Special Meeting: Foundations of Excellence Report
The meeting was called to order by Chair Mary Carney at 4:05 PM in Fenton 105.
Chair Carney asked for a motion to approve the agenda. Sen. Richard Reddy moved, and Sen. Amy Cuhel-Schuckers seconded. There was brief discussion, where Chair Carney informed the body that today's meeting is for discussion only. No vote will be taken.
Sen. Marcus Vink asked if we should call the quorum. Sen. Reddy, as parliamentarian, indicated that since there was no vote, and this was a meeting to discuss the report and offer suggestions, to call the quorum would serve little purpose. Chair Carney added that anyone who wished could call the quorum. No quorum call came forward.
The motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Chair Carney invited Vice President for Academic Affairs Virginia Horvath and Vice President for Student Affairs David Herman to go over the report with the Senate.
VP Horvath began with a little bit of background, explaining that the Steering Committee views this report as a draft that needs work. For editing suggestions, she asked that such be sent to her and also to VP Herman via e-mail. She gave a brief overview of how the philosophy statement was created. She commented that the "Learning Dimension" occurs in every venue on campus, involving both Academic Affairs and Student Affairs. The campus organized its Foundations of Excellence (FoE) report around ten committees, a Steering Committee, and nine "Dimension" teams. The Steering Committee pulled together what we have learned and are learning, and then followed this with action items.
Sen. Ted Steinberg, who chaired the Philosophy Dimension team, spoke about his view of the philosophy statement. What is contained in the statement is nothing extraordinary. It draws from the mission statement and expresses a kind of ideal we could aim for.
Sen. Reddy offered that as far as the literature was concerned, we essentially tried to identify three books that went into the areas that we've been working on for the last few years. The books listed seemed to be three primary documents that could guide us, providing solid information obtained nationally in higher education.
Other members of the Steering Committee or the dimension teams in attendance were introduced by VP Horvath.
VP Horvath then asked if there were questions on the introductory materials or sections.
Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers commented that this is focused primarily for freshmen, but in some cases the language includes transfer students and grad students who are new to Fredonia. Was that an intentional broadening of this or do we still need to keep focused on the elements as they relate to incoming freshmen? Sen. Bruce Tomlinson responded that this report is definitely focused on first-time freshmen. We made that choice early on. VP Horvath then added that we think that there might be some transferability with the ideas for freshmen as far as transfer and graduate students are concerned, but for now we want to focus on the largest incoming group.
Sen. Ziya Arnavut commented that this type of planning has been going on at other institutions, as well, even internationally. What are the resource implications of this report? What are our resources, and how much of those resources can we put toward these activities? VP Horvath responded that what we have recognized as a committee is that some changes might not have resource implications, while others might have huge implications. I'm hoping that this discussion might help to work some of these out today.
What we haven't done is say there is a certain price tag, and we don't want any ambitions beyond that price tag. Parts of this might require some investment each year, just as the Fredonia Plan does. It will be up to the Cabinet to decide which of these we can afford at which stage. Sen. Arnavut continued, indicating there is some frustration on the part of students transitioning from high school, and we need to address some resources to that portion of the freshmen experience.
Then discussion moved to the Action Items. VP Horvath provided a bit of background, indicating that each of the nine dimension teams came up with their own list of action items. This document doesn't represent them all, and combines several. In the draft version you have had to look at, some of the prioritization headings do not appear, so you may have had some difficulty determining those priorities. We are interested in trying to determine what need to happen right away, and what could be done later, not based strictly on importance.
Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers asked is that why the numbering is reflected as 1.x, 2.x, and so on? VP Horvath answered, yes.
