of the college.
That's from Dick Weist.
Michael Grady: Concerning the amendment, you intend no overlap still of two social sciences with say the American history.
Drout: That's my understanding.
Grady: No overlap at all. That's not what we were discussing before.
Roger Byrne: I would like to propose an amendment to the amendment that one of the social science courses be allowed to count within the complex mandate category.
The amendment to the amendment was seconded.
Jan McVicker: Roger, could you just say the amendment one more time?
Byrne: I am proposing that the amendment to the amendment about two social science courses and I am proposing that one of those social science courses could also satisfy one of the complex mandates, whether it is in western civilizations, world history, or other civilizations, or even in the American History category. As a number of the social science courses could possibly fit into these categories, I am proposing that perhaps the second course or one of these courses would be allowed to count twice, once for one of the social science courses and once for courses that fit in the complex mandates category.
Ted Schwalbe: Speaking on the amendment to the amendment first, I think that might unduly make advising even more difficult for this program if we have one exception that says you can double up. I think the same kind of objective can be accomplished simply by voting down the amendment. In other words, basically, as you said, many of the courses in American History, and under complex mandates will be social science courses to begin with, so, therefore, it's not dissimilar, it's not all that dissimilar from making the social science requirement basically as before.
George Browder: I was just going to ask if we need to clarify that amendment to the amendment to ask whether or not history would be counted as a social science.
Byrne: The prior amendment states that no more that one of which of these courses may be in history, so I would just leave it as it is.
Chuck Telly: I would just like to reiterate one more thing against the amendment and against the amendment to the amendment, and that is, I can get up here and I can say we need Business. I don't have the courses in business before my course, and it would be important to me. And I'm not trying mimic what has been said in Education, but it seems to me, once again, what we're here for is kultur and the Education Department and the Business Department, which are practical subjects, let them take care of themselves.
We are trying here to develop a program so that we can have a university kultur, which is a liberal arts program. And if you're starting to do business, and you're talking about those courses, which are the practical courses, let them handle their own. We want a liberal arts program. I say it again, if we open up to the social sciences, let's try to do it for language.
Gee: You're comment is really on the amendment, and we're discussing the amendment to the amendment, so let us all stay focused.
Steve Stahl: Getting back to what Ted said. For the last fourteen years I was at a place where we had such double counting, and it was actually relatively easy to do and we didn't have Banner. Especially with Banner, it's going to be relatively easy. Here you simply write things down, you write them in two places. The computer printout that we get now-a-days when we advise students would have things showing up in two places.
From my perspective, looking into this, I think what we have are two issues. One is the increase in size of the number of hours in the GCP versus getting into the other fields. With regard to George's comment, I think the committee later on would be deciding what courses count where and that's an issue for later. I think that it is possible to have good viable courses that could fill two things. What comes to mind right off the bat in traditional social science would be Poly Sci, I believe it is 120, that's American Politics, would be a perfect fit against the America and Self category as well as against the intro to social sciences.
Bill Muller: On the complexity of the amendment to the amendment, I think that's what I'm talking about, it would create a complex situation I suspect, but I think we could learn to live with it. As I said in the other meeting a week ago, my daughter goes to a school without advising, without mandatory advising that does double count all kinds of courses and apparently their students are able to survive anyhow. Now maybe that's a better school that we are: Oneonta.
Patrick Jones: I would have to support that amendment to the amendment if we're going to have the amendment at all, just because of the amount of credits we're already talking about in the GCP. To add another three credits into the GCP, our students just can't do it. We simply can't do it.
If we want to adopt three more credits in social sciences, then I believe we do need to double this. I am not against the social sciences at all, in fact, if I had my druthers, my students would take all kinds of social sciences, and maybe just take one of the natural sciences, because in education I'd rather them take ethnography and anthropology and things like that. We voted in six hard credits in the natural sciences. I just don't think we can vote in six hard credits in the social sciences.
Gee: Just to clarify, we haven't voted anything in yet.
Bob Rogers: I actually would vote, well I don't vote, but I would recommend not going for any kind of double dipping of any kind. It's a little premature at this point because we don't have the categories set with what the offerings are. But I find it very difficult that one course...remember, we set down what the outcomes of each category are. I envisioned that it would be very difficult for one course to serve two masters right there. If they were going to be so close, that a course could do both, you might as well just have one category. It wouldn't make sense to double dip in my opinion.
Patrick Jones: But is it not true that a course in anthropology could fulfill an other world civilizations requirement?
Rogers: It depends on what the goals of that category are.
Jones: I don't know, it's not my specialty, but I would think as I looked...
Cheryl Drout: I would just like to add that we used to have a double dipping of the GCP and we radically tried to get rid of the double dip.
Marcus Vink: Going back to Patrick's specific point. I think one danger of double dipping is that we loose this kind of international component. I think that a a whole we are very American-centric. We need to have an international, global view, so the international studies, cross-cultural, all this... I think we should not loose that component and it might be a danger if we double dip.
Larry Maheady: This isn't specifically on your amendment, but I need to get some clarity before we try to vote on anything. And I'm concerned about the impact on programs, what it means that we will not have a graduation in four years. I'm not sure what, because in our case it really has something to do with total number of hours in the GCP and the possibility of double dipping. Inability to do those options makes it difficult sort of difficult to vote on total number of hours in the GCP if we don't know what that means.
Cheryl Drout: I would just like to clarify that the double dipping discussion here is not voting on...
Maheady: But within the GCP.
Drout: The committee has taken the position that double dipping across the major and the gen. ed. requirements we have left open.
Maheady: Right.
Drout: And, further, that the language of that discussion on impacted programs is important to us, because we've been told by SUNY Central that if programs need special exceptions because people would be unable to complete in four years that we'd make exceptions on that basis.
Maheady: Is that offered to transfers?
Drout: Well, I would think that transfers appear to be most affected be in these impacted programs.
Tom Rywick: To me, the issue on the amendment to the amendment about whether it should double count as well as the original amendment to increase social science to six hours, really has to do with whether or not students will get exposed to what I would call traditional social sciences: political science, economics, sociology, psychology.
