College Senate
MINUTES OF FREDONIA UNIVERSITY SENATE March 7, 2005
The meeting was called to order at 4:05 PM in Room 105, Fenton Hall.
Chair, Dick Reddy, indicated there was a need to change the agenda slightly. In item 3, we need to add a section dealing with the Vice-Chair position of the University Senate; and, if there is time, under New Business, we will try to fit in discussion of a change in mid-term grade policy at the request of the Registrar.
A motion was made and seconded to approve the agenda, as amended. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the meeting of February 7, 2005. There was no discussion, and the motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Report of the Chair
Chair Reddy reported that Larry Maheady had resigned as Vice Chair of the University Senate, due to health issues that will impede his ability to perform his duties for the remainder of this year, as well as into at least the fall semester next year. The Senate Executive Committee nominated Jacqueline Swansinger, from the History Department (and a former Chair of the Senate), to fill this position. The Chair asked for further nominations from the floor. There being none, the Chair ordered that Jacqueline Swansinger be elected Vice Chair of the Fredonia University Senate by acclamation.
An overview of editorial changes needed in the Bylaws to conform to the organizational changes at SUNY Fredonia was provided. Most of these were included in an attachment to the agenda. Others were noted as being wherever the word "College" appeared, the word "University" should be used; and, "SUNY Faculty Senator" should be used, rather than simply "Faculty Senator" to indicate our representative to the SUNY-wide Faculty/University Senate. Additional changes were brought to the attention of the Senate: the names of the Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology and Social Work and Criminal Justice; Mathematical Sciences; and Computer Science need to be updated in the places that they appear. The Dept. of Health, Wellness, and Recreation needs to have its name changed, plus it is in the College of Arts & Humanities. "Interdisciplinary Studies Program" needs to be "Council" rather than "Program."
A motion to approve these editorial Bylaws changes was made and seconded. A 2/3 vote in the affirmative will be [was] necessary for this to pass. The vote was 32 in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstaining. The motion passed.
Chair Reddy said that he had received a note from Kevin Close regarding smoke free entrances. Kevin wrote that he needs official authorization before adding new smoke free entrances to Mason Hall, Houghton Hall, and Rockefeller Arts Center. If there are more entrances that faculty are aware of that could be better as smoke free entrances, please let Chair Reddy know. We'll get a list together and do the necessary authorization at the April meeting.
A motion was made and seconded thanking all those who served on the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Vice President for University Advancement, the Dean for the College of Natural and Social Sciences, and the Dean for Graduate Studies and Lifelong Learning search committees. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
President's Report
Dr. Virginia Horvath has been appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs, and will begin her duties on July 1, 2005.
The search for a new Vice President for University Advancement continues, with the Committee presenting its final report to Pres. Hefner today at 5:00 PM.
Two candidates remain to visit campus in the search for a new Dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences. One of those candidates is on campus beginning today, and the second will be in later this week. Pres. Hefner encouraged everybody to find a session where they could meet these candidates.
Pres. Hefner reported on his trip to Albany. There is recognition in the legislature that if the tuition increase recommended by the Governor ($500) is not totally provided, there will have to be "backfill" in terms of the SUNY budget or SUNY will have real problems. The SUNY Tuition Guarantee is getting much discussion, and Pres. Hefner is cautiously optimistic that it may pass, although the Assembly is being coy. A major mail campaign will be undertaken, and Pres. Hefner encouraged everyone to participate in that effort.
The Fredonia Plan Task Force has been meeting diligently, and hopefully a draft of at least a portion of their recommendations will be made available at the end of next week, or so.
Eliot Spitzer has pulled out of his speaking engagement for our Convocation. John Wood (from Microsoft and his own foundation) is being approached to become our Convocation speaker, hopefully in the spring semester.
Questions:
How is the letter-writing campaign being funded? Pres. Hefner said it was all from non-University funding. Fredonia will be using Foundation funds for this.
IF the legislature raises tuition, will it all come to SUNY? (The questioner thought he remembered that the last tuition increase was supposed to come to SUNY, but went to the general fund, instead.) Pres. Hefner said that wasn't exactly what happened, but the legislature hadn't given the total tuition increase that had been requested, and did not fill in the gaps after they increased the tuition at a lesser rate, which sort of had the same effect as having tuition go to the general fund.
VPAA Report
Vice President Faulk urged us all to meet with the two remaining candidates for the Dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences.
