Minutes of the University Senate Meeting

Nov. 5, 2007

The meeting was called to order by Chair Reneta Barneva at 4:03 PM in Fenton 105.

Chair Barneva entertained a motion to approve the agenda as distributed. (The agenda may be seen in the ANGEL site, in the folder for the Nov. 5, 2007, meeting, as: Agenda of meeting of Nov. 5, 2007 (as proposed) ). Sens. Richard Reddy (Ex Officio, Governance Officer) and Chuck Stoddart (Education) moved and seconded. The motion caused no discussion, and was approved.

Chair Barneva then asked for a motion to approve the draft minutes of the meeting of Oct. 1, 2007 (attached to the agenda, as distributed). Sens. Ted Schwalbe (At Large, Humanities) and Reddy moved and seconded. The motion caused no discussion, and was approved. (The minutes of the Oct. 1, 2007, meeting may now be seen in the folder for either the Oct. 1 or the Nov. 5 meeting as: Approved minutes of meeting of Oct. 1, 2007

Report of the University President: Dr. Dennis Hefner

Dr. Hefner reported:

Carl Hayden has been confirmed by the State Senate to fill the position of Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Carl McCall was also confirmed as a member of the Board, but a third nominee has not yet been confirmed.
There has been news on the CSEA contract negotiations: the negotiations have apparently been concluded, and the tentative agreement will now go through the ratification process. He has heard from people in Albany that the UUP contract negotiations might be finalized before Thanksgiving, but there could always be a hitch.
The coming report of the Commission on Higher Education was discussed ad nauseum at the Presidents Meeting two weeks ago in Albany. The first draft is due on Dec. 1, and he has heard it is on schedule. Also the capital plan for SUNY was discussed. This looks very good for Fredonia. It will provide a fair amount of money to address a number of issues on campus. Division of Budget seems very supportive of the critical maintenance monies. The only real question mark in this proposed Capital Plan is whether we will get the funding for the Rockefeller Arts Center addition.
He met with the new director of the SUNY Federal office, Liz Clark. Now our grant office can call down there if there are questions or problems, and this office will do the leg work for us.
The visit of Lloyd Constantine, the Governor's man on the Commission on Higher Education, went very well. The meetings included a small number of invited persons, including faculty. He was positive about the job being done by the colleges. The proof will be in January when we see what the Administrative Budget looks like.
Mentioned some positive things our students have done: 350 student volunteers turned out to do the Fall Sweep all along Temple and the side streets in Fredonia; our soccer team won the SUNYAC Conference Championship, and will be in the NCAA tournament (first round play is to be in Rochester.)

There were no questions of President Hefner.

Report of the Vice President for Academic Affairs: Dr. Virginia Horvath

VPAA Horvath asked for feedback on two issues. The first relates to secretarial help for the Senate. Ms. Tracy Benkelman has been serving as secretary assisting the Senate and has had other roles added to her responsibilities. VP Horvath is trying to find another secretary, and it would be most helpful if we didn't have to produce these large physical packages that are routed to the Senators. She asked "How ready are you to use ANGEL? For how many of you would that be a big problem?"

Sen. Stoddard indicated that he felt it ought not to be a problem.

Sen. Julia Wilson (Mathematical Sciences) responded that she would still want to print some of the materials out, but could it not be produced as such a thick wad. VP Horvath then said that some of the materials in the packet sent to Senators was duplicative of materials that Senators attending the meeting would have received.

Sen. Michael Grady (Physics) suggested that the minutes and agendas be listed as separate files. Chair Barneva responded that these are separate files currently.

Dr. H. Joseph Straight (Chair, Academic Affairs Committee) said it would be important that the ANGEL site be well organized.

Sen. Ziya Arnavut (At Large, Natural Sciences) asked why the web site couldn't be used instead.

Sen. Nancy Bowser (Academic Affairs) asked additionally is ANGEL available to everyone and not just Senators. It will be important to have our constituents be able to give input, and everyone should be able to see and access the site.

Chair Barneva informed the body that no member of the Senate has access to upload materials to the web site, and we do to the ANGEL site.

VP Horvath thanked everyone for their input and suggestions.