And I'm not sure what the answer is, but my concern, when I saw the original proposal that is here, is the idea that students will take a history course to satisfy the simple mandate and will be taking some history course, very likely, perhaps not exclusively, for those complex mandates. So I see students getting some history as a social science. Fine, you're getting that type of exposure in two places, but they haven't had any of those other traditional fields at all. So I would like to see, whatever the best way of making sure that students get a chance to... it's not just a chance... because Charles talked about the idea that students might go for a psychology or sociology anyway, but to just have a program that doesn't say that social science be considered... will people be exposed to other traditional social sciences besides the history courses?
Jon Kraus: The significance of the original proposal offered here to amend the GCP program by adding a social science it seems to me is almost eliminated by the amendment to the amendment. And I say that because we've added the fact that the GCP Committee has suggested that you can take any of these courses in your major. The quality already of the new general education program, it seems to me, is quite undermined.
The amendment that was offered suggested that these would have to be in two different disciplines. If that remains, that at least is something, but I think without the idea that it has to be in disciplines... Frankly, I think they should all be in disciplines outside the major, as our GCP has always been. I'm not really sure, except for professional programs, why we have violated that. The whole general education program is undermined by having people take the courses in the discipline. It's really not general education.
Jan McVicker: Can I just address that point? It's one that I've tried to advocate as a member of the committee. The committee has taken the position of not stipulating right now how much overlap there may be between general education courses and the major precisely because we think the faculty needs to have that discussion. Hopefully that discussion is going to take place in the fall and the faculty are going to decide how much overlap there might be and give guidance to the committee. I don't think we have to resolve how much of that counts against majors today in order to pass a program.
Nancy Gee: I would like to just remind you that we are still on the amendment to the amendment. Is there anyone who has not spoken to the amendment to the amendment?
Discussion was closed on the amendment to the amendment by a unanimous vote.
The amendment to the amendment was defeated by a majority vote.
Gee: Now let us discuss the amendment itself.
Ted Schwalbe: I've got a couple of questions on number one in the preamble iIt says in the last section "the following has been proposed to the program shaped by the Senate's straw vote." As I recall, the straw vote (both of them) were against two courses in the social sciences. This seems to indicate that the straw vote was for it. And so I wonder why that wording is like that. Question two, in the first sentence under the description of the social sciences I need clarification on what is meant by "in two different disciplines", as opposed to "in two different majors."
Cheryl Drout: We view "therefore, the committee offers the following amendment to the proposed general education program shaped by the Senate", we thought that was consistent with what occurred as the model we developed following the straw vote of the Senate.
Schwalbe: But the amendment...
Drout: That's why this is an amendment, because it doesn't come from the straw vote of the Senate.
Gee: And the second question.
Drout: For example, sociology and anthropology would be two different disciples while they might reside in the same department.
Schwalbe: OK, then what does it mean, "that no more than one of which may be in..." what is the relevance to be put to the second part of the phrase, "that no more than one," if it has to be in two different disciplines that in business, education, ...why is that needed?
Drout: It's trying to ensure that any student will take a course in one of the traditional social sciences.
Schwalbe: I see, so, "no more than one" in parenthesis, not individually.
Drout: Right.
Amin Sarkar: We are talking about the amendment. It seems that the amendment is a question, because in many cases students will end up taking social science classes. That point, I want to make the following observation, we are here creating a general college program in which we did not only include science and math classes that Charles emphasizes and we have been able also to include classes from arts and humanities and history and so on. And I am sure that Charles would agree that even if those classes are not in the general college program as specified, students will take them as well. Like he thinks students will take classes in sociology and political science and economics in any case. Now, I want to make an amendment to the amendment. The amendment that is proposed it looks like conditional, the second line under social science, "no more than one of which may be in BA, ED, HY, CM, and SA." I would like to delete that line and make the addition of one more social science class unconditional. So let there be two social science classes, like we have two natural science classes in the first case. So that is the amendment I would like to make.
The amendment was seconded.
Jon Kraus: I have a question for our amendor here. Do you mean also to eliminate the two different disciplines?
Sarkar: I think that as you mentioned, we always want to see that our students take two different courses to satisfy any requirement in the GCP; it should not be from the same department. I think that should be mentioned, not only for social sciences, that should be mentioned for all the categories and courses that we have. That should be the general idea that courses should not be taken from, that not more than one course should be taken from one department.
Dennis Hefner: This isn't quite on the amendment to the amendment, but almost. It's real close. Because I've got to leave in a second. I did want to at least address the fact that I was pleased when I got the e-mail that came from Dick Reddy with this amendment on it that the committee had put that in there. Chuck is correct. I did speak in favor of the second social science. I probably would have even spoken in favor of a third one, if that was even a possibility, because, as I look at the general education program, I see it as being a program where you do want to provide students with some breadth of understanding of the liberal arts. To me, the liberal arts do include the arts and humanities, the natural sciences, the mathematics, and the social sciences. And so I think, for breadth within the program, I think the amendment that has come forward from the GCP Committee is quite frankly a very good one and so I am speaking in favor of that.
Seeing that I'm getting ready to leave in a minute, and won't be speaking about other things, I just might state that on the full concept, I think the concepts that the committee has put together are very good concepts. They had a difficult task and, quite frankly, what came forward from the system has been an utter mess.
They didn't think about it as a whole. They thought about it as a whole bunch of little pieces, and I think the committee has done as good a job as it possibly could in putting those pieces together. An area that you might want to consider, at least in your discussions, giving the committee a little more flexibility, maybe to look a little more at, would be in the six credits of upper division. I think there might be some further development of that. I think having the six credits of upper division makes good sense, something to pull it together.
And I would also want to point out that I am going to reserve the right to look at the timing of certain requirements. I will ensure that we will implement everything that you have put into place, but I cannot guarantee that everything which you put in place may be by fall of 2001. I just want to make that clear. We've got to look at resource implications. But I did want to at least mention that.
The last thing, this is kind of to the committee, I am going to be saying it here and I will probably be saying it more in the fall. I do think we need to look at the curricular efficiency. Our current GCP program has 450 courses in it. I think that is way too many. I would love to see us get down to a smaller number, and I'll throw out a number that will drive people crazy. I would love to see it be about a hundred courses. But that's not what you're voting on, but I just had to get my two cents in. I'm sorry, but I have people coming to the house in a minute or two. I wish you well, and I hope to see many of you over there later.
Gee: Let's get back to the amendment to the amendment.
Chuck Telly: Since my name has come up three times, I'd just like to make this comment once more. I've been here fifteen years, and not one time, on one student that I have advised have they not taken more than enough sociology classes. I have one girl who has been in the program for twenty-five years. This summer she is taking the last course to graduate; it is a math course. I say it over again, math, science, language, and English are where the students are going. They are a part of the kultur.
