College Senate
Minutes of the Meeting of November 13th, 2000
Chair Gee called the meeting to order at 4:04PM.
1. The agenda was approved unanimously.
2. A motion to approve the minutes was made and seconded.
Dick Reddy: There is some discussion on this. The speaker in the last item on page 14 is Roger Byrne and not Michael Grady. And Michael has a comment and an observation to make as well.
Michael Grady: Also on page 14 (the discussion), there is a motion by Roger Byrne to remove the words "within and outside the discipline" in 2C of the Natural Sciences requirements.
That didn't actually take place [ed. Note: in the subsequently circulated Guidelines for the CCC courses]. I don't know if it was because the minutes were not clear to whoever was doing the editing. The intent was to remove those words. So I don't know if we should change the minutes to make that clearer or whether that is just an editing error.
Nancy Gee: Who edited the... what's the name of the document Mike?
Grady: The final Guidelines for the CCC courses.
Gee: Do you know who made those final changes?
Len Faulk: Ted is looking at it. I'm not sure.
Grady: The word "scientific" was inserted, but the words "within and outside the discipline" were not removed.
Ted Steinberg: Oh, that. I'm sorry. No problem.
Grady: Is that just an error?
Steinberg: Yes.
Gee: So you'll make the appropriate changes? Any further discussion of the minutes?
The minutes of the October 2nd 2000 meeting were approved by a unanimous vote.
3. Chairperson Nancy Gee (Chairperson's report):
I have no report this time, but I would like to remind you that it is critical that you state your name before speaking. We really do need to have accurate minutes, and as you noticed from these minutes, there were a number of "unidentified voice". So, please state your name.
4. President Dennis Hefner (President's report):
I included in this packet that you all received was the Memorandum of Understanding that the system has sent to us. This is in regard to the mission review activities that we have been involved in. It is a 14 page MOU, and so I'm not going to go through all the details. Basically, what is in the MOU is roughly what we had submitted to them approximately two years and two months ago. And it's come back in this format.
What I think is of most interest is when you get to pages 15, 16, and 17 of the Memorandum of Understanding, this is where the mission review funding comes into play. This is the $1.125 million. On 16, if you take a look at the bottom, it shows what we have committed to try and achieve, in terms of improving selectivity for the campus. And on page 17 is an item that the System put in such that if we don't meet the target, then they will reduce the $1.125 million by $1,600 dollars per student that falls below the expected levels. And with that, I'll just take questions... I know you've got a really busy agenda.
I sent it out, we will at some point be signing this MOU with the Chancellor. The Chancellor has been trying to go around to campuses and, hopefully, we'll have a signing here on our campus. We still haven't received a final copy. All we still have is this particular one. There were a few editing things in here that we pointed out to them, so they are supposedly retyping it. And at some point, it will come forward. This would be the agreement that we would have with the system.
Notice that when you look at the degree program section that is in there, it includes the degrees that we have listed on our five-year academic master plan. So those were all accepted by the system as appropriate directions for our campus to be going. But I'll take any questions that anybody has.
Mac Nelson: Do you have any doubts or difficulties with that $1,600 adjustment figure?
Hefner: No, I don't, I really don't. If we come in a little off: 10 to 15 students off, it would be a reduction, obviously, but it would not be a huge reduction.
M. Nelson: So you were not unpleasantly surprised by the addition of that?
Hefner: No. I would have rather not had that in there if I had my preferences, but I have been told that in all of the MOU documents with all of the campuses that received money, they had some type of a performance which also had a little negative twist to it.
M. Nelson: Thank you.
Nancy Gee: Are there any other questions? You'll note from the agenda that it says approval of the MOU. We do need to vote on this item, even though it has not yet been finalized. So are there any other questions/issues that you would like to discuss?
Jackie Swansinger: It's mainly questions because I don't know about things. But, for instance, the genius program, which is an on-line listing of research faculty interests with a joint collaborative effort. I don't know anything about it.
Hefner: Which page?
Swansinger: It's on page 10. It's under the "other cooperative activities."
Hefner: Which paragraph?
Swansinger: It's the last paragraph before the academic programs direction. It's University College Research Council... the last sentence of that.
Hefner: Ah, yeah. That's over in the Grants Office.
Swansinger: OK, I just wondered what it was, simply because it's in this document here. I wanted to know more about it.
Hefner: I'd have to check with the Grants Office. All I know is we've got it over there. They've had it for a while and it's something we subscribe to.