Sen. Dani McKinney asked if we are doing this in item action order, or what. VP Horvath answered that she welcomes comments about the process of this meeting, but doesn't know that we'd want to go through each action item one-by-one. Perhaps we need to focus on what is more important. Sen. McKinney continued that she wanted to comment on some of the items in section 2. She was curious that some of the topics listed are sensitive in nature, such as health, sexual relationships, and alcohol use and/or abuse. She wondered where such topics are supposed to be taken up, in a freshman seminar, or where. Sen. Steinberg responded, saying that one of the things as an academic you have to think about is that this is not just an academic report, but involves both VP's bailiwicks. All of these are to be worked out but not just in courses. It took him a long time to get away from thinking that way. Sen. McKinney commented that she is just curious. She's an experimentalist, and wonders how we are going to measure that this is happening or not. VP Herman responded that the campus is right now in the third year of a grant from the Dept. of Justice (SAPG?), and all freshmen go through this in the first semester. We talk about some of these issues with them, and we can see what we've done in this grant program being useful if we ever develop a full-semester freshman course, taught not necessarily by a faculty member... could possibly be done using STEP students or outside resources, etc.
VP Horvath then interjected that one of the things that we need to look at is what kind of a structure would support an incoming freshmen program, such as the first-year success committee, to lay out a program and to monitor it and its effectiveness, using personnel from both sides of the house. The structure can be seen in the no. 1 categories, but we don't want to lose what is in the no. 2 and no. 3 sections. VP Herman added that we also feel that a lot of the items in section 3 and other elements will fall into place if we do section 1 in the right way.
Sen. Julia Wilson raised a concern that she has about the first year seminar. This sounds like a terrific idea, but it is a serious expansion of what we have already. Math's freshmen seminar has been working really well, but it will be much harder to fit a 2 or 3 credit course in. That essentially takes one CCC course out of the first semester, and if these are to be co-taught using Student Affairs staff... will there be enough Student Affairs staff to do this. It sounds very expensive to me. VP Herman responded that at a previous school where he was, they went through the same kind of transition, and the 1-credit course became a 2-credit course, and the 2-credit course was team taught. Sen. Wilson then asked if this institution needed extra staff. VP Herman answered no, the courses were taught on a voluntary basis for Student Affairs staff, and also student leaders got involved.
VP Horvath then said if anyone knows of various models, she'd love to hear them. Please send information about them to her.
Sen. Wilson continued, saying even with team teaching we are still looking at a serious amount of preparation time (including time for meetings between/among the co-teachers.) VP Horvath said she had experience with a model that paired these kinds of courses/responsibilities with advising responsibilities. She had a class of twenty advisees, and did group advising at appropriate times in that class, thus saving the hours of independent advising that would have been scheduled separately. There are so many different models. She shares the same concerns with adding credit hours.\
Sen. McKinney then said with regard to resources, one option you might consider is that right now we have student groups that have a limit of $1500 on their budgets. We could say that certain clubs could get additional funding by including the kind of tasks we are talking about as part of their role (as an example, she said perhaps we could purchase their materials, thereby freeing up some of their funding... there would be "service industries" budgeting, along side "fun budgeting.") You could get a lot more bang for the buck if you are adding to the student budgets. (VP Horvath jokingly asked the Faculty Secretary to include in the minutes the fact that the SA representatives were all nodding in assent to this idea.)
VP Herman said that currently there is a leadership course, and the leadership corps is looking for a way to provide more training. There is not just one way to accomplish these goals.
Elizabeth Lee raised a concern with developing seminars. There are some departments that do have 3 credit seminars even now. We have a lot of things happening on campus. We need a way of prioritizing. Perhaps the most important thing is to get a committee together to look at everything that is going on. This is already happening in little microcosms on campus.
Gary Bice reported that before doing any other work, the Steering Committee got an exhaustive list of what has been done on campus. It is incredibly large in terms of what we currently do. We didn't include that in this report because it would take up so much space, but we do have that available in our resource library. And we purposely did not say "use this model that is done by VANM or in Music and transplant it to some other department(s)", we just gathered the information. Our goal was to develop a plan, not to have all the t's and I's crossed and dotted.
Sen. Jan McVicker said there are many things in this report that are having their own lives or moments, such as writing across the curriculum. It is the coordination thing for me, as well. We don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't want to exhaust ourselves with more proliferation of committees. We need to start with broad coordination. I wonder what the timeline for implementing this would be like; re-imagining the CCC and re-imagining writing across the curriculum won't be something we can do very quickly. VP Horvath said the report doesn't talk about any specific time dates. We did say that the larger issue is to have a coordinating committee. We can't climb all of the mountains at once. The coordination is the most important thing coming out of this in my mind. Sen. McVicker then asked if we will be taking the next year to look at these much more, while overt coordination issues take place. VP Horvath responded that she is hoping we could have a structure in place, and we might be able to have some parts of the program in place for 2008, especially if we could get some grant funding. She can't see curricular changes coming that soon.