Gee: You're not speaking to the amendment to the amendment. We really need to focus here.
Patrick Jones: Point of clarification, are you saying that what you would like to see is the same thing that we have for the natural sciences? In the natural sciences, it says "natural science, six credits, two different disciplines." Are you saying stay with the six credits in the two different disciplines and merely strike the "no more than one of which may be..." part. Is that what the amendment is?
Amin Sarkar: My proposed amendment was to make six hours in social science unconditional.
Gee: So not from two different departments?
Sarkar: All the courses, not only social science.. that should be applicable to arts, humanities, natural science...
Gee: At this point, your amendment can only amend the amendment. So we really need to focus on the amendments.
Cheryl Drout: Point of clarification. There are only three credits in the arts and three credits in the humanities as it is now, so...
Joy Bilharz: As I understand the amendment to the amendment, you eould be able to take your six hours by taking a business course and a communications course. And so, to me, this defeats the whole point of the original amendment, because a student could still graduate without having any exposure to the traditional social sciences, speaking as an anthropologist who studies culture.
Jon Kraus: For the same reason I oppose the amendment to the amendment, I'd like to call a question.
Discussion on the amendment to the amendment was closed by a unanimous vote.
The amendment to the amendment was defeated by a majority vote.
Ted Schwalbe: I would still like to argue that when compared with the requirements in especially the arts and humanities, that if you look at the complex mandates and you look at the courses, that, in fact, I do not believe that this GCP is lacking in the social sciences. And so, therefore, I will speak against the amendment because I see the same arguments being made that could be applied to the arts and humanities as well.
Jennifer Dyck: I would like to speak in favor of this amendment. I believe if we don't do this amendment, students would still take history and could get away with not taking a traditional social science. I agree with Joy that I think it is very important that students take a traditional social science here at Fredonia.
Chuck has pointed out that students would take those anyway. I would like to point out that Chuck is basing his recommendations on personal anecdotal data, not on scientific evidence and that is precisely why we need students to take these courses. [laughter / applause] I'm not finished. I would also like to point out that the point of, I believe, of a liberal arts education is to expose students to different ideas than they had in high school. They get math, they get English, they get history, and they get language in high school. What they do not get is a social science, and it is imperative that they be exposed to the diversity of social sciences at the college level.
Dick Reddy: I would just like to add something to what Jennifer just said. And that is that if we take a look at what we have approved (the material that is here), we are expecting that students will be taking, in addition to the other requirements, when we get to Part 3 (or what we've thought of as Part 3), "scientific thinking, can we expect that students will be able to take a scientific thinking course in the social sciences if they have not taken a social science course? I don't think we can really build if we have no foundation.
Patrick Jones: I would like to disagree, though. Two people in a row have said that they would not take a social science course. And that is not true, there is already a social science course. The amendment is to add an additional social science course. There is a social science course.
Michael Grady: I'd like to speak against the amendment. First of all, if you want to be sure that everybody takes the traditional social science, you can simply tighten up the requirement on the single social science course that's already there, or you can just eliminate history from that category if you're afraid of that. So that's easy to do without adding another course. The other thing is, for people who are counting hours, this, I believe, would raise the total to thirty-nine, and the subtotal, I believe is incorrect on the sheet. It says eighteen under simple mandates. I count that as twenty-one already. So I really think a lot of disciplines are going to have trouble with a 39 hour GCP. I know ours is.
Bill Muller: I don't know, it's not shown on this sheet, but on the last sheet we had, it identified the departments that satisfied these requirements, "selected courses in..."
Cheryl Drout: I might respond to that. We removed that from these sheets.
Bob Rogers: I don't see how one could logically argue that there should be two courses in the natural sciences to cover breadth, but then argue again that there should be only one course in the social sciences. That seems to be contradictory, and I don't see any way to get around it, period.
Mike Grady: I'd like to answer that. We have all these other courses, complex mandates, "other civilizations" is very likely going to be a social science course.
Rogers: Can you guarantee that?
Grady: You can't guarantee it. But in a lot of cases it will be, and the same for scientific thinking.
Joe Chilberg: I have a question regarding the assumptions underlying the amendment, and that is that the socials scientific introductory course is supposed to explicitly demonstrate its social scientific methodology. And I assume that this is probably one of the screening gates of such courses. Can someone explain to me what that means? Something tangible? What's going to happen in the text, in the course?
Cheryl Drout: We are anticipating that there will be a GCP Committee that will review all the courses that are proposed, and we would expect that we would be looking at the syllabi to identify the methodology that is being addressed. And in an area like history, where some courses take an arts and humanities approach and some take a social science approach, the syllabi needs to indicate to the committee about the approach. That's the type of thing that we're referring to.
Chilberg: So this means that, for example, you'd have to have a chapter, or a set of lectures on the experimental or quantitative methodology to ground the results that we talk about in social science, and science research. So, in other words, we have to address methodology in these introductory courses and whether they are a quantitative/qualitative approach, or perhaps even both, because they seem to be both existent in the social sciences.
Ziya Arnavut: I think as I see it, I personally oppose this GCP program, because...
Gee: Are you referring to the entire program? We're on the amendment.
Arnavut: Including the amendment, which increases the total credits as earlier indicated. Overall, we will have a deficiency in our system.
Lee Braude: Any social science, as, indeed, most fields of knowledge, will include at the very earliest portions of the introductory course discussions of methodology. How else do we know whatever it is: economics, or political science, or whatever may be studied. This is what we do.
The real question, it seems to me, is whether, in fact, by narrowing the number of social science credits offered in the general college program we are diluting the worthiness of the program. As an object lesson, I call to the attention of this house the fact that an erstwhile very recent president of my own alma mater, the University of Chicago, was forced to resign by faculty and students of the undergraduate college for attempting to dumb down the curriculum. Students marched around the administration building shouting "Plato not Play-Dough". The president resigned. By diluting the social sciences, by failing to recognize its contribution to general education, we risk dumbing down even further what we as a liberal arts college propose to do to educate our students, period.
Dan Chiappe: I'd also like to make the point that requiring a single social science credit would not really be sufficient. Anyone who knows anything about the social sciences knows that they are wide and varied. To get a good understanding of the social sciences, you should take many courses in the social sciences, not just one. Psychology is very different from sociology, which is probably very different from anthropology, and I think you have to take courses in many areas.