Jon Kraus: Dennis, actually that's a huge increase on page 16 in group one/group two students from 62.7% to 72%. A 9.3% increase, which I assume means we're going to have to dramatically increase the percentage of people in the top twenty percent of their high school standings to a level that we have not had in many a year. That just seems like a huge jump. I don't remember seeing the figure before, but that's, that's big time.
Hefner: Yeah, this was the figure that was brought forward to the Enrollment Management Committee.
Kraus: So I have no excuse for not knowing it.
Hefner: A number of people have seen it. You saw it earlier. You may not recall it. Yeah, it's a pretty healthy jump. Now notice, that the system wanted to show more in group one. We only receive penalties if we come in over the number of students that are in group three. We've got group two relatively flat. That is the wiggle room that we have in there.
Kraus: So group one doesn't have to meet that target as long as...
Hefner: As long as the combination of one and two meet that.
Kraus: OK, OK.
Gee: Any other questions?
Jackie Swansinger: Do I understand that we will be allowed to recruit outside of New York State? I saw that at one point, and I'm afraid I don't remember, that there was some discussion of different kinds of tuition plans.
Hefner: We are hoping at some point to still get that through. We still have a proposal that we submitted to the system over three years ago asking for authority to be able to discount some of our out-of-state tuitions. They have yet to respond to that request and have kind of shelved it at the moment. But the system is going through a review of all of our tuition policies and, hopefully, during this next year, that will be one of the items that will be addressed. There is no guarantee that it will be addressed, but at least it's on the discussion table right now.
Nancy Gee: Jan did you have a question?
Jan McVicker: Yes. I have two questions. They are basically the same question about different parts of the document.
One is about market niche and distinctiveness, and the other is about faculty development and scholarship. My question is that, as everything usually starts with paper trails, I'm a little nervous about a paper trail that starts as a Memorandum of Understanding, that I'm sure you don't intend to lock us into certain kinds of things, but has the implications for a lot of certain kinds of expectations. I'm looking at faculty recruitment. I'm looking at scholarship. I'm looking at faculty review, promotion, and tenure. I mean those would be significant changes that this campus would pass. I'm a little concerned about having something that locks us into a plan.
Hefner: Where are you?
McVicker: Let me just, this is section 3.0: faculty development.
Hefner: Page eight? Are you on page eight?
McVicker: Yes. "A small increase in faculty is anticipated", this is in the plan for enrollment growth. I bet a lot of us are hoping that it's not going to be a small increase in faculty, especially to meet some of the new program expectations. The "having a conversation with local campus governance on the possibility of external to the college peer review of faculty scholarship or creative activity." All of that represents really new kinds of expectations for this campus, and I'm just concerned. I'm simply deeply concerned.
Hefner: I understand. The "small faculty," I probably required we put that in. We won't blame that on the System. That was merely part of the wording that I think that our proposal was to them that we approved by this group a couple years ago. There are going to l be small increases in faculty, just as there are going to be small increases in enrollment. We're slowing down enrollment in this particular document. There is no number here. Small to some people, I mean to the Academic Affairs Division, small normally means triple-digits in increases to faculty. I don't see the small as being an issue.
The other one is a very significant point. And this is a point that we didn't put in. The System, in fact, in the first draft that they sent to us put in a requirement that we had to engage in external review for all tenure decisions. They sent that to all campuses across the SUNY system. We objected, as did a number of other campuses, and what was negotiated was this kind of wording that after this was signed, this would be brought back to the faculty governance group to consider. So I will bring it to you; send it forward to a committee, and it will be decided here. I's not something that I'm advocating. We already have a procedure whereby if there is any question, we can go outside.
McVicker: We can?
Hefner: We can right now, we can right now, if it's requested. But we don't automatically do that, and quite frankly, in most cases we don't need to do that. So we already have that mechanism in place. I'm not convinced we necessarily need to change. That's why we objected to the original wording that the System gave us.
McVicker: Well I would have a hard time voting on a document that contains language like that, that we as a campus haven't even had a chance to discuss. I mean, I think that's really inappropriate for the System to ask the campuses to do.
Hefner: Well, this was a request that came from the Statewide College Senate to ask that the Senate on each of the campuses endorse the document. Not approve it, but endorse it. That's where the request came from. I didn't bring it forward, it was the Statewide College Senate that asked to bring this forward.
Nancy Gee: Perhaps you might want to just comment on the background of the development of this document.
