College Senate
Minutes of the Meeting of March 12, 2001
Chair Swansinger called the meeting to order at 4:05PM in 105 Fenton Hall.
1. Swansinger: Could I have a motion to approve the agenda?
Steinberg
And could I have a second?
Reddy: Second.
The agenda was approved.
Swansinger: I'm sorry, I didn't even see you! Thank you. I have discovered, thanks to the tape, that I did not pay attention last time to who moved to accept the agenda, who moved to accept the minutes, and I don't have the people down.
2. Could I have a motion for the approval of the minutes of February 12?
Reddy: Approval.
Swansinger: Thank you, a second? Thank you.
The minutes from the meeting of February 12, 2001 were approved.
3. As you may note, my report is next and I want to begin by doing sort of two things. Very introductory comments, one of which is simply to point you to the website. I wanted to make sure that you noticed that everything is on the website and we are trying to connect it with the reports that you are getting. So for instance, if you'll notice this little underlined part over here, it will take you directly to the minutes. We are doing the same thing with the agenda's, so you can go to the agenda's. And then from there connect you'll have meeting schedules, everything is in there. The reason I am bringing this up is because, back to our major issue, which is simply that (as we've mentioned before), there is a shortage of people willing to volunteer for everything. And we really need to simplify the way in which the senate is run. One of the things we're thinking of doing is putting everything online, and then asking you to print them off on your computer in your office. That way, we wouldn't actually have to distribute them everywhere. It would help in terms of down time, it would also help because let me introduce you to the new Secretary of the Faculty, (though I know, still subject to vote and all) Ray Rushboldt from the Political Science department. Who very, very graciously (laughter) agreed to come up here and do all this work. (applause from the Senate) We will quickly remedy the front of the page that he's pointed to right now, it says vacant; it will not be that way next time around. What we will do of course, is circulate an election ballot with motions and other things just so you know that that is coming. In case you were wondering how I got these powers, I did check the bi-laws. It turns out, Article 5- Section 3C, says that I can do this pro-tempore. Just in case you were worried about the constitutionality of it all.
The big issue that I want to bring up, is simply once again this whole issue of how do we go about streamlining faculty governments? How do we go about making it more efficient? As I mentioned last time, we have a schema- a theory of what it is we believe is impacting us most, and that is simply the number of people involved in faculty governments. The number of committees involved and the number of activities that people all have to participate in. This issue is one that as I mentioned previously, was raised by George Browder and Nancy Gee . I'm moving on it, in connection with their past efforts. Additionally, I want you to understand that this is not just a Fredonia problem it turns out that the University faculty is also dealing with this issue and Melinda Karnes will talk about that a little bit more. One of the difficulties is that throughout the SUNY system the big question being asked is what is the role of faculty governments and how effective is it? And I think part of that leaves us to re-discuss what do we want it to do? Where do we see our role? What is our role? And these are all issues that we're going to have to resolve together. In a timeline, of course! Just so that you know we're not doing this all year, we're going to try to compact it.
I mentioned last time that Patrick Jones, the Vice-Chair, was going to put together a task force with volunteers. And take a look at the report that we received from governance on the viability of committees, as well as discuss what the task force has said. So I'll give the floor to Patrick.
Jones: Thank you. We did meet the members who volunteered for task force, were Dick Reddy, Melinda Karnes, and Ted Steinberg, and I thank them for their time and careful thought and cooperation. As we got started in the process- we started by looking at (and I gave you a summary in the handouts) of what the Governor's committee did. They went through and surveyed each of the committees and asked them about viability. (If you didn't get one, they're here...did we all get one? Yes, no? Don't be shy. ) So the governance committee actually surveyed prior to this. Each of the committees had been asked about viability, and they put out a multi-page document which they said, this is essentially what we do, we believe we should be continued or discontinued. This is just a summary sheet I did on this, and we start by looking at this. This is one of the committees; this is the feedback from the people on the street doing the job of faculty governance. And just in way of a report on where we are at this point, we've met twice and we started asking some broad questions in addition to looking at that. Some of the questions we've asked we thought let's look at faculty resources. In terms of what are we asking our faculty to do, knowing that we have a significant portion of junior faculty on the campus. We actually looked at numbers, how many new hires there have been. And so we just asked questions, and we looked at the fact that many seats regularly go unfilled. And is that an issue for faculty governance? Are we expecting people to do too much? Or are we over-using our resources? We talked about what percentage of the faculty should be involved in our governmence? Then we got into a ballpark figure that says-at any given time- 50, 20, 30, 15 percent people should be involved in serving committees. What level of involvement is effective? At what point does governance become diluted by overextending our people? Are we scattered too wide? Do we over work those who are committed to them, there by contribute to the fact that people leave (?). Are there too many committees? Let us then look at the viability report. And then we talked about the structure of faculty governments. There seems to be some issue with communication on the campus. And committees operating and not necessarily reporting to the senate about what's going on. And so we look at should there be some kind of a clear chain of command, where faculty committees report to the Senate? Should the chairs of standing committees, be ex-officio centers? As is right now, they don't need to be. Should they meet regularly with the chair of the senate? Regularly being whatever they will determine. It will be just some type of regular meeting where the chairs of the committees get together to get the chair of the senate. Should they receive credit for their duties? If you are the chair of some of these gaining committees should you get credit? Just some of the general theme of the issues we discussed- a leader preference list. That will reflect the core of the faculty governments. When you get that preference list and you have page after page after page after page, (I have another one, another one) I lose numbers fast. I forget, but it was a ...