Joan Burke - J-Term Review
Dean Joan Burke presented an overview and report on the two pilot years of the J-Term as developed by the J-Term Committee. Some of the pages that had been attached to the agenda were incorrect. New pages were provided at the Senate meeting. VPAA Faulk thanked the members of the J-Term Committee for all their hard work.
Discussion portion:
A Senator asked how the cut-off for cancellation of J-Term courses had been determined. Dean Burke indicated that because this was experimental, that decision was left to the faculty who were teaching the courses. If they felt they could teach to a course of one or two, they were allowed that option. The J-Term Committee recommends that the campus develop a policy about this issue. We find that it usually takes 9 bodies to make a course viable financially.
Dr. Burke indicated that students, particularly those who weren't living on campus or who were taking courses as visiting students, were very frustrated at the lack of food service for them. She indicated that faculty teaching J-Term courses received a survey, but very few returned it. One Senator suggested that one possible reason for the low return rate might have been that there was no way to answer anonymously. Course numbers could be used to identify who made the comments.
Another Senator asked where the profits were used. All of the profits have been deposited into accounts controlled by Academic Affairs. One Senator asked if consideration had been given to increasing the compensation for faculty who teach J-Term courses instead of giving those funds as compensation to the office staffs. Dr. Burke pointed out that the recommended compensation was not to individuals as salary, but to offices to use for equipment, supplies, etc. Nan Bowser, University Registrar, pointed out that all the offices that worked so hard to deal with the issues and needs of J-Term had "no, zilch, not any" budget increase at all to cover the expenses incurred. One Senator suggested considering the idea of "start-up" costs vs. "ongoing" costs when looking at the funding model for J-Term.
Many Senators had questions/comments regarding J-Term, including:
The faculty didn't ask for a J-Term, didn't accept it, and it is still experimental. The Committee has very few teaching faculty on it. Is this a faculty business, or is it an administration business? Do we want this? Will there be a vote to continue this? It is disturbing that 37% are online courses and another 20% are international courses. That's over half! Are we looking to become more like the Univ. of Phoenix? A couple of my 'D' students got 'A's in these courses. How can anyone teach a quality course in two weeks? There are no 'hard' courses offered in J-Term (no Physics, no English, etc.) We need to discuss issues relating to academic quality of these offerings. How can anyone cover the same material in the same depth? We need to debate this! Are the courses being offered what we want to have offered? We have to think about the image of the school!
Dr. Burke and others responded to the above series of questions with:
All of the course offerings were done on a voluntary basis. We were fairly liberal in letting courses 'go' that were below 9 students registered, partly due to the experimental nature of the first two J-Terms. Only faculty who wanted to teach in J-Term did so, and they were the only ones who received surveys concerning the experience.
At least two of the international courses were the result of Title VI funding, a very rigorous grant process, and were developed and implemented with rigorous pedagogical values and standards. All of the academic portions of the international courses were approved by the usual channels prior to the trips. Department chairs have to approve J-Term courses. Some Summer session offerings have been moving toward shorter durations, as well. TheVPAA monitored these courses constantly... for enrollments, approvals, all aspects. Not all the J-Term courses are 3-credit, some are 1-credit. Item 7 in the recommendations of the J-Term Committee's "Observations and Recommendations" will allow for a restructuring of the Advisory Board.
More questions were raised:
Are any of the teachers of these courses here? I'd like to hear from them how it is possible to cover what needs to be covered, and how they deal with readings and papers.
One response from the faculty in the room: I couldn't assign the normal readings I usually do, and papers have to be shorter. On the positive side, short, intensive presentation does seem to have a good effect. Others pointed out that although the timelines for the courses was usually two weeks or less in the course offerings bulletin for J-Term, many courses had extended dates so that papers could be written, or more coverage of the material could occur (especially in the online offerings). Another who taught a J-Term course said he could only get about 2/3 of the material covered.
At this point, a motion was made and seconded to have the Academic Affairs Committee and the Graduate Council consider the J-Term and Summer Sessions with regard to the issues raised in the discussion of this report, especially academic integrity, quality, and appropriateness of courses submitted and offered, to be reported to the Senate for the May meeting, so the Senate can have a full and meaningful debate and vote.
Discussion of the motion brought out the following:
The Senate needs to have a vote as to whether having J-Term is a good thing. Some courses, such as field experiences, lend themselves to this shortened format, and could be useful in freeing up faculty during the regular semester to teach more traditional courses. We have to look at learning outcomes. Do these courses meet outcome criteria that have already been established? If yes, then different modalities can be acceptable.