The second issues concerns student evaluations: As we get ready for our Middle States decennial review, we don't have institutional data on the quality of our courses and our student evaluations of courses. We have many different forms and content of evaluation forms. She would like a group to review the forms for campus-wide use. We have a group looking at the actual process, including the possibility of using online evaluation, but not the content for campus-wide course evaluation or the needs of the individual departments. She is interested in hearing from the Senate about the process, and your ideas.

Sen. Jan McVicker (English) suggested that representation from some of the departments that do not use the institutional form be included in whatever kind of committee gets set up. Also include departments who use different kinds of instruments. VP Horvath asked if she contacted the Deans and the Chairs about it, could they provide those kinds of representatives. Sen. McVicker thought that yes, they could, and also include the interdisciplinary council!

Sen. Grady wondered how you get participation in an online course evaluation. Dr. Horvath said that she has questions concerning that in her mind, as well. Some colleges offer incentives. That is a critical question for me, along with the quality of the participation.

Sen. Ruth Antosh (Modern Languages and Literatures) asked why we are considering this. VP Horvath responded that we must have some minimal measurement of evaluation for every course. To say that we have no institutional data doesn't put us in a strong place as far as our assessment by Middle States is concerned. These would likely be only minimal "typical" questions. There are many different questions one could ask in seminars, laboratory courses, large courses, etc.

Sen. Dani McKinney (At Large, Social Sciences) asked who owns the data now. VP Horvath responded we don't have consistency. In some departments it goes directly to the faculty member, in others it goes to the chair who summarizes it.

Sen. Arnavut asked if you go to online evaluation, even grades could become public. How would that affect departmental accreditation? VP Horvath indicated that she is not talking about discipline-related accreditation. She is just thinking about institution-wide evaluation.

Sen. Leesa Rittelmann (At Large, Arts) asked a point of clarification: would this have any action on what has already been administered? VP Horvath answered that she is looking for some revision to what we do now.

Sen. Robin Hartinger-Saunders (Soc., Anthro., Soc. Work and Crim. Justice) asked a question asked what kind of work this committee would be doing. VP Horvath suggested investigating what else would we need to know to get a clear sense of a course. Sometimes we get bad evaluations when the students are really upset about the space in which the class was held, and there is no place to get that kind of input currently.

VP Horvath thanked the Senate for the discussion and asked that they get in touch with her if anyone wishes to be involved or if you know of anyone else who would wish to be involved with this review.

Report of the Chair of the University Senate: Dr. Reneta Barneva

Chair Barneva informed the body that the Executive Committee has been discussing ways to make the meetings more productive and focused. One thing we will do is establish a forum on ANGEL where discussion of upcoming issues can take place prior to our meetings. The first issue in this forum is the idea of having alternates for Senate representation. We currently do not have such provisions. We would like to have a broad discussion of this issue. Also we could add forums on issues similar to what Dr. Horvath brought before us today.

She informed the body that at the recent Plenary session of the SUNY-wide University Senate, she had a chance to attend a workshop on parliamentary procedure. This workshop had some suggestions for campus leaders. One is that if the votes have to be counted, ask the senators in favor to stand and count themselves off. Another suggestion was that if the meeting is in a smart classroom, the chair can ask the motions to be written and display them using the Elmo. Do you have any suggestions? If not, we can put this as a topic in the ANGEL forums as well.

ACTION ITEMS

Dr. Straight, Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, took the floor for two action items.

1. Change in the requirement for the Bachelor's Degree

The first thing we have to do is deal with the McVicker amendment that was postponed from the last Senate meeting (this is included in the packet sent out to Senators in the minutes of the Oct. 1, 2007, meeting.)

Sen. Reddy spoke against the amendment, basically because it sets up several different standards. This is an important issue that should not be divided by colleges.

Sen. McVicker responded saying that this amendment doesn't change the substance of the original proposal. It just gives the departments time to adjust to it. The amendment does not change that if adopted this proposal will be across the board.

There being no further discussion, the vote was taken on the McVicker amendment. The amendment passed by voice vote.