Swansinger: I think it's 55.
Jones: 55. 55 was it. Committees on a preference list, should it be leaner? Do we need to list all the ad-hoc committees? Or can we list the standing committees and they form ad-hoc committees? Which led us to, defining the use of ad-hoc committees. Low levels of communication campus wide, among committees. We spoke about that. Strategic Governments functions that report to the executive committee, again just getting at those issues of communication among ourselves. Increasing the government's involvement and participation, particularly among newer faculty members. And we spoke about the idea of faculty development in terms of governments, and guidance to the faculty, in the government's process and making that part of their career while they're at Fredonia. An institutional recognition, appreciation of generally good governments service. That is an institution, all of us, that we really value faculty governments. And it's seen as something that's important to do. I can say I'm on a search committee right now and one of the candidates, who's from () University, making comments about why you have a service and people talk about it, but its not really viewed as important. What's viewed as important is scholarship and publishing, where he was coming from. And so what do institutions truly value . And that's essentially what we did, the end of my report. We're going to get more involved, please feel free to communicate with me. Send me an email, hate mail, package-bombs. Set off gas bombs . We want this to be an open dialogue of where we are with faculty governments, and where we would like to go as an organization. So that what we do is viable and we're not just running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Everybody's busy (). Which is not a criticism for what we're doing. Any questions? We'll be accepting more concrete to you, some recommendations as we continue to meet, and meet with the executive committee. Thank you.
Swansinger: Just as a back up to what Patrick was just saying, we're hoping to be able to send you something in writing the week after break. Or at least some sparse recommendations, and see where the dialogue goes with that. And again, to back up some of what he is saying let me just give you the quick numbers I put together. I have at the present time that Fredonia has 255 full time faculty, of those 97 are new faculty hired since 1996. The present structure of one representative for ten faculty (by laws) means we should have at least 26 faculty senators. In the professional area, we have 157 people including both part time and full time. With the same representational proportion, this leads to 16 professional senators. To keep the College Senate functioning in good order, we need 42 senators: a chair, vice-chair, secretary, and the university senator. Total of 46 people. Additionally, there are committees that also need to be staffed by personnel. The standing committees: academic affairs, professional development, student affairs, governments, graduate council and college core curriculum, need 33 faculty and 9 professionals. This does not account for subcommittees of the college senate, nor does it account for the all the people needed to power the 42 remaining committees listed on the preference list. The total number of bodies needed for college senate, without including subcommittees, is 88. If you start off with 255, of which 97 are new, you can see why it's very hard to fill the faculty preference list in good order. And many people do in deed serve on one two even three committees. But as you can understand that takes a toll on your ability to balance that famous triumvarite of research, teaching, and service. So this is what's leading us to this discussion and we hope very much to be able to give you some concrete suggestions within the next two weeks. And one of the reasons I read this in, is so that it will be in the minutes. You can look at my numbers question them, figure out if you have better numbers or problems with them, and feel free to comment, send emails whatever.
Chilberg: I am curious if the committee is at any way able to give some indication of how many faculty go up for T and P review , or merit review and who do not have any of these committees assignments on their portfolio?
Swansinger: That's a very interesting question.
Chilberg: I just sense that its one way to determine and perhaps encourage for diverse representation of the 300 plus people who are responsible or are members of these organizations.
Swansinger: It's a great question, and I'll see, because I am not sure if there is anywhere we can go with that one.
Chilberg: But to even get some sort of indication from experience and review those documents, or take a set of documents in a given year- this year- particularly for advance of review of T and P, and then maybe a merit, and sometimes eyeballing it people say, gee I recall...
Swansinger: Thank you.
Byrne: I'm not so sure, if I want to have the senate looking into T and P review. Looking into whether or not a faculty member may be pretending to settle on these standing committees. Then you have the department....
Telly: I think Joe Chilberg was making that point.
Byrne: I think it's a point that needs to be made, that if we just leave it hanging there, that the minute someone is suggesting that junior faculty and undergoing tenure promotion, might be a little scared if they aren't on a certain number of committees.
Telly: I didn't think that that was what Chilberg was saying. I thought he was just saying, I thought he was just saying that he'd just like to know. Not that its important that they are on the committee or not, we'd just like to know how many are on the committee.
Swansinger: I guess I'd like a clarification, do you feel that that would be too intrusive to simply have a ballpark percentage?
Chilberg: I'm not even sure it's worth the kind of work it might take to actually get something valid. But that those in these positions and roles, can review these things very carefully may already say well you know we have (off the top of my head) 20 percent who don't. At an associate level for a professor, I don't think a junior level is appropriate, because they are just entering the system. I think its indicative of some () and we ask ourselves whether that's ok or not. Maybe everybody has a few signs, and you know throwing out half our committee isn't the whole enchilada. There is a lot of stuff going on here, and I know, or should I say that I perceive that there is a lot of people doing more than one committee as...And I think this becomes problematic in its own way. All of us want to see things work, so we commit. ()() At the same time I recognize that we don't want to make this a witch-hunt, or some sort of, if you don't, you're going to be screwed. Because I don't believe that our policy can be required. So it shouldn't be mandatory.
Swansinger: Its interesting because the SUNY board of trustee regulations is clear that it's a combination of teaching, service, and it has three categories it doesn't say what percentage.
(overtalking among Chilberg and Swansinger)
Chilberg: You can serve a whole lot and never be on one of these committees.
Swansinger: Ok, I will try to find a hybrid between those two positions. But it won't do anything, but we'll just try to find something there.