The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
The clock reading 5:30, Chair Reddy asked for a motion to extend the meeting to 5:45 PM. The motion was made and seconded, and passed by unanimous voice vote.
It was asked if recommendation no. 7 in the J-Term Committee's report would be done sooner or after the report of the two Committees that was just passed? Chair Reddy indicated that procedurally it should be done after, since it is expected that the Senate will vote on the recommendations that come out of the review of the Committees.
Academic Affairs Committee Report
Joe Straight presented a motion of the Committee to create a new degree program, BFA in Drawing and Painting, which will combine the two separate programs in Visual Arts and New Media, one in drawing, the other in painting. (See attachment to the agenda.)
One questioner asked if the "MEDA" in the third line on page 2 of the report was a typo? The answer: No, it is the subject code for Media Arts in Banner.
With no further discussion, the vote was taken. The recommendation passed by unanimous voice vote.
Dr. Straight then brought a revised version of the "grading consistency" policy to the attention of the Senate. (See attachment to the agenda.)
A Senator asked what was the rationale for section 3? The response was that the Academic Affairs Committee would like to see the rationale behind a recommended grading policy change for larger enrollment classes, and would not necessarily be opposed to such a change.
Nan Bowser, University Registrar, asked if course repeats were going to allow a student who repeated a course to select whatever form of grading was offered, and not necessarily the form of grading that s/he was under in the initial taking of the course? Dr. Straight said the Committee thought that it would probably be okay for a student to take it using whatever grading was offered. Ms. Bowser said that it would be nice to have that spelled out in the policy. Dr. Straight said that could be arranged.
The vote was then taken on the revised policy (as amended by the Registrar's concern). It passed on a unanimous voice vote.
Report of the SUNY Faculty Senator
Bob Rogers reported that on Feb. 23, 2005, he attended a meeting of the members of the "strengthened campus-based assessment" panels. He was a member of the mathematics panel. There was also one for writing and one for critical thinking. They met to discuss the "third prong of the Gen Ed assessment" proposal. His impression was that this assessment won't look very different from what we are doing now. Provost Salins reiterated his promise that SUNY Central will pay for any and all costs associated with Gen Ed assessment that comes from this mandate. The Writing panel reported in an email that there is no nationally normed writing test available, though companies are agreeing to revisions that might suit SUNY's purposes. They indicated that portfolios are still an excellent means of evaluating where students are in terms of meeting standards. He also said that the Mathematics panel is compiling examples of what meets varying levels of standards ("exceeds the standard", "meets the standard" and "below expected standards") to review.
He also reported that the Board of Trustees Academic Standards Committee met (with Candace deRussy in attendance, though she is no longer a member of that Committee), and the Academic Bill of Rights was raised in a minor way. The student member of the Board stated that she didn't understand the need for such a rushed, pushed acceptance. Bob said that he gets the impression that the SUNY Senate feels there is already sufficient protection in hiring practices, academic freedom standards, etc. He mentioned an email sent by Chair Reddy to Joe Hildreth (Chair of the SUNY Faculty Senate), which Dr. Reddy summarized for the members of the Senate as saying essentially there is likelihood that the Fredonia Senate would have a vote of no confidence in the Board of Trustees (or even the Executive Committee of the SUNY Faculty Senate) if the Academic Bill of Rights were accepted.
The clock reading 5:45, Chair Reddy asked for a motion to extend the meeting until 5:50 PM. The motion was made and seconded, and passed by unanimous voice vote.
New Business
Andrea Zevenbergen, the campus's Faculty Athletic Representative (an NCAA requirement), presented a report on athletes graduation rates and GPAs at Fredonia. (See attachment to the agenda.) Anyone having questions related to student athletes and academic issues at Fredonia may contact Andrea.
Nan Bowser was recognized, and asked if it was time to consider changing the policy on how many copies of mid-term grades are distributed to the faculty. Currently the Registrar's Office distributes two copies, using pressure-sensitive paper (which has negative consequences for the environment). Since students can quickly and easily see their grades online, is it necessary to continue sending two copies to the faculty. May we reduce this to one copy?
A motion was made and seconded to change the policy on distributing two copies of mid-term grades to faculty to distribute one copy of mid-term grades to faculty. There was no discussion. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
The meeting adjourned at 5:50 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Vincent Courtney Faculty Senator
College Senate
MINUTES OF FREDONIA UNIVERSITY SENATE March 7, 2005
The meeting was called to order at 4:05 PM in Room 105, Fenton Hall.