Ted Schwalbe: The same arguments over the last two speakers could be made for the arts and humanities.
Steve Stahl: I'd like to speak in favor of the amendment. I think that, as I look at what the requirements are that came down from the BOT and not from the committee, that those mandates with a regional impact strike me as being more likely to be filled out by history, which I would view as a second humanities course. And to get back to the possible resource impact to the arts, keeping the arts at three credit hours came forth from the committee largely based upon resource issues. I see that the amendment would be the way to see that students get exposure to an second social science, and to guarantee that.
George Browder: Except for one thing, the history department is going to be unable to mount so many courses in all three of those categories. The chances that most students will meet those requirements with history courses is pretty slim. And as to whether or not history is a humanities or a social science, that's something else. We get passed back and forth between the two fields largely depending on how people want to balance the college's departments, not the discipline.
Debate on the amendment was closed by a unanimous vote.
The amendment was approved by a majority vote.
Nancy Gee: We are now back on the main motion, which is the program itself. Is there any further discussion?
Tom Morrissey: It seems to me that we are setting up a program, and then we're setting categories, and we will vote on a program and then sometime next year a committee will decide what departments courses fit under the categories. In other words, we could vote a program, and the committee could end up by choosing what courses what departments fit in come out with a totally different program from what we're voting on.
Gee: The committee is a standing committee of the Senate.
Morrissey: In other words, if you look at the one we got today, which gave the straw vote, you had all kinds under this heading, this department may be in it or may not be in it. In other words that means that we're voting almost a blank check to the committee to re-write the program.
Cheryl Drout: The committee views it as necessary for a return to this body with something like the demonstration General Education model that you have here. We do not see this as...
Morrissey: So it would have to all be approved again? In other words, you vote a program and then what fits in each one will have to be done all over again?
Drout: There needs to be greater detail than what's been discussed by this body, but the conceptual framework gives us a place to begin. I don't think it would ever return at the level of every course needing to be approved. That has to be worked out by a General Education Review Committee.
Ted Schwalbe: I would just like to echo Markus' comments that through no fault of the committee, but primarily again through the mandates, the overall general college program is extremely American-centric, and that it really should have, for the benefit of our students, a much larger international component.
Steve Stahl: Last time, when we had the meeting with the straw vote, we talked about foreign language a little bit. There were two different views raised on the number seats needed. One had it as a minimum of 75, another had it on a maximum on the order of 1,400 seats.
In an effort to try and get, what may or may not be, some harder data on this, we asked the chairs in Natural and Social Sciences to go through the files they had for students who came in '97-98, so they would be juniors, assigned as majors, as to what they had in their advising file in terms of foreign language. And there are some problems with the data, because we asked them to be collected at 85 or higher, and then 75 to 85, when I think we should have asked for 70 to 85 and then 75 or lower.
We have a complete set for a fairly large number of about 300 people, students, were surveyed in this. Roughly one-third had an 85 or higher, which would mean that they would have placed into 215, not having to take any language on campus by the requirements put forward. Roughly, one-third would have been placed into 116, and slightly more than one-third would have needed to take both 115 and 116 using the 75 as a cutoff. What this would correspond to, would be on the order of a 1,000 seats that we would need to provide in introductory language, assuming that one- third would have to take two sections, and one-third would have to one section, and one-third pass out of all. And so, I'm not sure how good these data are. What I would strongly urge is that we take a relatively slow approach to initiating foreign language, principally because of the resource issues and that we make a commitment over time to go that way.
Tom Goetz: I just have one question. One-third would be 300 students.
Stahl: No, not if we normalize for the entire freshman class.
Goetz: The entire freshmen class? What's the size of the entire freshman class?
Stahl: About 1076.
Goetz: Ok; one third of that?
Stahl: 333, 666 seats, and then if one third needs one section, that another 333. That's about 1,000.
Goetz: But that's the entire freshman class.
Stahl: Well a 1,000, one-third of which would be taking two courses, one-third would be taking one course, one-third would be taking no courses.
Goetz: I would dispute the figures.
George Browder: The President just announced that he is going to exercise the prerogative to phase this thing in carefully and, therefore, I don't think we need to debate it. We should go ahead and pass FL 116, and let him phase it in if he determines that there are problems.
Julius Adams: I have a concern representing approximately 28 percent of the students on this campus in the School of Education, which do not include the graduate students, which do not include the secondary students that we service, in that we would be potentially forcing about 60 percent of my students to take two additional courses to satisfy this 85 percent requirement when we are also bound by the Regents, who have indicated that passing a foreign language is something that is left up to the college and we have determined that would be a high school equivalency.
Now, I'm not trying to pretend that that is true knowledge of a foreign language, but nor am I pretending that 116 is true knowledge of a foreign language. So my concern is that by doing this, we are going to obligate my students to two more courses when my students have at least a minimum of 48 hours in their pedagogy. They have a minimum of 30 hours in their concentration, plus additional courses that they must take. My students are at their max when it comes to taking courses, and they already do not have electives that they can take.
Cheryl Drout: For the student to need two more courses, the student would have to score less than 70 on the Regents exam. In the data the committee looked at, which did involve only three majors, we looked at only about 15 to 20 would be scoring below 70 on the Regents exam and need to take both courses.
Adams: If 85 percent is the cut-off, I looked at the junior class, the current junior class...
Drout: 85 percent is the cut-off for 116. If you had an 85 you wouldn't have to take any courses.
Adams: So you wouldn't have to take any at 85, but you would have to take one course below 85.
Drout: Right.
Adams: I still have a concern, because we're still talking about a third of my students.
Bill Graebner: I would just like to speak to Julius' point. I've said this before but a social studies major with two language courses would be 94 hours. That's a lot of hours. I'd like to keep those as low as we can. Even three hours means a lot when your major is 94.
Drout: I would just like to add that we did look at social studies in the fall of '99, and we had 12 percent with scores below seventy, so 12 percent would need both courses.
Tom Morrissey: I'll appeal to George Browder's memory. Many years ago when the old GLEP program was being phased out and we were going into what was then the new GCP, one of the things that we wanted was requiring a foreign language and we were told with the new GCP then that we couldn't do it because there were no resources. It seems to me that we are back again to this. It may be good. Our students may need it. It may be kultur. But we can't do it because the resources aren't there.