The second item I wanted to mention is simply the timing of the elections. One of the difficulties that I've discussed with Charlie Davis, Chair of Governance, is that we are running elections at this point at different times of the year for different positions. Planning and budget is in the spring, it's in the fall. (man interjects) So we actually have two halves, and that means that governance is constantly involved in some kind of election, rather than simply planning one big election. And it would just simplify the task if we could do that. So that's something else that we are going to be bringing to you. I just want you to at least think about it, we'll bring it in paper and make sure that there's more discussion, its just trying to simplify more than anything else.
Reddy: Technically the planning and budget needs to be held in March. However the committees themselves should be elected during the spring semester for service. Then there is the other cycle of the percentage cycle, in which runs on account...
Swansinger: And then of course, there's the officers of the Senate who are nominated in September for election in October. Its just that what happens is, I can speak to this one, the senators come in in September, the chair comes in in January, by the time the chair catches up with the senators the senators are leaving and then the chair has to do it again with new senators.
Reddy: The senators come in in February.
Swansinger: The new ones, right. It's just that the agenda doesn't necessarily begin in January as well, so there's a real disconnect there in that sense. And as you can see we don't have a motion, we just want to at least bring it up, because we are thinking of trying to offer a motion and there are bound to be some objections to it. And that's fine, I just want you to know where we're coming from and how we're developing this.
4. As you can tell, Dr. Hefner is not here today, he was called away (as he mentioned last week) to participate in a meeting with the chancellor. And given that kind of an invitation, he decided that he would simply have to absent himself from this body and move on to Albany for the day. But he did send his regrets, and you can understand that since he wasn't here I actually took a little advantage of this to do an awful lot of talking! (laughter)
5. But then we will move onto the report of the Vice President.
Reck: The first thing that I am going to do is give you an update of our faculty searches. And well away, and the department is doing an excellent job and I thoroughly enjoyed it again this year interviewing some outstanding candidates. As of this moment we have 13 successful searches. This includes right now: one in chemistry, one in sociology, two in computer science, one in biology, two in English, three in education, two in history, and one in business and IS. We have eight offers out, and we have another eight searches going on. We have one that is not going to make it. So the grand total this year, we started out with 26 in a large ad, then we had one in computer science and one in accounting and now we have added also 2 in reading. And so our grand total of searches is 30. So I think we are doing quite well we still have a little ways to go, its very very busy in this area, now.
Second, Len Faulk is going to talk about the meeting we are going to have on March 27 with regard to articulation agreements and also with the masters of social studies.
Faulk: March 27, in this month, we are going to be meeting with 5 of our largest Community College's. We are all nervous about how the general ed program is going to be implemented is going to be transferred into institutions particularly with community college transfer students. We have a meeting in the fall with transfer counselors on March 27 and transfer counselors. Now we'll talk specifically about the CCC program. And we're going to talk to them and find out exactly what courses they're going to be providing in CCC, which as you may recall, the recommendation is that they provide at the associates level at least seven out of the ten categories or 21 hours. We don't know which 21 hours there are going to be. And so this made out goal is to work with them to make that transition that transfer general education as best as possible. So these students can be transferred and graduate here in 4 years or if possible. So that's the major focus of that meeting.
Going on to social science, Masters in Education in Social Studies. This program has been in focus and it has been approved by the Graduate council and professional Ed. There is a handout, it was in your minutes but in the back you can turn to the curriculum. I don't have official copies of the curriculum. The program is 35 hours and is a collaboration of between history and political science department at this point. Courses will in the content areas of history there will be 20 credits, in political science there will be 6 credits and 9 credits in education. The Masters in Social Studies was offered over a decade ago at the college, there is a continuing demand for Masters in the political studies. We've had several students () ()()(). Social studies, history and Masters. There are fairly new teachers that have been hired in the last 3 years in the regents schools in social studies. And most of whom will need Masters as well as 115 students in our undergraduate program majors in Social Studies in Education will eventually need a Masters to complete the new requirements starting 2004. If they have that Masters within three years more students will be staying in our program. Any questions?
Byrne: The department requirements in the report there is satisfaction scores and general aptitude ()(). Do they know of what level they're going to cut off on that depending on...
Mary Beth Sievens: The latter. We have no set minimum, we just want to consider this one part of the total package.
Sarkar: I'm just wondering in a typical social studies program, is anyone enrolled or any course of economics in this? Or economics is outside social studies?
Faulk: Well, I think that economics is certainly offered participation, I think at this point it's being submitted with these courses. Mary Beth, I'd like to take it to the committee but I think in the future there are courses that you might take.
Sarkar: There are other social studies programs in other institutions. Do they also exclude economics? I mean Masters in Social Studies programs say in other SUNY schools?
Faulk: There's all kinds of schools with each departments it's a matter of those departments that are interested. If they ...I would work with the closely involved ....
Sarkar: The program is to find out that if our program ..., when we looked at how the competing schools they have their program structured, and so if the Masters degree program in Social Studies in other schools typically do not have economics, then it is ok for us. Also it is the kinds of standards that we may need to follow the other programs and other competing programs including economics...
Mary Beth Sievens: I can speak to that because as a member of the committee that designed the program, we did research other programs that are out there. And there is a real broad variety of things out there. Some programs do have a more prescribed course of stuff as we do. Other programs are very lose, and essentially allow students to pick and chose courses from a variety of disciplines that go far beyond just history, politics, and economics. There are other institutions that have large graduate programs who will incorporate Anthropology, and Sociology, and Psychology. So we are really trying to strike a balance here of what we thought we could do given the resources we have and the interest that was expressed.