Hefner: Yeah, the document that we submitted was put together out of the Academic Affairs Division primarily. It came to this group in September of 1998, was approved. Almost all of the language in here is out of our document, and was approved by this group at that time. It was sent forward. There then were meetings using the system requirements that involved three administrators from the campus. I was one, Vice President Reck was there, Dean Stahl was there, and then there were three faculty who were also involved in those discussions. I can't remember. I know George Browder was on the group.
Several unidentified voices: Alberto Ray
Hefner: Alberto. Who else? Who else? Anyway, someone else in here. Anyway, there were six of us total that met with the System. We then, when the first draft of this came in, brought that group back together and made comments back to the System. This was a long time ago. This document has been floating out there for a long time. We made comments back to the system. They made most of the adjustments that we requested, including the one you were just pointing out, and then this has just come to the campus recently.
We've sent it back with a few editorials. There is no substantive change that will occur in the document that we've asked for. We just asked for a few wording changes where we thought it was awkward wording, and that's where it is at this time. Basically what this says, is we are going to grow at fifty students a year, rather than at a hundred a year. We are going to move toward being more selective. That we are in return going to receive $1.125 million. And It does include the programs that are all on our campus master plan.
Nancy Gee: Just to clarify. Wasn't it the Mission Review Statement that was approved by this body and not the MOU itself?
Hefner: Uh, no. The MOU came in here first. It came in here that September. The Mission Review... Oh, not the MOU. Yeah, the Mission Review document. Yes. I'm sorry. Yeah, the Mission Review document... and that is what this is based on.
Gee: And this is based on the mission review.
Jon Kraus: So I understand this document under 3.2 does only require us to open conversations on campus, but as a question, how many of the university centers have external review for tenure? Do you know?
Hefner: I honestly don't know.
Mae Reck: It's much more prevalent.
Kraus: For tenure, as distinct from promotion?
Reck: There is a lot more external review.
Gee: Are there any other questions or comments? Are we ready to vote?
The MOU was approved by a unanimous vote with one abstention.
Hefner: I will make the rest of my report very, very short. I had promised I would come back on registration in the fall. I did finally receive the report. One thing that I do want to clarify, in reading the minutes last time, the minutes seemed to imply that the Banner system didn't work. That's not true, the Banner system worked perfectly fine as we went through the registration for the fall semester.
There were some other factors that came into play. One, we had added another summer orientation, a seventh summer orientation, which it turns out there wasn't a formal review of the courses that were available between the sixth summer orientation session and as we went into the seventh one, which was the same time as final registration. In a few of the key disciplines where there was a fair amount of demand by students.... for a whole host of reasons: sabbaticals may have hit the department in the semester, and so forth. In some departments, there were up to a 30% reduction in course seats offered in a few disciplines, and that created a tightness.
Also, there were some blocks on some courses for particular majors. I asked for a specific example. The example I was given, the English Education courses were restricted only for Elementary Education students. The Secondary Education students couldn't get into those particular courses, so they took a lot of extra other English courses and created some demand there.
And then there were a number of other smaller issues. But those seemed to be the big problems. We are currently in the next round of registration. The deans went through the schedule very carefully, identified the ten bottlenecks, and actually added some sections where there were ten bottlenecks that were identified and hopefully we're going to get through this registration process alright. I haven't heard how it went today, but up until today, I know it's been going great. Does anybody know how it went today?
Mae Reck: It was all right this morning. I haven't had a chance to go by this afternoon.
Hefner: It's OK?
Nan Bowser: It's going well. When I left there were maybe ten students standing in line. I don't consider that to be really a line in terms of registration, and we go until 4:30, so I think we're OK. We're getting tighter. It's the second day of sophomores. Tomorrow will be the last day for sophomores.
Hefner: Then we get into freshman.
Bowser: We're getting creative.
Hefner: Right. I did want to let you know that at the meeting of the Presidents, we did hear a report from the Business Council, and I couldn't recall if I'd announced this to you. But the Business Council announced that their top priority for the next couple of years is going to be higher education. And I think that's a good move. That means they'll be in there lobbying for us with the legislature rather than against us as they have been over the last few years.
Now I know some people are groaning, because they're worried about strings that might be attached, but we'll try and keep the strings to a minimum and the dollars to a maximum. But it's better than what we had in the last few years.