Chair, Dick Reddy, indicated there was a need to change the agenda slightly. In item 3, we need to add a section dealing with the Vice-Chair position of the University Senate; and, if there is time, under New Business, we will try to fit in discussion of a change in mid-term grade policy at the request of the Registrar.
A motion was made and seconded to approve the agenda, as amended. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the meeting of February 7, 2005. There was no discussion, and the motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Report of the Chair
Chair Reddy reported that Larry Maheady had resigned as Vice Chair of the University Senate, due to health issues that will impede his ability to perform his duties for the remainder of this year, as well as into at least the fall semester next year. The Senate Executive Committee nominated Jacqueline Swansinger, from the History Department (and a former Chair of the Senate), to fill this position. The Chair asked for further nominations from the floor. There being none, the Chair ordered that Jacqueline Swansinger be elected Vice Chair of the Fredonia University Senate by acclamation.
An overview of editorial changes needed in the Bylaws to conform to the organizational changes at SUNY Fredonia was provided. Most of these were included in an attachment to the agenda. Others were noted as being wherever the word "College" appeared, the word "University" should be used; and, "SUNY Faculty Senator" should be used, rather than simply "Faculty Senator" to indicate our representative to the SUNY-wide Faculty/University Senate. Additional changes were brought to the attention of the Senate: the names of the Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology and Social Work and Criminal Justice; Mathematical Sciences; and Computer Science need to be updated in the places that they appear. The Dept. of Health, Wellness, and Recreation needs to have its name changed, plus it is in the College of Arts & Humanities. "Interdisciplinary Studies Program" needs to be "Council" rather than "Program."
A motion to approve these editorial Bylaws changes was made and seconded. A 2/3 vote in the affirmative will be [was] necessary for this to pass. The vote was 32 in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstaining. The motion passed.
Chair Reddy said that he had received a note from Kevin Close regarding smoke free entrances. Kevin wrote that he needs official authorization before adding new smoke free entrances to Mason Hall, Houghton Hall, and Rockefeller Arts Center. If there are more entrances that faculty are aware of that could be better as smoke free entrances, please let Chair Reddy know. We'll get a list together and do the necessary authorization at the April meeting.
A motion was made and seconded thanking all those who served on the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Vice President for University Advancement, the Dean for the College of Natural and Social Sciences, and the Dean for Graduate Studies and Lifelong Learning search committees. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
President's Report
Dr. Virginia Horvath has been appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs, and will begin her duties on July 1, 2005.
The search for a new Vice President for University Advancement continues, with the Committee presenting its final report to Pres. Hefner today at 5:00 PM.
Two candidates remain to visit campus in the search for a new Dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences. One of those candidates is on campus beginning today, and the second will be in later this week. Pres. Hefner encouraged everybody to find a session where they could meet these candidates.
Pres. Hefner reported on his trip to Albany. There is recognition in the legislature that if the tuition increase recommended by the Governor ($500) is not totally provided, there will have to be "backfill" in terms of the SUNY budget or SUNY will have real problems. The SUNY Tuition Guarantee is getting much discussion, and Pres. Hefner is cautiously optimistic that it may pass, although the Assembly is being coy. A major mail campaign will be undertaken, and Pres. Hefner encouraged everyone to participate in that effort.
The Fredonia Plan Task Force has been meeting diligently, and hopefully a draft of at least a portion of their recommendations will be made available at the end of next week, or so.
Eliot Spitzer has pulled out of his speaking engagement for our Convocation. John Wood (from Microsoft and his own foundation) is being approached to become our Convocation speaker, hopefully in the spring semester.
Questions:
How is the letter-writing campaign being funded? Pres. Hefner said it was all from non-University funding. Fredonia will be using Foundation funds for this.
IF the legislature raises tuition, will it all come to SUNY? (The questioner thought he remembered that the last tuition increase was supposed to come to SUNY, but went to the general fund, instead.) Pres. Hefner said that wasn't exactly what happened, but the legislature hadn't given the total tuition increase that had been requested, and did not fill in the gaps after they increased the tuition at a lesser rate, which sort of had the same effect as having tuition go to the general fund.
VPAA Report
Vice President Faulk urged us all to meet with the two remaining candidates for the Dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences.