Jackie Swansinger: I was just going to pick up on the point that both Markus and Ted mentioned earlier that, through a number of coincidences here, what's happened is that we are taking out internationalization of the curriculum. I think the language is one of the ways to try and fight some of that and to put internationalization, at least awareness of internationalization, back into the curriculum at some level. It doesn't answer all the problems, but to take it out completely increases the parochial, local, American-centered curriculum.
Ruth Antosh: I just thought that this group would be interested to know what a couple of other campuses have done. SUNY Brockport has just voted in a one-year requirement. I can't believe that our student body is so different from SUNY Brockport. I personally think of Brockport as having a bit lower entrance requirements. SUNY Oswego has put in a one-year requirement. And Geneseo, I was not able to get through to my colleague there, but at last report they were putting through a two-year requirement at Geneseo. I think talking about dumbing down the curriculum, here's the perfect example. We are going to look like the least demanding SUNY campus if we put through a one-semester requirement, even temporarily.
George Browder: In response to Tom's comment, he's right. When we did the general education reform in the '70s we did away with the language requirement, and, in the next few years, we did away with the language department for a large part of its existence. Then when we tried to restore language requirements. Yes, we've gotten the argument we can't because there are no resources. That makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we never restore a language requirement, we will never have the resources. If we restore a language requirement, the president said that he'll phase it in, and we'll get the resources back gradually.
Michael Grady: Speaking of international courses. I'm a little surprised that I haven't heard anybody promoting the loss of the current GCP Part III. That seems to be the best part of our current program according to most people. Also, most outside observers see that as Fredonia's mark on general education. Here we have a new Part Three and I haven't seen any discussion as to why these two courses: creativity and thinking, scientific thinking, are better than the current Part III, which has had so much acclaim.
And plus we should have an international, cross-cultural course in that Part Three. I think it's too early for us to decide on these additional intermediate upper division local requirements. I think we should postpone that part of the GCP, just remove it from this, and vote on the rest of it because I think there is a lot more that needs to be discussed as far as that additional upper-level requirement. I'm not convinced it's better than our current GCP Part III. In fact, I think it is not as good.
Jon Kraus: Are you entertaining discussions on Part three? One of the reasons we haven't discussed it is we haven't gotten there.
Nancy Gee: It's the whole package that we're discussing at this point. If you want to divide it up, we can do that, but at this point, it's the whole thing.
Kraus: On Part Three, let me discuss something. When I looked back to the descriptions, and originally these were 200-level courses, they are now up to 300- and 400-level, which is, I think, where they ought to be, I'm talking between April and May. OK? I applaud, frankly, the scientific thinking component, the requirement, because I find with my upper division students, trying to get them involved, looking for evidence, evidence to back them up, I can't get them to do it. It's very difficult.
So having a scientific approach is fine; I think that we will find that psychology is probably one of the most scientific in terms of scientific methods of the social sciences for upper division courses. I can't talk for the rest of them. That's a big guess. I think you'll find it hard to get a lot of 300-level courses, 400-level courses in social sciences, which are in fact primarily devoted to the use of active and systematic use of scientific methodology. The other thing I would note, however, is that the social sciences have a variety of methodologies. They are not all quantitative or use the scientific method in its rigorous forms. And to imagine that that is the case is not true.
A motion to continue the meeting until six o'clock was passed by a unanimous vote.
George Browder: Can I suggest to the senators that rather than just expressing their opinions, if they'd like to make a change that they make a motion to amend the proposal. Then we can focus our discussion and decide whether or not to make that change.
Minda Rae Amiran: This is just an informational comment, but the courses in world history and other civilizations is most of what we have in Part IIIB. And courses in western civ is included in IIIB. IIIA includes courses in the Anglo-American tradition in the current GCP. So, it seems to me that, depending on the kind of selectivity that is exercised, western civ and other civ can contain some of the best of our current Part III of the GCP and still leave room for innovative, integrative courses in what is now the new Part Three.
Michael Grady: I'd like to make a motion that we, for the time being, remove the additional intermediate to upper division local requirements and revisit that possibility in the fall because I think we need to think about it some more, especially since we just added three hours of social sciences. We need to think about the number of hours, and we need to think about what's in that upper division courses, plus those courses won't have to be offered in fall 2001, because they're upper division, so there is no reason why we can't spend another year.
George Browder: Transfer students?
Nancy Gee: Just a point of clarification, here. You have two options here. One is to remove it. Another one is to divide, so that we discuss the top part first, and then we discuss the bottom part later. So it's up to you do decide what your motion is going to be.
Grady: I'll move to remove it.
Gee: OK, his motion is to remove the six credits at the bottom of the yellow sheet...
Dick Reddy: Until consideration in the fall.
Gee: Yes, until consideration in the fall. So, remove it for the time being to be reconsidered in the fall.
The motion was seconded.
Bob Rogers: I think that if you move to remove it until the fall, you might as well say you're going to kiss it goodbye, period. Because people are not going to go adding it on because of the dispute over hours. And then we're going to have a general education program with absolutely no upper-level requirements whatsoever.
And if I can make a comment also to what Mike said about our Part III as we have it currently now, I think our Part III is very good, but what I hear from students is that there is a vast chasm between the Part II and the Part III. The big difference between what is being proposed now is that it says intermediate to upper division. The new one is not so different, but there has been some attempt to try and bridge the lower parts to this upper part, rather than having that chasm which I hear from the students. That's the major difference.
Patrick Jones: I'd have to support that and speak against separating it out. I think we can look at the GCP as a whole and I am concerned about the credits. If we look at it piecemeal, it's like taxation: the county adds a percent, the city adds a percent, the next thing you know we have a 120-credit GCP and you get a degree in nothing.
Chuck Tilly: Leave it as it is. Leave it as it is, is that what you are saying?
Jones: Yes.
Jon Kraus: I would recommend against the motion on the floor to delete it. On the other hand, it does not, I mean we could have another motion to suspend what exactly we want that additional six hours of upper division credit to be. But again, it will not have much meaning anyway as a GCP if it's in ones major. As a general college program, if it's going to be within the students major anyway, what's it's going to add to a GCP program is beyond me.
Ruth Antosh: I would like to hear from the GCP Committee about these upper-level courses. And, you know, how do you envision them working? Could you run through, should they be in the major, should they not be in the major...