Swansinger: I guess we need a second. Is anybody willing to second? Or there is no need, well thank you! So then it goes straight to a vote? So could I have the I's please? The nay's? So the motion passes.
The motion was passed.
Faulk: Lastly, again let me hand this around. This is the re-registration of the education graduate programs. All education graduate programs need to be registered as of April 1, and essentially we're not creating new programs, we're re-registering existing programs. So, ()() but just to bring you up to date both the graduate council and president of education council will be reviewing the re-registration packet at the end of this month. And on April 1 there' s a variety of changes in terms of the titles of Masters programs, and that's indicated in the handout. The system, and the State Education Department to review existing practices and to re-register programs. That was for your information, and Teresa is here if you have any questions about that re-registration process. Any questions? Ok thank you.
Swansinger: And now we turn to Melinda Karnes who's going to catch you up on two things at once.
6. Karnes: You have a chart that you picked up. This was presented at the University Faculty Senate Meeting in January, which was held at New Paltz, January 25, 26, and 27. I represented Fredonia there, this was an informational item, presented by one of the committees. Designed to show that first you have the () numbers. Full time faculty by campus, for '80, '94, '96, and '99. Then you have percent changes and they broke it down to looking at the () between ()(). Designed to show that the percentage changes in 1996 to '99, a lot of the negative percentages are disappearing and the committee is helping to present a popular in a positive way. Students coming out of ()(), I remember doing more hiring. I don't know why there was fifty percent in the last half-hour of the meeting; there was no discussion, no time for questions. They just sort of gave it to us and said take it back to your campuses, let you faculty see it. So I think that what I'll have on the agenda for the April meeting, because the next is not until the end of April, will be your reactions to this any other information that you would like the committee to collect for us, SUNY wide. So we can see these numbers . One of the things that we talked about (when we were talking about this business), too few faculty and too much work to do. The () was that we ()()()()() and there are all kinds of ways to they can expand this data, we can also look at the proportion of faculty to students afterwards. So, give it some thought and at the next meeting I'll be collecting questions.
Kraus: I believe I heard you talking, they handed this out to suggest brain rate was slowing down?
Karnes: Yes, actually...
Kraus: '96 to '99 changes, I think that 1980 to 1990 percentages spectacular and (), suggest () and the same faculty .
Karnes: Actually what I had, I hoped to have for you (and maybe I can get this somehow). I saw a copy somewhere here on campus, if there is one. Is they had us () negative numbers, and there's a () change on those. I'll pass this around so you can see it, but I am hoping they call me for interview. And for 1991 and 1996, all of the numbers shown are in red. 1996 to 1999 we start seeing some of the numbers for the (), no they're not substantially increasing. But nobody was sitting there are tossing this is wonderful. No ()() but unfortunately this guy copied it all in black so its kind of hard to see the red. I'll try to have one of those for you next time. There was a faculty meeting and also you received last time (I apologize for my illness, I was not able to be here), there is a packet of motions that were passed by the University Faculty Senate. And I believe next time I hope we get into the record that if you have a chance to look at those by the next meeting and I'd like to comment on your support of what the interest in Faculty Senate accomplished or not. So that I can go back and report that yes Fredonia agrees with the vote on the motions. ()(). So if you have a chance to look at those please, if not, email me I'll be happy to send them to you if you've lost them. During the () there were two presentations and one report. One was one New York State ad about SUNY connect, and Fredonia was complemented on its achievements in this area. Cited as one of the only institutions in this whole process. Second presentation was on re-occurring themes, and the theme of effective teaching practices on college campuses. There was () from North Carolina State, he had several teaching and a packet that was under his name, and there were no citations in the packet so I refused to bring it back. And I my surprise that somebody would be presenting somebody else's news as their own. The university faculty senate did listen to the point. So I'd thought I'd pass that along. My other report is from SUNY Brockport. Senator told us it had become a fraternity campus after the winter break five majors have been eliminated with no faculty in place. They were physics, geology, (), philosophy, water science (which I suppose is Marine Biology), and health administration. Chancellor expressed his surprise () and since that time I've received a number of emails stating that the President had convened a retreat to () situation and hopefully this has been resolved. ()(). Fredonia was mentioned twice during the meeting in very positive light. One was for SUNY connect and another by the chancellor who commented that he's electing two presidents to preview software. Certain folks (), President Hefner was one of the two names mentioned. I took a little () reading and several of the senators said they hear such good things about us they might come out and see our campus, and as it turns out we are going to have an advance. Because in the fall, Fredonia has been selected to host the University Faculty Senate meeting in October. The dates selected are October 26 and 27. For those of you who aren't familiar with this procedure, preliminary meeting cycle through appropriate SUNY cites. A campus hosting every 13 to 15 years. So, this is our chance to win and make an impression. As host Senator I will be on a committee to (). I already have about 4 or 5 places on the list on my computer. Any Senators who are interested in serving I'm not going to throw you on another committee, but if you'd like to just help out with suggestions and that kind of thing, anything that you can do just let me know. And I will be following a progress report with each month and let you know how the arrangements are going. Questions?
Reddy: I was just looking at the list that you have of the University Senate and what's surprising is they didn't list that these two SUNY campuses Health Science center and the downstate Health Science center, that they would be relevant as well. Because for example in looking the Stonybrook numbers, Stonybrook needs a health science center and increases in health science centers staffing might be requested if there's a substantial increase in the role number.