Joan Burke - J-Term Review
Dean Joan Burke presented an overview and report on the two pilot years of the J-Term as developed by the J-Term Committee. Some of the pages that had been attached to the agenda were incorrect. New pages were provided at the Senate meeting. VPAA Faulk thanked the members of the J-Term Committee for all their hard work.
Discussion portion:
A Senator asked how the cut-off for cancellation of J-Term courses had been determined. Dean Burke indicated that because this was experimental, that decision was left to the faculty who were teaching the courses. If they felt they could teach to a course of one or two, they were allowed that option. The J-Term Committee recommends that the campus develop a policy about this issue. We find that it usually takes 9 bodies to make a course viable financially.
Dr. Burke indicated that students, particularly those who weren't living on campus or who were taking courses as visiting students, were very frustrated at the lack of food service for them. She indicated that faculty teaching J-Term courses received a survey, but very few returned it. One Senator suggested that one possible reason for the low return rate might have been that there was no way to answer anonymously. Course numbers could be used to identify who made the comments.
Another Senator asked where the profits were used. All of the profits have been deposited into accounts controlled by Academic Affairs. One Senator asked if consideration had been given to increasing the compensation for faculty who teach J-Term courses instead of giving those funds as compensation to the office staffs. Dr. Burke pointed out that the recommended compensation was not to individuals as salary, but to offices to use for equipment, supplies, etc. Nan Bowser, University Registrar, pointed out that all the offices that worked so hard to deal with the issues and needs of J-Term had "no, zilch, not any" budget increase at all to cover the expenses incurred. One Senator suggested considering the idea of "start-up" costs vs. "ongoing" costs when looking at the funding model for J-Term.
Many Senators had questions/comments regarding J-Term, including:
The faculty didn't ask for a J-Term, didn't accept it, and it is still experimental. The Committee has very few teaching faculty on it. Is this a faculty business, or is it an administration business? Do we want this? Will there be a vote to continue this? It is disturbing that 37% are online courses and another 20% are international courses. That's over half! Are we looking to become more like the Univ. of Phoenix? A couple of my 'D' students got 'A's in these courses. How can anyone teach a quality course in two weeks? There are no 'hard' courses offered in J-Term (no Physics, no English, etc.) We need to discuss issues relating to academic quality of these offerings. How can anyone cover the same material in the same depth? We need to debate this! Are the courses being offered what we want to have offered? We have to think about the image of the school!
Dr. Burke and others responded to the above series of questions with:
All of the course offerings were done on a voluntary basis. We were fairly liberal in letting courses 'go' that were below 9 students registered, partly due to the experimental nature of the first two J-Terms. Only faculty who wanted to teach in J-Term did so, and they were the only ones who received surveys concerning the experience.
At least two of the international courses were the result of Title VI funding, a very rigorous grant process, and were developed and implemented with rigorous pedagogical values and standards. All of the academic portions of the international courses were approved by the usual channels prior to the trips. Department chairs have to approve J-Term courses. Some Summer session offerings have been moving toward shorter durations, as well. TheVPAA monitored these courses constantly... for enrollments, approvals, all aspects. Not all the J-Term courses are 3-credit, some are 1-credit. Item 7 in the recommendations of the J-Term Committee's "Observations and Recommendations" will allow for a restructuring of the Advisory Board.
More questions were raised:
Are any of the teachers of these courses here? I'd like to hear from them how it is possible to cover what needs to be covered, and how they deal with readings and papers.
One response from the faculty in the room: I couldn't assign the normal readings I usually do, and papers have to be shorter. On the positive side, short, intensive presentation does seem to have a good effect. Others pointed out that although the timelines for the courses was usually two weeks or less in the course offerings bulletin for J-Term, many courses had extended dates so that papers could be written, or more coverage of the material could occur (especially in the online offerings). Another who taught a J-Term course said he could only get about 2/3 of the material covered.
At this point, a motion was made and seconded to have the Academic Affairs Committee and the Graduate Council consider the J-Term and Summer Sessions with regard to the issues raised in the discussion of this report, especially academic integrity, quality, and appropriateness of courses submitted and offered, to be reported to the Senate for the May meeting, so the Senate can have a full and meaningful debate and vote.
Discussion of the motion brought out the following:
The Senate needs to have a vote as to whether having J-Term is a good thing. Some courses, such as field experiences, lend themselves to this shortened format, and could be useful in freeing up faculty during the regular semester to teach more traditional courses. We have to look at learning outcomes. Do these courses meet outcome criteria that have already been established? If yes, then different modalities can be acceptable.