Cheryl Drout: One of the things that we imagined was to have a creativity and thinking area, and a scientific thinking area. Students would not be taking courses in each of these areas within the major. It is possible that they would be taking one of the courses within the major. And we though that if there was an upper level experience if there were one experience in the major and that would integrate experiences. In general in terms of the overlap with the major, because these areas (the arts and humanities and natural sciences, etc.) are introductory courses, you have these surveys... I also don't see how you could overlap a lot these courses through your major. It seems to me that in the structure they are going to be separated out.
Adam Brown: I think that when the original GCP evolved, it had it very clear, because it was coming out of the arts and humanities. The arts and humanities were both requirements, and then those were prerequisites for the creativity and thinking course, and then social and natural sciences were prerequisites for the scientific thinking. When we lost the prerequisites, we kind of lost the meaning of that.
Jan McVicker: I think that the courses that would be proposed under those categories could be as good as our faculty can make them. I mean, those courses are begging for faculty to come up with some innovative ideas that would be interdisciplinary, that would be, perhaps, international and/or cross-cultural, that went beyond the western civ and other world civ requirements. It would build on the foundations of multiple kinds of disciplinary experiences in each division and provide some integrative experiences for our students to think about the issues that could come up in the world from multiple kinds of perspectives based on multiple kinds of disciplines.
Adam Brown: So we're not going to limit the departments that go into this?
Browder: No, not at all.
Brown: So Psychology could have a course, parapsychology could go into creative thinking.
Peter Schoenbach: Yes, and we indicated on this demonstration of the general education program that specifically it would represent any. We really want it to be broad, to come from any discipline, and we'd love to see it come from two departments or three departments...
Jan McVicker: Can I just speak to Adam's point; I think you're explaining an example of a course in there that I know isn't there. A course in parapsychology...
Brown: No, no, as an example, just for creative thinking or any course. I can make an argument for just about any course that it would be a creative thinking course.
McVicker: I don't quite see that that's the case. There are some kinds of knowledges and some kinds of experiences that you want these courses to satisfy. Anybody who proposed a course, they would meet the guidelines of the faculty who come up with them. But I think we have to develop the guidelines before we say any course will satisfy this.
Bill Graebner: A couple of points. It seems to me that people are creative, not necessarily courses, and the second thing is this category. It says creativity and thinking; I'm real disturbed by the notion that thinking has become a category that we'd like to have in our courses. So I think that it has to be re-named at the very least. And, third, it seems to me that the sort of thing we've been talking about, this kind of ideal upper-division GCP, is exactly what we have. And so it seems to me that we ought to simply substitute our existing Part III GCP for this category. Just substitute it. Just do it with all the stuff that we have. I think that's what we ought to do.
Ziya Arnavut: I think we need to postpone this discussion until next September. We are running short of time there is other stuff to discuss.
A question was called, seconded, and approved by a majority vote.
The motion to eliminate this section for now, to be revisited in the fall, was defeated by a majority vote.
Jon Kraus: I move that we substitute the existing GCP, as a recommendation with the General College Program Committee, and that they in fact have some of the qualities in exchange for what exists as a proposal now.
Nancy Gee: I don't understand what you just said.
Kraus: I'm recommending that we substitute the existing program for the proposal.
Mac Nelson: Information, please? Part III only?
Kraus: Sorry. Part III only, with the understanding that they can ask us to move our current courses to some of the qualities they are now recommending.
The motion was moved and seconded.
Ted Schwalbe: In the existing Part IIIA and B, there is no requirement that either one or both of those courses have to be intermediate to upper level. Is that correct? Whereas the intent of the original...Are they all 300-level?
Cheryl Drout: There are some 200-level, and most are 300- and above.
George Browder: Almost all of the 200-level will now shift down a part to the so-called complex mandate courses, and I don't know how many of the 300-level are going to go down there also. So, you're going to have an awful lot of courses that are currently in Part III are going to be in the complex mandates. So what's going to be left for Part III?
Minda Rae Amiran: And didn't you say that the complex mandate could be 300-level courses?
Browder: Yes.
Mac Nelson: I think it would be a bad idea to return to Parts IIIA and IIIB. I think they probably do a very decent job, but you heard the president say earlier, and I think many of us tend to agree with him, that he thinks 400 courses are too many. Several hundred such courses are probably available to Part IIIA and IIIB. I think it would be a retrograde move. I, too, am a little concerned about the ambiguity of what these might mean. That is the current think, the suggestions on scientific thinking and creativity and thinking. I agree with Bill Graebner that the title of the latter is somewhat awkward and not a very good idea. Nonetheless, I plan to vote against this amendment because I think the idea of Part Three as the committee has suggested it is probably better than simply including everything that we do now. And to that, I would add that I do think the specification of a capstone course in scientific thinking is a good one, and that is not now required in Part III of the GCP, so I am opposed to this amendment.
Chuck Telly: As I understand, as a point of information, I thought the amendment was that we would allow the committee to use what we've got now, and what they've suggested. So I don't think that's anything different than what you're saying Mac. All they are saying is, all the amendment is saying is that, let's use what we've got and...
Nancy Gee: Can you clarify your amendment Jon?
Kraus: I suggested that we substitute the old for what they're asking us now, but that they can ask us to in fact use some of the qualities that they've created when we resubmit our courses. In fact, there is no reason why all the GCP Part IIIA and IIIB courses have to stand. The GCP Committee can ask us to resubmit and whittle them down. They don't all have to survive. Some, according to George, will shift to the lower level in any event.
Joe Straight: As a former senator and as someone who has served on a number of the standing committees, I have always felt that the Senate shouldn't try to do the work of the committees, the standing committees. And I think this is sort of what you're getting at now. You have to take what the committee has given you as a whole and vote it up or down, or if you don't understand, which I find is the place I'm sort of at right now, move to postpone, or send it back to committee, or something. Don't try to do committee work here on the floor of the Senate, so I would speak against the amendment.
Bob Rogers: Just to add on to what Mac Nelson said. It seems to me that if you adopt this amendment, then what you're going to do is to say, "Well, we have a bunch of courses, let's fit the category to the course," rather than say, "Hey, lets decide what the goals of the Part Three should be and then see which courses fit into that."
Ted Schwalbe: I disagree with that. I think the current Part III has goals that are extremely valid for this kind of general college program: integration and multinational. I would argue that those goals are very valuable to this program and that voting for this amendment would,in fact, satisfy one of the concerns that we have about this overall program, the international focus. At least we're adding three more hours back into that.