You may have read, we are going to be the first campus up on SUNY Connect, and I think that's a real tribute to our librarians. They've done a great job in getting that conversion going. That will be a very nice new system. Eventually it will give us access to every single SUNY library, and they're putting a transfer system in place. We can get volumes in 48 hours anywhere from within the state. That should be very helpful for us.
The last item that I was going to report is that we did get a report on the faculty/staff campaign for this year as compared to last year. As you know, this year, there was an incentive. Money's going into the balance would be matched 50% out of dollars that the foundation had with unallocated dollars (unrestricted money). A year ago, the giving by faculty/staff on campus was $35,000. For this year, it was $104,000: a three-fold increase. So, give yourselves a hand, that's great news.
Nancy Gee: Are there any questions?
Ted Steinberg: It's not a question so much as a comment. I think there is one major flaw in the pattern that I do believe we do have to address, and that is that in the past, before Banner, if, say, 60 students more than were allowed in a course enrolled in it, the chairs had some record of that. There was some way of knowing that. With Banner, there is no way of knowing how many hits a course gets. Once it's closed, it's closed, and it makes it difficult for chairs to plan. So I just think that ought to be addressed.
Nan Bowser: Ted, the information is actually stored in Banner. We have to find a way to get it out. Every time you try to put a course in, you should see some of the audit trails on these registrations. They're incredible. Every time you try to get into a course that's closed, and get that message, there is a record. So I think it will be very important that we find a way to get it out, so that we can help the chairs in planning.
Dennis Hefner: Yah. I think as people use the system more, they'll get more familiar with where the bottlenecks occur in departments and different things.
Bill Graebner: Just from informal discussions with students, it seems that some students are missing classes in order to register. I think some students tell me this is quite frequent, like everybody's missing class. I've had students ask me if they could take my exam early or late because their registration time is the same time as my exam. And I guess I wondered how frequent this is, and, I suppose, even if it's infrequent, I think all of us should be concerned about this. I wonder if there is any talk about it, or, you know, interest in doing it some other way.
Hefner: As soon as their hour comes up, they can go any time after that. They don't have to be there at their exact hour. So they honestly could go to your class, take the test, and register an hour late.
Graebner: Well, yah, but of course because courses are in short supply, and they know this, they, of course, want to get there immediately. So regardless of what they could do, we're encouraging them to do it at the time that's on their slip. I mean, that's what a lot of them are going to do no matter what we say, or what the best thing might be in terms of their own self interest. Given that, isn't this a problem? I mean it doesn't seem like a good policy for a college to be so encouraging its students to miss class. I don't know. Nobody else feels that way?
Mara Huber: That happened today. I had three messages on the machine saying, "Dr. Huber, I won't be able to attend your class." But I think it was a real panic, and it may be specific to the Education Department because of the problems that we are experiencing. But there is this real sense of, "I've got to get my classes, and I've got to get there on time." And the students, there is a sense of anxiety, at least the students that I've been dealing with, that, you know, there is nothing that's going to stand in their way of getting there the minute they're entitled to get their classes, because they think there is some sort of magic connection, that if they don't get there at the earliest time... When I give them the cards, they look at their time, and if they're a day or two later, it's that sense of "Oh, my gosh, I'm not going to get into these classes." So I think your concerns is a real one. There is a real sense of anxiety about missing their date, and it's a little panicky.
Mac Nelson: In my experience, the ones who ask to go because they have a registration time are the ones who are usually there every day anyway, and if they miss a half a class or a class for that reason, it doesn't bother me.
Michael Grady: I think some students think they have to go during that time because on the green card, it doesn't actually say "anytime after this."
Nan Bowser: The card is very specific. It says "any time after."
Grady: Does it? Sorry.
Bowser: But you're right. They feel compelled to be there at the time that is assigned to them, in spite of what all we tell them.
Grady: Why is there an ending time? Maybe it should just be a beginning time, like nine dash, instead of nine to ten.
Bowser: That's a good thought. So a time "beginning at....."
Nancy Gee: Can I just jump in here? We do have a very long agenda. Would you all mind if we postponed this discussion?
Jon Kraus: Is it a one hour span that's given?
Bowser: It's a half hour, but there's no reason why we couldn't say "beginning at."
Kraus: Because I've had four or five students that have had to be at registration. Their understanding of that was that they have to be there in that time span.
Bowser: Great idea. Thanks.
5.a. Mae Reck (Vice President's Report):
I have several things. First of all, I'll give you some brief comments about the Chief Academic Officer's Meeting that was held at the end of October. The main topic, as you can guess, was general education, and two of the basic items we spent almost an entire day on.