The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
The clock reading 5:30, Chair Reddy asked for a motion to extend the meeting to 5:45 PM. The motion was made and seconded, and passed by unanimous voice vote.
It was asked if recommendation no. 7 in the J-Term Committee's report would be done sooner or after the report of the two Committees that was just passed? Chair Reddy indicated that procedurally it should be done after, since it is expected that the Senate will vote on the recommendations that come out of the review of the Committees.
Academic Affairs Committee Report
Joe Straight presented a motion of the Committee to create a new degree program, BFA in Drawing and Painting, which will combine the two separate programs in Visual Arts and New Media, one in drawing, the other in painting. (See attachment to the agenda.)
One questioner asked if the "MEDA" in the third line on page 2 of the report was a typo? The answer: No, it is the subject code for Media Arts in Banner.
With no further discussion, the vote was taken. The recommendation passed by unanimous voice vote.
Dr. Straight then brought a revised version of the "grading consistency" policy to the attention of the Senate. (See attachment to the agenda.)
A Senator asked what was the rationale for section 3? The response was that the Academic Affairs Committee would like to see the rationale behind a recommended grading policy change for larger enrollment classes, and would not necessarily be opposed to such a change.
Nan Bowser, University Registrar, asked if course repeats were going to allow a student who repeated a course to select whatever form of grading was offered, and not necessarily the form of grading that s/he was under in the initial taking of the course? Dr. Straight said the Committee thought that it would probably be okay for a student to take it using whatever grading was offered. Ms. Bowser said that it would be nice to have that spelled out in the policy. Dr. Straight said that could be arranged.
The vote was then taken on the revised policy (as amended by the Registrar's concern). It passed on a unanimous voice vote.
Report of the SUNY Faculty Senator
Bob Rogers reported that on Feb. 23, 2005, he attended a meeting of the members of the "strengthened campus-based assessment" panels. He was a member of the mathematics panel. There was also one for writing and one for critical thinking. They met to discuss the "third prong of the Gen Ed assessment" proposal. His impression was that this assessment won't look very different from what we are doing now. Provost Salins reiterated his promise that SUNY Central will pay for any and all costs associated with Gen Ed assessment that comes from this mandate. The Writing panel reported in an email that there is no nationally normed writing test available, though companies are agreeing to revisions that might suit SUNY's purposes. They indicated that portfolios are still an excellent means of evaluating where students are in terms of meeting standards. He also said that the Mathematics panel is compiling examples of what meets varying levels of standards ("exceeds the standard", "meets the standard" and "below expected standards") to review.
He also reported that the Board of Trustees Academic Standards Committee met (with Candace deRussy in attendance, though she is no longer a member of that Committee), and the Academic Bill of Rights was raised in a minor way. The student member of the Board stated that she didn't understand the need for such a rushed, pushed acceptance. Bob said that he gets the impression that the SUNY Senate feels there is already sufficient protection in hiring practices, academic freedom standards, etc. He mentioned an email sent by Chair Reddy to Joe Hildreth (Chair of the SUNY Faculty Senate), which Dr. Reddy summarized for the members of the Senate as saying essentially there is likelihood that the Fredonia Senate would have a vote of no confidence in the Board of Trustees (or even the Executive Committee of the SUNY Faculty Senate) if the Academic Bill of Rights were accepted.
The clock reading 5:45, Chair Reddy asked for a motion to extend the meeting until 5:50 PM. The motion was made and seconded, and passed by unanimous voice vote.
New Business
Andrea Zevenbergen, the campus's Faculty Athletic Representative (an NCAA requirement), presented a report on athletes graduation rates and GPAs at Fredonia. (See attachment to the agenda.) Anyone having questions related to student athletes and academic issues at Fredonia may contact Andrea.
Nan Bowser was recognized, and asked if it was time to consider changing the policy on how many copies of mid-term grades are distributed to the faculty. Currently the Registrar's Office distributes two copies, using pressure-sensitive paper (which has negative consequences for the environment). Since students can quickly and easily see their grades online, is it necessary to continue sending two copies to the faculty. May we reduce this to one copy?
A motion was made and seconded to change the policy on distributing two copies of mid-term grades to faculty to distribute one copy of mid-term grades to faculty. There was no discussion. The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
The meeting adjourned at 5:50 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Vincent Courtney Faculty Senator
© 2006 SUNY Fredonia