Amin Sarkar: I have a question to Jon. Jon, you are talking about adding the two Part III (Part IIIA and Part IIIB) of the existing GCP, which would replace creativity and thinking and scientific thinking. Is that the motion that you have?
Kraus: Yes, but, I also thought that those categories were good, and if they ask us to re-submit, they could ask us to, in fact, demonstrate those qualities within the larger integrations and multicultural, multinational, international experience.
Sarkar: I would like to move that these six credits, the last six credits should be allocated to three credits to the existing GCP Part IIIA (Integration), and three credits should be allocated to existing GCP Part IIIB (International).
Nelson: That's the amendment.
Sarkar: So then that is the motion, OK.
A question was called, seconded and approved unanimously.
The Kraus amendment was defeated by a majority vote.
Nancy Gee: OK, we're back to discussing the program as a whole.
Mae Reck: A couple points. I'm asking the committee and Cheryl, in American History, 105-106, should there be an "or" there?
Cheryl Drout: "or another American narrative."
Reck: Ok, I didn't want people to think that that's two courses. And I assume that whoever said the 18 is a typo there, that should be 21? Is that correct?
Drout: Yes.
Bill Muller: Point of information, what was the other correction about 105 and 106?
Reck: It should be "or." The way the dash is, you might think it means both.
Drout: Regents scores below 85 would take 105 or 106.
Nancy Gee: Any other comments or questions on the overall program?
Jane Romal: Don't we have to vote on whether we want FL115 or 116?
Gee: Somebody needs to make an amendment before we can vote on that.
Romal: I'll move that we go for just FL115.
Gee: Does everyone understand? She is making an amendment that we have only FL115.
Chuck Telly: We already did that last time.
Romal: But that wasn't a meeting.
Gee: Is there a second? Hearing no second, we go back to discussion of the overall package.
Bill Graebner: It seems to me that that amendment that Jon proposed was very close. The vote was close. It seemed to indicate some dissatisfaction with these two categories, as they currently exist in Part Three. So perhaps that can be our focus.
Marcus Vink: I would actually add to that, that what seems to be a useful comment that I've heard from several people is that maybe there should be some kind of international, cross-cultural, global, or multinational focus in this Part Three. I would propose that to the committee.
Adam Brown: I agree, I think this should be better defined.
Jackie Schwansinger: I want us to consider this, a motion that we pass the program with the simple mandates, complex mandates, and with the understanding that we do want six credits in the intermediate to upper division local, but that the committee would have to come back in the fall to define that further in terms of categories. Because I think that the comments that are presently being made, do back up the insecurity at the moment of the senators as to where this is going, but we're not necessarily against the six credits to go to intermediate to upper level courses.
The amendment was seconded.
Mac Nelson: I like it. I would just add that I've heard also among us considerable desire for some international experience as well, and that's not part of the amendment, but I know the committee is sitting here and listening.
Michael Grady: Well, for that matter, Jan McVicker mentioned integrations. I agree the creativity and thinking, scientific thinking, but as I read them it doesn't really say anything about integrations as far as I can see, so I don't really see that it's actually in there.
Cheryl Drout: I would still raise the concern that, if we postpone our discussion of specifics in Part Three, that we may down the line loose those six credits.
Nancy Gee: Just as a point of clarification, she is suggesting that we accept six credit hours to be defined later.
Jon Kraus: I move that at least three credit hours of it be in a global or international sphere outside the major.
The amendment to the amendment was seconded.
Gee: So we have an amendment to the amendment.
Chuck Telly: Can't we just leave what Mac said? We just go ahead and let the committee do their thing and just suggest to them that it's international? I agree with what Mac said.
Jon Kraus: I would be quite willing to withdrawal mine. My motion was in response to Cheryl, who said the committee would like a sense of direction.
Gee: So you're withdrawing your amendment?
Kraus: No, I'm not; it's still out there. I said I was willing to.
Jackie Schwansinger: I do think it's smart at this point to sort of let the committee be the one to come back with recommendations. Because we all have our preferred program, our preferred way of seeing things, and in the last ten minutes, I don't think this is hardly an opportunity to discuss it without that.
Cheryl Drout: The committee hasn't made its recommendation, and the committee will be somewhat different in the fall.
Swansinger: But at least this way, we could pass this program, which is the work of this committee and in which they have put a great deal of effort, and I would not like to start in the fall from scratch.
Mac Nelson: On the amendment to the amendment, if we require three hours of international or cross-cultural, and I like the idea, and if we require some sort of scientific thinking and we limit ourselves to six, which is what your motion says, then the second course that the committee recommends here, the one whose title we didn't much like, "creativity and thinking", that would be gone. We would not be able to require that. So I'm suspicious of whether it is a good idea to pass this amendment to the amendment or even the amendment. It may lock us in too much, very much as Joe Straight told us earlier, we are under pressure of time, and we are doing some rather specific things, which we may repent later.
Bill Muller: At the risk of making a fool of myself a second time, exactly how does the international, cross-cultural course differ in any real way from the world history or other civilizations course which is already in there, or could it be counted twice?
Jon Kraus: Bill, we were informed in prior meetings that most of those courses will be in fact lower-level. Although I've heard mixes of this since then, my understanding is that they would tend to be lower-level courses. Then, indeed, this sounds like they would be taken at a level in their college career that would be lower-level.
Muller: The guidelines and program model that they have says "intermediate and advanced courses in western civilizations and other world civilizations will be 200- and 300-level courses." So this is what the committee felt.
Nancy Gee: Ruth, did you have a comment or question?
Ruth Antosh: I was just going to ask the same question as Bill.
A question was called and approved unanimously on the amendment to the amendment.
Gee: Jon, would you mind restating your amendment to the amendment?
Kraus: That it is the sense of the body that we would like the committee to consider three of the six hours as cross-cultural, global, or international.
The amendment to the amendment was defeated by a majority vote.
A motion was made and seconded to close discussion on everything before the body.
The motion was approved unanimously.
Gee: First, let's vote on the amendment. Could you restate what that amendment is?
Jackie Schwansinger: It was to pass the proposed general education program with the understanding that further discussion on the last six credits of the additional intermediate to upper-division level would be held in the fall.
Gee: So six hours are to be defined later.
Roger Byrne: If this motion passes, then the second motion is moot.