Karnes: Yes, just like that anything that you see missing on this, like I said this was presented to us by a committee. And I just need your reactions to take back with me discussing it more.
Bruce Simon: An interest into the data would be to get the percentage of credit hours taught by full time faculty. What were those figures? Especially as compared to grad student and adjunct. ()
Karnes: Ok thank you. Yes?
Penny Chiappe: For full time faculty, does that include full time faculty who are not in tenure track positions?
Karnes: That is one of the immediate questions that we asked, and there is no answer. ()()
Straight: It's also not clear whether it's full time faculty or full time equivalent faculty.
Byrne: I have some questions, I read in the Buffalo News last week that the number of what are traditionally two year technical college's are going to be moved to four year. I was wondering if this was being discussed and what the impact on lines that go to the other campuses is going to increase presumably (). In particular at Utica/Rome, as mentioned specifically as was Alfred.
Karnes: Questions to Alfred? I don't know that was not mentioned. I will pass that...what we do is break up into small groups with other college's our size. And that's where we air things that need to be asked of the chancellor and one person records. That's where I intend to bring the concerns and the questions.
Telly: The only questions I have is I wonder why we must have some kind of a reason why Stonybrook received such a huge change compared to al the rest of the schools. The biggest change of all the schools, fine. 25 percent more than (), and I wonder is that a favorite school of some sort? Have they done something we don't know about?
Karnes: Actually I have no idea how to answer that question. (overtalking among Karnes and Terry) The other number that everyone seemed to notice was Oneonta, in the right column they are dropping by 45 percent.
Reddy: One of the difficulties of numbers is knowing the stories behind them. For example has a very simple story behind it. They were a two school, they made up a very substantial problem, 43 percent. Their president at one time decided that he wanted to re-structure such offerings that they had. And they did re-structure the programs that they offered, and there was a very substantial decline in a number of students. That's all before something was not here, () the enrollment figures tanked very badly. And that reflected in the decline of the faculty. (mumbling ). Brockport also had a very substantial decline. Brockport was hoping to be one of the University centers at one point. In that 1980 time frame, and they increased their enrollments and increased their faculty and they couldn't sustain it. The University told them that they weren't going to be a University center. So the numbers, no matter what numbers we get there are stories behind the numbers and you need those stories in order to make sense of the numbers.
Nelson: I wondered about optometry?
Karnes: Thank you. Any other immediate... feel free to email or call me and I'll be writing just the questions to present to the committee.
7. Swansinger: We are going to move onto the standing committee reports. And once again I have to report another report of great charity and graciousness. Joe Straight was willing to become the interim chair of Academic Affairs, and of course this was because as you know David Ludlam had to retire or resign from that committee in February. And so Joe has agreed to take on all these responsibilities for the duration of the semester. And I do thank him very much for this.
Straight: Well since I have the floor, did we finish number 5? Because I see some things on there that I don't....
Swansinger: Most likely what happened here...(if I could put this up...) so that I could show you that we were doing this ...its not the current one...right my apologies for that I was just playing with it so you could go back and forth. And the report will be connected to it, so you can just click and read. And as a matter of fact one of the things that we are going to create is an electronic bulletin board. So for instance if there are notices that can't go on voting faculty because they are too long, we'll put them on the electronic bulleting board on the webpage and you can just go look at the issue there and then just email from there.
a. Straight: All right, this month we just have a couple of informational to let you know some of the issues that are happening in the Academic Affairs committee. We need a little bit of initial feedback from you. The first issue that we are studying is the advance placement exams and the score that is needed for credit. The current policy here at Fredonia is that we accept a score of 3 or higher. The Advance Placement exam is scored one, two, three, four, five. Four and Five are considered passing grades . We started developing a problem about a year ago that indicated that () colleges accept a score of three, and roughly half the colleges do not accept a score of three. So the question is which half do we want to be in? I've asked some of our sister institutions, other mathematics chairs what their policy is. And specifically I asked them what their acceptance for the AP Calculus exam, and whether they accept a score of 3 or not and then I asked them whether this was a policy that varied across campus and whether it was campus wide accepting a different score. And so far I've heard back from 4 schools. Buffalo State indicates that they take only a 4 or 5 for AB Calculus. Cortland accepts a 3 for AB Calculus, based on an individual department decision as to what the minimum score would be. Plattsburgh indicated that they need a 4 or 5 for math and science majors to receive credit, a 3 for other majors (this is on the AP Calculus exam)
(tape change)
The other issue that we are looking at is the 3-1-3 program. And 3-1-3 program is a program that attracts High School students in the area. The idea is that 3-1-3 stands for 3 years of high school a year in sort of a mix of high school and college, and then getting enough credits in that year or so that they can finish their undergraduate degree in 3 more years. So then 3-1-3. Students come to campus and take some courses and additionally they're given credit for courses that they are taking back in High Schools. And so the question the committee is asking is should students receive college credit for high school courses? In fact you should only get college credit for college courses. The way this looks on the transcript was is that, they will have () and then we'll see both 18 hours of credit 6 of those credits and maybe give them 6 credits for something called humanities, which I think is their high school English. And they give us 6 credits worth of high school math. And then they give us 6 credits of physics. So this is marked on the transcript across the (). There will be () some alternatives to this, ()() allows students to get a head start on college education. We certainly don't want to discourage them from coming to campus and taking the courses. And one alternative that we had in mind was actually in existence...this past week I was at the Finger Lakes Community College, articulation work there. And they have something called the Gemini Program. And what the Gemini Program is, is a very authorized High School teachers in the area teach some of their courses. So for example, math with the approval of math chair, faculty would have to be reviewed ()(). With the approval of math chair, there are High Schools in the area around Finger Lakes Community College that are offering calculus. Now needless to say, they used the syllabus interaction with the faculty college faculty. The high school faculty would have to be approved by the college. So this gives the students the opportunity to take a course at their High School, which is the equivalent to the college course, and they actually end up with a transcript from Finger Lakes, that shows that they took () or equivalent of Math 122. But their arrangement has to be worked out on terms of does the instructor get paid? How much should the students pay for the credit hours? And things like that, but they think that is a minimal situation and that the from the college, there is more control in the courses that you currently have credit of. And the students get a transcript which they can go to any college and get credit for these courses. Any feedback on this?