Sen. Cody Meyers then said if you took item 3.1 (students being more aware of programs on campus) and moved it up in the priority list, it would help get freshmen more integrated into the campus, and that will increase the number of things they get involved in and do. Sen. McKinney asked what do students get now. At Orientation they get a lot of information. Perhaps it is a timing problem, or information overload (or both). They just forget. VP Herman expanded on that, saying it is amazing in the surveying that has been done how many freshmen don't know. There is so much that they don't seem to connect with. It is those freshman seminars that require students to participate in various activities (such as in Math, or in Music,) which connects students to what is going on and where services are on campus.
Sen. Kerrie Wilkes applauded the report for including the Library in as many ways as it did, but incoming students come in overwhelmed with the amount of information. Our library is not just another academic discipline, but it is also a very social place. We need to include something about information literacy. She has a million ideas going through her head. There are opportunities to teach students the ethical implications of using information tools. We currently have no particular course for information literacy. The Library doesn't always know where our students are coming from. We expect them to be computer literate, but they are not always. They are not where we have traditionally thought they are when they arrive. Even something as seemingly simple as ANGEL comes off as being brand new and foreign to our students. VP Horvath asked that people with ideas concerning library and information technology aspects of the report to please send them to her.
Sen. Mike Grady commented that he'd rather not see students substitute another course with a 3-credit freshman seminar. A 3-credit course would most likely substitute for another course, where one could use a 2-credit seminar and have that as an overload. VP Horvath responded saying that we could also embed some of the ideas that would be presented in such a 3-credit seminar into an introductory 100-level course. Sen. Grady continued as far as he knows there are no guidelines for what is included in the freshman seminars. It would also be good to pilot some of these course ideas.
Sen. Jamar Pickreign commented that these ideas are focused on incoming freshmen, but was there any consideration given to the needs of our early admission or 3-1-3 students. Gary Bice responded that the 3-1-3 cohort was too small a subset. VP Herman said that we did think about specific subsets, but we didn't want to blur the survey by taking away from traditional incoming freshmen. Sen. Pickreign added that he was thinking about this report being about a first-year experience, not necessarily a freshman experience. There are freshmen who are age 45. VP Horvath added that where she last worked, we had an average freshmen age of 29, and we did sort the seminars according to age cohorts, but here we might not have large enough differences.
Sen. Rhea Simmons spoke to action items 2.3 and 3.9. Won't requiring service for all in the first year overwhelm them? She felt those two points could be collapsed into one. Is it the fostering we want to do with initial contact, rather than requiring? Some of this is embedded already into certain courses. VP Horvath said that we certainly are for fostering, and we could get rid of item 3.9. General nodding of heads assented to this.
VP Herman asked if there was anyone who doesn't think the first items, 1.1 through 1.3, are important.
Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers said that she saw those as being the most foundational, the skeleton of this entire idea, and should be a priority. Sen. McVicker added but they should be in reverse order! (Lots of assenting nods greeted this comment.) Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers continued that from item 1.4 and on that although we reference learning outside of the academic environment, many of these do involve the academic side of the house. She is concerned that with respect to Dani's point, in no. 2 and so forth, about the balance of these things. How do we balance such that the social and outside-of-academic-settings gets an appropriate weight?
VP Horvath responded that she is thinking that 1.9 might be moved up. Sen. McKinney then asked who are the expectors. VP Horvath responded that this refers to what WE expect people to know and do by the end of the first year. Sen. Nancy Boynton then interjected that this idea scares her. VP Horvath said that we might have an agreement about certain things that students should have picked up by the end of their first year, not necessarily content but perhaps broader goals, such as knowing the faculty in their major, knowing and being able to find their advisor, and so on. We have to remember that these students are not "done" at the end of their first year. The end of our philosophy statement is what our goal ought to be.