One was the role of the PACGE Committee, of which I am a member. There was a lot of objections from Chief Academic Officers in that when proposals were sent to the PACGE that the PACGE sent recommendations on to the Provost, and once they got back their general education proposals, in terms of courses that had been recommended by PACGE, things had changed. It had not filtered back through PACGE at all. So it was, sort of, like we were cut off. One of the proposed resolutions to this in the future is that there will be an Appeals Subcommittee of PACGE and that if the Provost is not in agreement with the recommendation, then it will go back to PACGE, at least to the Appeals Committee.
Another issue that was large was considering the transfer issue and that, I guess as you are well aware, community colleges are only required to provide 21 hours of the 30 hours of general education, or in other words, meet seven of the ten standards. Any seven that they wish to select. The academic officers were very vocal with Peter Salins, who was there (the Provost) in terms of this is causing a major problem. We already feel it in the sense that we see slight declines in transfer students this year already and are already wondering if transfer students are getting nervous about transferring to a SUNY institution.
Academic officers were very open in saying that they had more than ever private institutions doing recruiting on their campuses, saying, "if you come to us, you don't have to meet the SUNY standards." And so this is going on in different meetings. We were hoping that the SUNY system would come to a resolution of that. We don't know for sure, still. The message definitely was given to the Provost's office that we are very, very concerned. Also, at another meeting, a PACGE meeting, in early November, we said it again to the Provost, who was there at about half of the meeting.
In lieu of this circumstance then, we here Fredonia... I will be sending out a letter this week probably going out or early next week, to our community colleges, saying to them that for the academic year 2001 - 2002, we are going to be operating under the same policy we have been operating under in terms of transfer students who have the AA or AS degree. So that they will feel assured that they can come here and have their lower division courses meet our requirements. We are still operating within SUNY guidelines there, and so we just want to send out a firm message to our community college friends that we will accept the students as we have in the past. We hope that in the meantime the SUNY system will take a handle of this issue and be done with it. The Presidents also are putting pressure on in their forums.
Another topic dealing with general education was, we had a report from Don Steven, who is an Associate Provost dealing with the assessment of general education in majors. That last draft I have circulated to Department Chairs, and to Deans. A final recommendation is expected to come in December.
One last item, in that meeting, we had Kate VanArnam did make a presentation. There is a new undergraduate curriculum proposal format that is being considered. So in the future, probably starting in the fall of 2001, that presented proposals will have a new format.
Questions about that information before going on to the next topic?
Minda Rae Amiran: What is the assessment that is going to be required?
Reck: Well there is an assessment task force that was established by the Provost. They are making a final report in December. It's dealing with general education and it's dealing with majors.
Amiran: I see. But we don't think that they're recommending specific instruments or something like that?
Reck: Well, not exactly. It's a gray area, to be honest. What it says in the report, unless it changes, is that the task group is recommending that another task group be established to look at that specific issue in particular areas. They named like five different areas like mathematics, critical thinking... But that's where we are with that. It is embedded in that. Other questions?
5.b. The next item is dealing with the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Evaluation of Teaching. Joe is going to make a short report in a minute. I just wanted to give you a little bit of background and review for memory in terms of information.
During the summer retreat of the chairs that I held in 1999, we looked at all the different student evaluation processes and procedures that take place at the departmental level. During 1999 - 2000, an Ad Hoc Committee was established as a recommendation coming from that summer retreat. We have a report that is attached in your agenda, and Joe Straight kindly chaired that. At this point, I want to thank the committee for their hard work. What they did was very comprehensive, I thought. So I received this final report in September of 2000. Attached also to your minutes are a memo that I sent out in October 2000 announcing that we would be doing a pilot, and I will let Joe go on from there--from the fall of 2000.
Joe Straight: The Ad Hoc Committee recently completed its task and made a final report to Vice President Reck. And the report consisted basically of three components. The first component was a general recommendation on the process of student evaluation of faculty teaching. For example, we recommended that the process be taken seriously and that faculty allow at least twenty minutes in a class to allow the students to complete whatever it is you want them to complete. We also recommend the departments have written procedures in place for specific processes they use and also how they use the forms and how the forms end up, how they will be disposed of eventually, that that be kept on file in the departments.