Byrne: Are you going to take a look at the impact potentially of raising from 3 to 4 above or () maybe you can sense the number of credits.
Straight: I would say that these programs are growing, in terms of looking at our students coming in . Nancy maybe that's a good idea to work this into summer orientation for so many years. It used to be not a lot of students coming in with either AP or credit through other colleges. Now, 25 percent of the students have some, atleast have some form of credit. Especially now is the peak. I would say those students have a 4 or 5 on the AP exam. But, some have a 1 or 2. Yes?
Antosh: I guess I was sort of wondering about issues with quality here. If you have High School teachers offering college courses at the High School at various community colleges-is there any kind of standardization of the criteria? Because I am sort of hearing that JCC is looking to do something like this. And I am not clear what qualifications the teachers have to have, or what.
Straight: I think the greatest () it sounds like everyone else is doing it, they are trying to have a quality program. Oversize, () the high school that are hired to do this they have the same syllabus, they have the same textbook. In cases where a () final is given in the course, then the High School is required to do it on the final as well. But high schools like it because it's an alternative to AP, and the AP you get in situations and you go through this course and there is just one test. You know how much you could do in one test situation. Where as with a course, there is more than just one test at the end there. Tests, quizzes, supposedly other factors that being in the grade.
Antosh: Can I ask one more question? Supposing you got a program where there is only one instructor in the subject in the community college, which I am thinking of their foreign language situation. There is one instructor, she may or may not be consulted as to criteria and High School teachers have to follow. What happens then when we look at that student's transcript as a transfer student? Do we automatically accept these courses taken in High School? Or are you still discussing that?
Straight: Our current policy is that () comes with a transcript and of a credited institution we accept that. They know that we often times know () we know its going to () Finger Lakes Community College transcript, so we give them credit.
Antosh: Well I think that could be disturbing, depending, you know...
Straight: Right now it's a situation where there is no () courses...I'm talking about our own program, because we can't control what other schools are doing. But, this way we look out, we will have control over the courses, we're supposed to have some control. Make it positive in terms of interaction with area high school faculty.
Faulk: One of the advantages community college's have is in the financial end. It can develop a relationship with high school without charging tuition because; they get the charge back from the local political jurisdictions plus the state aid. And so that financing makes it possible, and I actually accept additions, so its an additional...
Telly: I just, the problem with me here is if this is brought before us as a committee accepts it or not, I'd like to know how many of our students are doing this? And I agree with Antosh, I'd like to know who is doing this, now that both () levels of criteria. It seems to me these are obvious questions, and then what is our competition doing? We don't want to cut our necks. I'd like to know what our competition is doing. I've seen some of my students coming through with this, and a lot of times I think this is a mistake and they shouldn't have done this. Well because they are not qualified (). So unless we know all the statistics how can we vote on it? I don't want to make it a huge project, but this is an important thing.
Reddy: I don't remember all the details of what was taking place with JCC, but I remember some concerns. They have been doing this themselves at the Finger Lakes, they maybe doing it better at Finger Lakes. But nonetheless, they have been doing it I believe for the last couple of years, and as I understand it, some college's elsewhere in the country are not willing to take their courses because they were in fact offered in high school, and they were not deemed really college courses. However, that's not Fredonia's situation, or any of the other school's within the SUNY system situation. Because if in fact the students receive SUNY community college credit for course work that they took, then we've got to take these, () then we have to accept it. So that our hands are tied under these circumstances, and as Len was just suggesting within the county, deals can be made that are better financial deals for students and for the school districts as well, better than we ourselves can offer. So that the horse is already out of the barn on this one as far as anything that we can really do, as far as I know, or that's as I understand it.
Kraus: Make sure I understood something. So, these teachers who have the Gemini program, instead of teaching AP course, they teach a course which indicates the college level course. And then they are given credit. You raised a question, are they in fact given ad-junct pay by the college for teaching that course in high school?
Straight: At Finger Lakes Community College they are not paid, and the students at the High School pay $30 per credit hour, which is about one-third per credit hour if you go through the campus.
Grady: You have to think carefully about making this change, for a couple of reasons. One is the SUNY's can't count these extra 12 hours from High School, you really are not going to () the 3-1-3 program anymore. Because there is no way you'll get a full semester of credits in those cases. And the second thing is I think actually it may be better to keep it the way it is now, particularly in Fredonia. In the sense that, () except Fredonia. So this is one of the () that we take. ()() And that's almost on purpose, and () trying to encourage for some of the better students in the high schools that go to Fredonia, not (). There would be no incentive to stay at Fredonia. Do you understand what I am saying? And the third problem I'd like to point out is that atleast for the pre-calculus courses, the ones they usually have credit for, we do teach equivalent courses in college algebra and pre-calculus. So, () just high school courses. Right in sense that the equivalent college courses do exist, if not .