Sen. Wilson then said that one colleague of hers had asked that a number of issues be raised. The first, on page 18, the idea of early intervention seems wonderful, but we have to be careful. Often at midterm grade times, instructors will often claim they have nothing to go on. VP Herman said that the committees had quite a discussion with this one. Some classes purposefully give quizzes early on. The middle of the semester is almost too late. Sen. Tomlinson added there is quite a range in terms of the kind of good intervention. We're encouraging people to think about their freshmen, and note and report those who get into academic or social trouble early. Sen. Wilson continued, second on page 22 (the point about smaller classes), in principal this is good, but if you refer to the space utilization report, where large lecture halls are underutilized, we could have serious conflicts. And third, on page 23, my colleague wanted to register his opposition to early registration of EOP and FOP students. Rather, we should be establishing rewards and perks for our good students. Sen. Jason Mellen added that many EOP and FOP students don't come to regular orientation, and many register the day before classes. Ms. Janet Knapp informed the body that "we're changing that this year." VP Horvath said that we do need to look at what we can offer those good students. Sen. Wilson continued, and fourth, on page 28, just before 3.2, the report talks about exposure to urban culture. What is the rationale for this? Why no exposure to rural culture or suburban culture? Sen. McKinney interjected, and where are we going to find urban culture here at Fredonia? Gary Bice responded that this is in regard to the disconnect between most of our students, who come from rural areas, and the students we get from some very urban areas.
Sen. Simmons suggested perhaps we could collapse some more. Action items 2.2 through 2.4 could easily be incorporated into a more general 2.1. Her idea of health and wellness incorporates all of those separated parts. Gary Bice said they had been separated out so the ideas wouldn't get lost. Sen. McVicker then said but if we identify freshman seminars that were linked to specific student organizations, and encourage freshmen to become part of those, that could dovetail nicely with organizations that do good and wonderful programming. VP Horvath said she would bring that back to the Steering Committee.
Sen. McVicker raised another item. We should be exposing new students to the breadth of musical and artistic offerings, aesthetic experiences. There are student organizations that do that, that initiate programming, etc. We need to find ways of encouraging the new students to get involved with their peers who are working on these kinds of programs. VP Horvath said this is another area where there are so many good things happening already, but without coordination.
Sen. Mellen spoke for the students, saying one of the major concerns in SA is with advising. We are happy that is no. 1. Also we are concerned with freshmen seminars, and we hope to have 1.11 moved up. Orientation is mainly where you get all the information that leads ultimately to the connections a new student will make. We are hoping that we can start that sooner rather than later.
Sen. Boynton added that all of those things should or could be brought into a freshman seminar. We did think that once we brought together all the teachers of the freshmen seminars, we would get some kind of coordination.
Sen. Arnavut said that he can see the point of having smaller groups for seminars, but there should be some common groups for freshmen, revolving around such concepts as music, or we could bring representatives from industries in the region to campus for career exploration.
Sen. Grady then commented on Sen. Pickreign's concern with the 3-1-3 students who remain at Fredonia. These are some of the least connected on campus because they never have the chance to be "real" freshmen. They should be included in freshmen seminars in the first year they are here, even though they may technically be sophomores.
Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers raised the point that on page 18, the early intervention program, how do we aggregate information between academic affairs and student affairs. Someone might be in trouble academically but others might be in trouble socially (alcohol abuse, as an example). Is there a system where we would have indicators that would be used, raising red flags as it were? Confidentiality must be maintained; perhaps a profile could be developed? VP Horvath said that that requires a level of detail that the committee is not ready to deal with. But if you do something, perhaps it is a training issue. What would be appropriate for a faculty member to talk to a student about? I know when we do academic dismissals there are all kinds of social issues that appear. Sen. Cuhel-Schuckers responded that this reminds her of a conversation at the academic leadership meeting, where the problems associated with participation in sports was raised which impacts scheduling classes, missing classes, etc. It is almost a structural issue. We need to look at this from the very beginning. VP Horvath added we have to figure out some way for that collaboration to occur, perhaps not as a formal assessment.
Sen. Joni Milgram-Luterman then stated that the health and wellness issue goes beyond the issues mentioned in the report, including staying up all night, practicing, not eating properly, etc. Might these be added? It is a balancing act for freshmen. VP Horvath commented that good teachers notice when students don't do well in classes for these reasons. There are other issues. We need to build in opportunities for training in this area.