The second component was the mark sense form. At the time we were doing this, it became evident that since the mainframe was being put away, that we would have to design a new opscan form (or mark sense form) for student evaluation. And so the committee took a look at that, and the form went through a couple of drafts, and at each stage we had comments from faculty and from the chairs, and finally, we came up with a final draft of the form, and that is being printed for us by this company. I don't remember the name it off the top of my head.
So I think your recommendation was to have it piloted in each department for this semester, and then you can look at that in the spring and see how well it looked.
And the third component was actually prepared by Joan Burke, chair of English, and this was sort of a statement that a faculty member could read to the class at the time that the student evaluations are given, just letting the students know how they are going to be used. At this time we can announce on the form, there are some optional items, some department-specific items that departments can fill in. This would be a good time for you to let the students know what those particular items are and there are just some other things that we thought should be mentioned to students before you give them the form. So I'd be happy to answer any questions on it.
Bill Graebner: Somebody said to me, and I don't know, maybe you can tell me whether this is true, that the computer center has said that it will not support, and I don't know quite what that means, but will not support any other form but this one, but this one. I guess that means that the computer center says it will not process any other evaluation form but this one. Is there any truth to that?
Mae Reck: No.
Karen Klose: The departmental forms that were used in the past have all been re-written so that they can be run off the PC software that we have. So you can continue to use those. In addition, we will be reading these new opscans and providing the data on either floppy or raw data that we need to talk about tabulating.
Straight: I think initially we did say that, because we weren't sure, in the absence of the mainframe, how we were going to deal with these older opscan forms, but then as we got the new equipment, it became clear that we could deal with them. But we are going to be looking at the basic raw data we get out. It will of course be for each question and number of responses to each type. We're looking at how we might take that and feed it into something like SPSS to produce histograms, and means, and standard deviations and other things that the department could ask for. That's something we are going to be discussing with the chairs.
Nancy Gee: Joe, I have a question. A faculty member asked me to ask this question, "On the memo from Dr. Reck, it says that this will be piloted only on non-tenured faculty."
Mae Reck: That's my suggestion. I talked with department chairs and they had requested that. I was concentrating on full-time faculty, and that could be tenured or non-tenured. I put in my memo because I was just thinking of a group and so they are requesting to go with full-time people. Some departments are saying, "Well, can we give it to part-time?" Sure. I just wanted to make sure it was at least given to a meaningful group of faculty members in the pilot, and that everybody participated. Maybe I shouldn't have defined it there, but we've talked about that at the joint chairs meeting.
Gee: I was just supposed to ask that question.
Reck: Ok, so some departments are doing different things. Some departments are only using this. Some other departments are using this in conjunction with what they do now.
Straight: OK. Anything else? Any other questions?
Reck: Just one more thing. One other thing that is not there, that is on the agenda under the Academic Affairs Committee, dealing with converting options within majors. What we are doing instead of that, we have certain concentrations, and they are not in your packet, that we were thinking of moving from options to majors, so that we could have these options listed in the view book, the application view book, the SUNY book. And we have been told that if we had our options made into formal, what I call formal concentrations, that they meet the state guidelines and go through the process at that level, then we will have them listed. So we're not moving from options to majors, we're just making sure that they are really concentrations that are not just local, but are state accepted concentrations. I don't know if David wants to comment on that, but that's what we are doing. We found that that's a more simpler process, and we still will be in the view book for those.
Gee: Are there any other questions of Dr. Reck?
The next item on the agenda is a report of the Faculty Senator. Melinda?
6. Melinda Karnes (Faculty Senator's Report):
In your packets, you have the minutes from the September 15 - 16 meeting. I've enclosed for you the Chancellor's response to the motions that were presented at that meeting. Then, the next segment of your packet has the four resolutions that were passed in October at the University Faculty Senate meeting.
One is encouraging us to do exactly what we did, which is to assist the President with a recommendation on the Memorandum of Understanding. The next one is about the assessment question--that was brought up earlier.
The third motion was on the New York State Public Higher Education Conference Board, and to let you know what that is, I asked Dick to include in the minutes the bylaws. That organization is just beginning. What I wanted you to know was if you see any statements coming from that group, the University Faculty Senate is a part of that. We did vote to join the advocacy group. It is an advocacy group for public higher education. And they have an interesting section in their bylaws: any one of those groups can veto, has complete veto power. So any statements that come from that group has the approval of all groups involved.
The last motion is on the general education. There was a concern about the transferability from community colleges to four-year colleges, and concern by the Faculty Senate on the individual campuses, can faculty have academic license to approve courses on the campuses rather than having them all sent through Central and back again. This was quite a lengthy resolution on PACGE. Are there any questions?