(?): Its just that whatever that course is there now, () I'm not even saying its equivalent material wise. Too hard for us or not. It's just that no one ever checked. To my knowledge no one has ever asked the math department quick check on this test ()() over thirty years...()() but no one's ever checked on the course.
Schwabe: I don't think our hands are tied totally because we do as an institution have the right to say well look () Fredonia transcript (). So that I think the usual of whether or not in this case, and in our 3-1-3 programs students can get the 12 credit hours for taking 2 high school semesters of 2 out of the 3 courses, is something that we do have under our control. I think it's an important issue. And I agree with you what you were saying as far as recruitment issue are concerned, because () as Lisa Smith was saying at our meeting last night, said that about 30 percent of 3-1-3 students who wind up going to Fredonia. So it's a good size number. I am not sure whether or not these are () courses or not, ()() students, sending a Fredonia transcript includes the () courses to a ()()(). But we mentioned was the last few, as a physics professor, do you feel comfortable accepting what most students are doing in 12 grade physics in Fredonia High School as equivalent to a whatever physics course here? But they are getting credit for it, and that's where there are problems. There is no oversights...no one has ever really looked over what is being done there.
(?): In our case we never let students count any of those courses as pre-requisites to our courses. Its just hours that they've got, but it doesn't count for any pre-requisite.
Reddy: Just to clarify in terms of our hands tied. We have to accept the credit it is always () in terms of transfer credit equivalence and things of that nature.
(?): That's what we were just talking about. You don't have to accept the credit from Fredonia High School on our own transcripts. We do have to accept something that comes from Finger Lakes Community College transcript might () at some high school down there. But that's not really the issue we're talking about, that's not what we're looking at.
Burke: I'd like to comment about the issues of quality . Generally if a high school teacher is chosen to teach the class, he or she already has fairly impressive scholarly credentials. In most cases its really not, I wouldn't say this is a problem, I think the credentials of that high school teacher often match or make sense of the adjunct at a community college has.
(?): man unclear... Jason...Fredonia...and what....adjunct... and he said well let me know if you can teach the course and see what's good...at the end of the..credit... AP exam .... (can't make him out!)
b. Swansinger: As you can see the next item is the College Core Curriculum message, but it's been put on voting faculty, so you've received it already in your email. And you already received it in prof-talk. And this was basically Ray Bellioti's email, 6 points, explaining what the committee was doing. And he welcomes your email either directly to him or to prof-talk to discussion and he'll get back to you at some point at the near future. He couldn't come to the meeting today.
c. The last standing committee report is the Governance report, and Charlie Davis will talk about this one. I'm also going to just put the motion that we are going to be discussing back on, so that will be in your package.
Davis: In December we had quite a lot of change and we discussed the change over of the name of the General College Core program committee to the College Core Curriculum. We started the membership of that committee and then we changed the membership of it. I put that on the web page, voting. And we voted and I got some feedback that some people were confused with what we went through with this body in terms of the membership. So in lou of that, Jack and I sat down and we refined it so that we don't have the issues, we went back and looked at the minutes so that we had the right intent of people. Etcetera, etcetera. So I am bringing it before you again, we have two items. The first is the name change, and if you look under section three, the items in italics are the changes, so just by taking through this in an organized manor the General College Program Committee will be changed to the College Core Curriculum Committee. And if you go all the way down to number three, there will be a change there in italics, in other words a name change again from General College Core Program Committee to College Core Curriculum. And if you also look in number four, you will see the name change. So we have a change that occurs in the head of the committee under F stated in the by-laws and then under items three and items four. So that's where the name changes would occur. Going back to number one, the original statement in the by-laws as existed before our discussion in December of that meeting, we have membership of the committee as stated in number one, that is not italic. If you have that in front of you, so if you skip down in our discussion and Len brought some of this information to our attention when we had a long discussion on it. And what's in italics here is what will be the new representation. There wasn't a debate over it, so we're not changing what that is, there was more of a confusion as to what people said on this body because it bounced back and forth in terms of making friendly amendments and making changes. But we want to make sure it was clear because this has to appear in by-laws exactly as written. So I want to present this to you, do we have any questions?
Grady: I noticed some parallelism is concerned. The word elected is used in most phrases, but for the () and for the natural sciences they weren't elected. And social sciences the word elected is no there, some people were elected, others () to make it totally parallel.
Schwatz: Another editorial change, performing arts, I'd like to suggest you change that to visual and performing arts. And then in parentheses you'd have both art and visual arts (). And actually the name of the department is now visual arts, so...
Davis: So the first part is visual and performing arts and then in parentheses, what were you saying?
Schwatz: Get rid of the word art. Because that's followed by visual arts. If these are representing departments, the department is theater and dance. So maybe theater slash dance?
Kraus: As a curiosity () understandable () the heels of represented, I was wondering about the proportionality of that? How many majors are there in interdisciplinary studies?
Davis: There's about 120 majors and 120 minors
(man): substantial number.
Any other questions?
(man): How would the professional education speech and hearing, speech pathology...