VP Horvath then asked are there other issues that you feel that are important that don't show up in the report.
Sen. McVicker responded that she sees nothing that has been left out, but did want to make the observation that we somehow need to strike the right balance between holding their hands even more than we do now and helping students to become responsible, mature, independent adults. And we shouldn't just "drop" them in their sophomore year, after this first year of intense support. How can we follow up with this kind of emphasis throughout their entire Fredonia experience? VP Horvath responded that there are two critical areas that the literature bears out: challenging and supporting first year students; the challenge is as important as the support. We should not keep students from the painful challenges. To the other point about years beyond the first, the First Year Policy Center now has a "Second Year" group. In Portland [Ore.?], they have an equivalent of the freshmen seminar in year one, two, three, and four. The third year seminar is when they bring up the subject of "This is where you start thinking about grad school," and the Fredonia Plan called on us to look at the first year AND the capstone. These are bookends of a student's experience here. We need to think about the professionalizing experience near the end. Sen. McVicker agreed that she could see the CCC being re-imagined, and she can see this all merging the first year experience and the capstone, but we need to keep this in sync somehow.
Sen. Milgram-Luterman commented that she now has a whole different view of all this now that her daughter has reached 17 and will be going off to school. She finds herself thinking how her daughter will be in the first year.
Sen. McKinney provided a personal observation: Years ago, when we switched from having the writing-intensive courses to speaking-intensive courses, that action cost us dearly. Many of our disciplines don't get anywhere without publishing, and documentation is very important. We got rid of our writing-intensive emphasis, but that was not a benefit to our students. In our discipline, it made a burden in several areas. She mentioned seeing drafts of grad student applications that wouldn't be acceptable by any grad school. We don't ask ourselves often enough "What will that [decision] cost our disciplines?"
Sen. Cheryl Drout added that we [Psychology] still have writing intensive courses, but there aren't as many outside. Sen. Grady responded that many departments continue to teach their writing intensive courses. Sen. Drout then commented that these were no longer part of the CCC [so perhaps fewer students take them.] Sen. Grady then said that it would be important to recognize the need for writing intensive courses. At this point a "plug" was put in for the upcoming CCC Fest on April 18 and 19.
Sen. Simmons spoke to the idea of "handholding" having negative connotations. These behaviors are really supporting students in their professional growth and development. Sen. Reddy added that it isn't just professional, but also personal and intellectual growth; it is holistic.
Sen. Wilson raised the point that freshmen run into trouble when they move from high school academics to college academics. They are here to study and learn. Everything else should be aimed at supporting that.
VP Horvath commented that we shouldn't be shy about expressing our intellectual excitement, and not just in our classrooms. We should not be shy about engaging our students in conversation that focuses on intellectual pursuits, such as talking about books we or they are reading, or an idea we are working on, etc.
Ms. Lee spoke to the point that she supports having the first three priorities in reverse order, but students are concerned about summer orientation. That sets the mood. They come for two intensive days and then they leave for two months, and we expect them to retain all that. We're setting a standard for them, and then we have to do it all over again. VP Herman commented that everyone involved with orientation agrees with that, but it is a scheduling issue. The freshmen convocation has been quite successful, and not many faculty get to see it because it fills King Concert Hall. We'd love to add another day to orientation. Ms. Lee then said that many institutions have an entire week. They bring in the freshmen a week early instead of in the middle of summer.
Sen. Reddy then spoke to the point that focusing in on summer orientation is a bit narrow for this report. We have to have a message from the beginning, one that is coherent about what a student has to do here to be successful, from the very first contact through the end of their senior year.
Chair Carney thanked all who attended and participated in this special meeting. She informed the body that there will be further discussion on April 2, and a vote on this at the final meeting of the semester. VPs Horvath and Herman said they hoped they could get a revision out, if not before the April 2 meeting definitely before the April 30 meeting.
[The meeting ended at roughly 5:30 PM, without an official motion to adjourn.]
Respectfully submitted,
Vincent Courtney, Faculty Secretary
ATTACHMENT:
Attendance Sheet