Nancy Gee: Thank you! On to standing committees.
7.a. David Ludlam (Academic Affairs):
You have in your minutes two motions. One for a new track in applied mathematics, and the other for a minor in journalism. To speed things up, are there questions about the mathematics track? Joe is here to answer those. I won't have him go through a whole spiel on it if no one has any questions. The committee has reviewed it and is confident that it is a worthwhile track, and we are suggesting that we approve it. Are there any questions?
Nancy Boynton: I just wanted to point out that there was a handout up at the front. As it happened on Friday, there was something on the CNN-FN webpage about applied mathematics tracks.
Ludlam: That was helpful. It really is something that, you know, we definitely need. And we had no problems with this proposal whatsoever. We move the motion.
Gee: So the committee moves. We just need to vote. Is there any further discussion?
The applied mathematics track was approved by a unanimous vote.
Ludlam: The next one is the interdisciplinary minor in journalism. Joan Burke is here to answer questions.
Ted Schwalbe: A quick question under the journalism core, you list a course JN 270, Introduction to Print and Electronic Media, which is a modification of the existing EN 270, which, I believe, is an Introduction to Print Media. How does this new course differ from a course which is already offered by CN 102, Introduction to Mass Media?
Joan Burke: Well, I should tell you that this proposal was written by the committee before I became chair. So I am here to answer questions, if I can. I'm looking to find the answer to that. Bill Jungles said that he would be here. You don't remember a discussion about that?
Schwalbe: I was recalling a discussion on that particular course, and I just thought I'd ask.
Jan McVicker: I was on that initial committee in whatever year it was, 1998, and so was Bill Jungles. It seemed that the Intro to Print Media, which was the existing EN 270 and the Intro to Mass Comm. and Society, that both were fairly narrowly focused on print on the English side, and communications broadcast kinds of things on the communications side.
Schwalbe: That's not true.
McVicker: What we were trying to do was to create an intro-level course that would address both print and broadcast and introduce especially the process of news gathering. That would be the initial course that other courses would follow up on, again providing both print and broadcast and that neither existing course, as they so stood, did that.
Burke: There is an error in that journalism core, now that you bring that up. The credits should be 15 instead of 9. The whole minor is 30. There are three courses in the core on the first page, and if you turn it over there is the fourth and the fifth courses are there. JN 272 is also required, as is CN 253.
Gee: Any other questions or discussion?
Nancy Gee: The change in the number of credit hours is considered an editorial change.
Roger Byrne: How many hours are there in the minor?
Burke: 30.
Gee: 30.
Burke: 15 in the core. 6 credits for emphases and then a general knowledge core of 9.
Byrne: 30 hours?
Ludlam: 30 hours.
Byrne: That's a bit hefty for a minor isn't it?
Ludlam: That's what our concentrations in education are, and we don't even call it a minor.
Byrne: But that's for a concentration.
Ludlam: The state requires that it be thirty hours for a concentration.
Byrne: Most of our minors are twenty-one/twenty-two hours... somewhere in that range. And there's been some discussion over whether or not, as I'm anticipating discussions on general ed here, there were some discussions as to departments offering too many courses either in the major or the minor, and therefore not leaving enough room for elective courses.
Jan McVicker: Can I address that, and just give a sense of where the committee was going when it proposed these? We originally proposed a 21 hour minor, but we changed it, added the general knowledge core, which was an additional 9 credits because we felt that without something like that, the students were basically getting a skills-based kind of minor. It didn't reflect the content of news gathering, and the function of news in society, which is why we added the general knowledge core. We were also hoping that that would be a duplicative kind of thing that students could use for their general education. They would choose those courses in the gen. ed. that would overlap with their minor, and thus reduce the burden.
Gee: Any further discussion?
The interdisciplinary minor in journalism was approved by a unanimous vote.
Ludlam: The committee has tabled the Anthropology and the Management Information Systems proposals. We had reservations and things we needed to have answered for those. We may or may not be bringing them to Senate for the next meeting in time for the next catalog. As you can see with just the conversation on the journalism one, how long a process this is, and what the committee doesn't want to do is to rush through this. So we needed more information, so we are not bringing those to you.
Mae has already spoken of the options within majors to majors. I'm glad that we are able to do that as concentrations, because the committee kind of put their foot down on that particular one also pretty hard. We sensed it was going to be more than just something you could bring. It was going to be a lot of work. And so by leaving them as concentrations, they will be in the view book, and that was the goal was. So, we won't need to make those changes into majors.