Reddy: One of the things, or two other things. One is there is an expectation of staggered returns, presumably. And that hasn't been dealt with here. There are some people who are currently on the GCP committee have terms that would theoretically continue on. I would just make a suggestion that you don't want everybody to; you don't want this committee to turn over entirely every three years. You want to have some continuity if at all possible. So I would suggest for implementation that if someone who is currently on the GCP committee, runs and is elected for the CCC committee that that persons term continue through and that would build in some staggering that would be helpful. Also in terms of implementation, there is no implementation languages in when this would go into effect. I think what makes sense is that the election for this committee as for the other committees take place this spring and then those people who are elected would indeed be on the committee starting whenever. I'm not certain what that time would be, but probably some time in () or something along those lines. Because atleast then we'd be able to know when the current committee being GCP committee, now called CCC committee, but not under the () by-laws would expire. And the new committee in this format would go into effect. So if you thought that as a motion it could be bypassed. Because its really an amendment or a suggested amendment in for language under implementation, because we don't have an implementation section here. Basically the motion would be that if there are in order to have staggering returns, if someone is currently a member of what we call the CCC committee, and is elected to this new CCC committee under this new format, that person term will continue through until it expired, and then there would be an election for that. And the other aspects would in terms of implementation, is that the current group that is called the CCC committee continue in its functions through lets call it June 30 of this year, and then the new committee with its new structure be in place as of July 1 of this year.
Steinberg: I'll second that.
Swansinger: Can we have a vote? Oh sorry, I'm just trying to accelerate this, sorry!
Simon: As a member of the committee, I'd like some verification. And see what we have done...()() if elected, are you required to serve 2 more years?
Reddy: There needs to be an election or a new election. What we have essentially right now is there is a committee in place that is called the CCC committee even though according to bylaws it's a GCP committee. There have been people that have been elected; this is simply to say that there will have to be an election before these slots during this semester. And that if some people whoa re currently on the committee may be candidates for this new structure. If someone is a candidate and is currently on the committee their terms will continue through in terms of the staggering process. So that if you had another two years on your term you would continue through for two years if elected tot his group. It's a way of making sure there is some staggering taking place, otherwise there needs to be other language that would create staggering. And there are ways of doing it, you can draw lots, you can do a variety of other sorts of things, that makes sense that the person that has already been elected once to the GCP committee. Make () and is now elected to this group that that person continue through the shorter term. And then if that person wishes to be able to be re-elected to it.
Boynton: So it seems like we just had a bunch elected to that committee, and is there a reason why we can't just have them continue beyond this new committee and how about for election...
Reddy: The problem is the structure, because in some instances there may be 2 representatives there may be 1 at this stage.
Kraus: Is the idea that we need elections because the structure of the committee has changed, or we need elections because current membership will not get the new structure? And if that's so, why not just have elections for those... Or do you have to chose...
Reddy: That's the problem.
Chilberg: Do we have the time for the Governance Committee to examine this suggestion and alternatives and bring it us at our next meeting? Or is that too short because we need to vote this semester?
Swansinger: We would very much like to report an election in April and the very next meeting is on the ninth of April...
(man): Then we'd have to vote on the by-law change
Swansinger: Right.
(man): () The by-law change could be voted on and then implementation at our next meeting, and then an election to follow within a week to two weeks should be then in April deadline. It might be well to lament to suggest a motion here as well as work on the details and alternatives that might ()().
Byrne: If we vote this through does this have to go to the whole faculty as a by-law change? Do you have that...there as well...() making a decision () So we have to ()()
(man): For all of us that were here in December when we first brought the discussion up, the discussion right now is going very similarly to what we did in that meeting, that once things came up and () suggestions were made, and I think we spent a lot of time on the paragraph that would be for membership, and there were some other issues under number two about officers. For example the Dr. Reck's office points the director of CCC and yet we have a chairperson elected here. Often times the chairperson of the committee ends up being the appointment of the last president. Is that an issue or not an issue? We didn't discuss that because we spent so much time dealing with membership and that represented us and discussing that. We didn't look at the stuff; we didn't look at the whole thing and read it all over again. So that brings up that issue too about the chairperson of the committee, the director, or why have a chairperson on the committee if the director is the chairperson and becomes the vice-president? And needed in work () we should say that the chairperson on the committee or director we use that phrase as coined by vice-president, then the committee will ask the secretary and the vice-chair person.
Swansinger: Are we going to vote on the original amendment? We will have a show of hands for who would like to () questions. So then we can vote...()() Any nay's? It passes.
The motion was passed.
And we will bring an implementation hopefully on the website, and we'll have it right after spring break, and you'll see it.
Reddy: The vote will be an electronic vote, and it will be taking place this next month, I assume.
Schwabe: Getting back now to the whole thing. What was the committees rational for changing the name from General College Program Committee to College Core Curriculum committee? Why was there a need for change?
Steinberg: I can answer that. The reason is that there is ()() .
Nelson: I have a question about the student representing. Is that person appointed or elected, and appointed by whom?
Ferger: That would be appointed by the president.
Reddy: Then that vote was on the amendment, we haven't voted on the motions. The amendment was the suggestions that I made on implementation. We haven't voted on the motion that's amended.
Swansinger: Paragraph one versus paragraph one. So then a show of hands for the change.
Reddy: Its for the creation of a new College Core Curriculum committee.
(man): It's a name change, and a change of membership as stated in your packets.
Swansinger: Ok, are there any nay's? Motion passed.
The motion passed.
8. I think the next item is any new business?
9. Move to adjourn: Reddy
Swansinger: Thank you very much, can I have a second? Ted Steinberg. Thank you, goodnight!
The meeting was adjourned at 5:30pm.
Minutes submitted: Ray Rushboldt - Secretary