Reddy: The second motion is the main motion.
Byrne: The main motion is moot if this passes.
Nancy Gee: No, this is an amendment; it's not a substitute motion. It's just an amendment.
The amendment was passed by a majority vote.
Gee: So now we're going to vote on the entire package as amended. Is everybody clear on the entire package?
Bill Graebner: Does that mean as amended that these creativity and thinking and scientific thinking are struck?
Gee: OK. Let me just go over what we amended. So we now have two courses in the social sciences as the amendment that passed.
Dick Reddy: A total of two.
Gee: A total of two. And we just passed an amendment where we have six credit hours of additional intermediate- to upper-division local requirements to be defined later. To be defined in the fall.
Bill Graebner: Then as the proposal does define them now, these would, in fact, be struck?
Gee: No, it's amended. They're not gone. Six credit hours to be defined later. There will be six credits.
Gaebner: Creativity and thinking is no longer part of what we're voting on.
Gee: That is correct, "six credit hours to be defined later." Exactly that.
The motion as amended was approved unanimously.
Mac Nelson: Can we adjourn now?
Gee: No! Wait! We do have some other critical items on the agenda. Can we have a motion to continue for a half hour? Or fifteen minutes?
A motion to continue for fifteen minutes was approved by a majority vote.
7b. David Ludlam (Academic Affairs Committee):
I have one thing for you; it is a new intermediate middle school math concentration program. I open it up to Nancy as to whether there is any discussion on it.
Joe Straight: Point of information, there is more material in front, more information, and things left out of the agenda.
Jon Kraus: I think this is an inappropriate time-period to approve a new program. We are at a point of mental exhaustion.
Ludlam: I would like to say one thing. If we don't discuss it, we will not move it through to the state and it will be dead for a year. If we don't do it, we will not be able to register the program. I think we need to discuss it one way or the other.
Chuck Telly: Obviously it's very important to you.
Ludlam: It's important to the math people. Academic Affairs passed unanimously. We are 100% behind it.
Straight: I might also say it was supported by the Professional Education Council and also has the support of the dean.
A motion was made to close debate was passed unanimously.
The new program was passed by a majority vote.
7d. Charlie Davis (Governance Committee):
Just very quickly, I know we are all tired, this is a reminder that we have out there, votes on a bylaw change, our new senator, planning and budget committee and call for nominations. Please if you haven't had an opportunity to deal with those, please do so, but also encourage all of your colleagues. Please, I encourage everyone to vote on that.
Nelson: Can I ask while Charlie is here, on a related issue, the business of email voting? I am not entirely incompetent with the computer, but I can't get the damn thing to click where I want it to click on the vote, so I called or I sent a piece of paper. I don't know how it's done properly.
Davis: Simply reply.
Nelson: Just reply? Oh, OK, alright. It ought to be simpler somehow. Reply, that's the answer I want.
Michael Grady: I was just going to suggest that instructions be given to us on exactly how to perform the voting, because not everybody was able to do it.
Davis: Pardon me?
Grady: I was just saying that instructions ought to be given with the ballot on exactly how to do it.
Davis: I found that the e-mail program in the President's Office is different from many of ours, so there's a lot of things we can't do. So we tried to keep it as simple as possible.
Gee: Let us now move on to New Business.
Bill Muller: There is a motion on the floor asking the Academic Affairs Committee to look at college policy with regard to cheating, the definition, and asking the Academic Affairs Committee to report by December of this year on clarifying the policy in the catalog and other issues which are specified in the resolution, which I think everybody has seen.
Gee: Let me point out that this is on the last two pages of the information that we sent to you and it was done by petition, so we don't need a second.
Mac Nelson: That was my first question. My comment is simply that I think Bill has identified a significant need here. I do think we need to keep up with technology as well as other things. I think this is a very good idea that we need to study.
The resolution on cheating and plagiarism was passed unanimously.
9. The meeting was adjourned at 6:12PM
Attendance:
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[x] Ruth Antosh
[ ] Joan Burke
[x] Joseph Chilberg
[x] Scott Johnston
[x] Patrick Jones
[x] Jeanette McVicker
[ ] Karen Mills-Courts
[x] Elizabeth Nelson
[x] Malcolm Nelson
[x] Ted Schwalbe
[ ] Theodore Steinberg
[x] Jackie Swansinger
[x] Markus Vink
Ex. Officio:
[x] Tracy Bennett
[x] Charles Davis
[ ] Michael Dimitri
[x] Len Faulk
[x] Nancy Gee
[x] Dennis Hefner
[x] Arlene Hibschweiler
[x] Jean Malinoski
[x] Mae Reck
[x] Dick Reddy
[x] Paul Schwartz
[x] Mojtaba Seyedian
[x] Stephen Stahl
Natural and Social Sciences and Professional Studies:
[x] Ziya Arnavut
[x] Nancy Boynton
[x] Adam Brown
[x] Roger Byrne
[x] Penny Chiappe
[x] Mara Goodman
[x] Michael Grady
[x] Jon Kraus
[x] David Ludlam
[x] Lawrence Maheady
[x] Jane Romal
[x] Amin Sarkar
[x] Cynthia Smith
[x] Charles Telly
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[ ] Jean Branicky
[ ] Carolyn Briggs
[x] Mike Conley
[x] Vince Courtney
[x] Marianne Eimer
[x] Karen Klose
[ ] Patrick Mandia
[ ] Kevin Michki
[ ] Charlotte Morse
[x] Carol Schwerk
[x] Martha Smith
[x] Soteris Tzitzis
[ ] Anna Zarczynski
Student Association:
[ ] Amanda Ferger
[ ] Andrew Fidurko
[x] Shamus Hayes
[ ] Emily Palumbos
[ ] Diana Ruiz
[ ] Pam Wright
Guests:
Cheryl Drout
Jeremy Smith
Peter Schoenbach
Dan Chiappe
George Browder
Christine Henseler
Nan Bowser
Joanne Martonis
Lee Braude
Bill Muller
Tom Morrissey
Bruce Simon
Adrienne McCornick
Joy Bilharz
Jim Hurtgen
Julius Gregg Adams
Jennifer Dyck
Amar Parai
Minda Rae Amiran
William Graebner
Tom Rywick
Bob Rogers
Linda Dorsten
Minutes prepared by College Senate Secretary, Dick Reddy, with the assistance of Michael Anton Sciortino