The cheating and plagiarism resolution... We have had... We've been busy, as you can see from the minutes which were actually two weeks ago from Academic Affairs that are in there. There is another set that is five pages long from our last meeting. The committee has been working overtime, and we've been working with only three elected members, and one appointed member, and those people such as Ted, are also chairing other committees. So, the committee hasn't had the ability to get to this cheating and plagiarism resolution motion.
What we have decided is that we would like to, or will suggest we establish an ad hoc committee to study, which is our privilege and right to do so, so set up an ad hoc committee. Joe Straight has volunteered to chair it. He and Joan Burke did an excellent job at the retreat, which Mae had this summer on a preliminary study on this particular area. So we figured ,why reinvent the wheel, if he's already started the process going and he's been kind enough to do it. He has been really busy right now with the student review of teaching, so therefore he and the committee are asking that they could start in the second semester and come back in April with a report.
So, we are requesting an extension from the Senate on our report, which had been due in December, and truthfully, there isn't one. So it's up to you to decide what you want to do. You can either take this in April, or you can't get a report in December. So, therefore, can we vote on that one please?
Nancy Gee: The resolution was passed with a date, so we do need to vote to extend.
Markus Vink: I don't see anything in our packets regarding this particular topic.
Gee: I don't think there is anything in the packets. It's just an item on the agenda that he is discussing.
Ludlam: We're just asking to have it extended. And anybody who is interested, one last thing before you vote, if you are interested in serving on that ad hoc committee, could you please email either Joe or me and we'd be happy to have you serve on the committee. Right now it's a committee of two. If we don't get volunteers, we'll go out and start to beat the bushes for some more individuals.
Gee: Is there any discussion as to postponing? Did you have a date in mind?
Ludlam: The April Senate meeting was what we were...
Gee: The April Senate meeting. OK.
The extension of the deadline for a Cheating and Plagiarism Resolution until April was approved by a majority vote with one vote in opposition.
Ted Steinberg: I think you, David, should sit here and write one.
Ludlam: Right. I'll give you the one that's already there.
And one last thing that isn't on this, that I am bringing to you, and whatever your pleasure on this issue, you can decide how to handle it. The course repeat option, which was in the minutes that we did send for our annual report last year. We requested a change in that. The Registrar had asked us to look at it. And what's happened is that the way the committee worded it, wasn't the way that Banner could take it. And it's not that we're not downing Banner, it's just the way that computers read things with the "if this, then that" type of thing. The committee is made up of English majors, so it was one of those things, we didn't do it "if that or then", we should have listened to Joe. And therefore, we have to make a slight change in it. It's a fairly minor change, but in the process we've also discovered something else.
So this is a point of information. If you do not want to accept it as a point of information, you can tell me so, and I can, therefore, raise that as a motion for next meeting. Or you could make it a motion for this one. It's up to you how you want to do it.
What the process currently is is that a student requests, and correct me Nan if I'm wrong on this, a student requests to have a course repeat done on paper. Fills out a form, takes the course again, an "R" goes in place of the first grade of the course, and then the new grade shows on their transcript. Am I correct on that?
Nan Bowser: Uh huh.
Ludlam: The way that Banner will now be able to do it is that a student just registers for the course again, and it is an automatic procedure. The grade of the new course will be recorded. There will be an "E" beside the grade of the previous course (the first one). The "E" means excluded. There is a footnote and full explanation of what that means. Are you with me on this one? So, the grade stays, whereas under our old one an "R" went in place. So, if a student draws an "F" the first time, the "F" is there. If a student draws a "D" the first time, the "D" is there, and then there is a note saying that this does not count in the GPA, and the second grade is the one that counts in the GPA.
Other things that the committee is saying needs to be added is a policy that the registrar has been doing all the way along, which is allowing students who need to have a minimum of a "C" in certain specific courses for certification, such as in Education our majors have to have a "C" in MA201. They cannot be certified by the state if they do not have at least a "C" in that course. So, they have to take it again, if they don't get it on their first two tries. With that one, they would have to go to the Registrar's Office and fill out another form. It doesn't state it in the catalog, so we're asking that that be stated in the catalog. "For certain exceptions where a "C" is required for the degree, however the case, where departments would require this, where necessitated a "C" or higher in a specific course, the student may apply to the Registrar to retake the course an additional time, but