Sen. Reddy then moved adoption of his amendment regarding cross-listed courses (see the file on the ANGEL Site: Proposed Amendment - BA degree - Reddy.pdf ) Dr. Straight then said that implementation language isn't intended to be in this proposal. This language should be in the implementation information for the catalog. The motion was seconded by Sen. McKinney.

Sen. Stephen Kershnar (At Large, Humanities) stated that he doesn't see the argument. Why not let the student decide which area they want the credit to be in. They have a legitimate claim. Dr. Straight then informed the body that when Dr. Reddy made the Committee aware of this proposed amendment, the Committee felt that cross-listing of courses was becoming more of an issue. The Registrar is reporting that after the fact, she is getting requests from chairs to change the code of a course taken by a student after the student has taken it. The Committee feels that it should look at the entire issue of cross-listing of courses. This review should apply to B.S. students also.

Sen. Antosh asked if a specific example could be supplied. Her department doesn't do this. Dr. Straight said that we have a lot of these, especially in the interdisciplinary programs. For example, the Psychology Dept. and the Women's Studies program have courses that are the same but have different departmental designations. Sen. Mary Sasso added that the Business Communication course is cross listed as a Business course and also as a Communication course. Sen. McKinney added that our Psychology of Women course is cross-listed with the Women's Studies program, and she believes their Human Sexuality class is also. She then asked how this would affect the interdisciplinary programs.

Sen. Ted Schwalbe (At Large, Humanities) stated his agreement with Dr. Straight that this issue needs to be reviewed, and any policy changes should be campus-wide.

Sen. McKinney then stated that we just voted last year to have Women's Studies as a major, but it is not a huge department, and there are psychology majors who take Women's Studies as minors. We need to look at this more closely. Then she asked are we voting this language as an amendment to this proposal, or as a suggestion to the Academic Affairs Committee to look into. Chair Barneva answered as an amendment.

Sen. McVicker then said that this amendment is taking a whole new angle on the policy. She would like to have the Academic Affairs Committee discuss this more.

Sen. Rittelmann rose to say that Art History is cross listed with Women's Studies and Communication. Some students wouldn't take it if they are forced to take it designated as Art History. Possibly a certain number of credits might be allowed, not this basic policy?

Sen. Reddy then rose to speak to some misconceptions his amendment may have raised. We are looking at this to determine if we are going to be changing the requirements, and only with the B.A. degree. What has been happening is that students have been taking more courses in their departments as cross-listed courses instead of as major courses. If we are going to increase the number of hours, then we need to close this barn door. These courses are identical. They have the same instructor, the same grading, the same room, the same time, etc. It is in a particular department and only counts toward the major. We are not talking about if it is being used as part of a minor or anything.

Sen. McVicker then rose to say that the amendment completely disregards that many departments are not purely disciplinary. Look at English. We teach writing, pedagogy of literature and literature theory courses. Each of these has a different focus. All have sound pedagogical bases for different kinds of learning. All have the ENGL prefix. That is the arbitrary thing. Not the pedagogy or philosophy of the instruction. This amendment would do incredible damage, especially to the interdisciplinary programs.

Sen. Nan Bowser then asked: I don't see in the justification of cross-listing courses a whole lot of justification for why the courses are being asked to be cross-listed. Dr. Straight responded that the Committee is not getting as many as it used to. Courses tend to be cross-listed more for the visibility of the department making the request (such as Women's Studies), thus making it easier for a student to find the kind of courses s/he is looking for. We routinely did this without thinking of policy implications. As far as this proposed policy is concerned, we thought we were doing something that was relatively simple.

Sen. Kershnar then stated that it appears that Dr. Reddy feels that these courses are fraudulent if cross-listed. Does this amendment rely on that claim? Sen. Reddy responded that no, he didn't think so. The issue is to what extent we should be limiting the hours a student should take in a major. If we do increase the number of hours allowed, then we should make sure that courses that are cross-listed should not be allowed [in the department outside of the major] for students in a major. That is where the fraud comes in. I'd much rather the limit stay at 45 hours, but regardless of that, we have opened up this other avenue for students to take considerable more hours in their major by taking the cross-listed version of courses in their major.

Sen. McKinney then asked Dr. Straight is it possible then that you could evaluate more stringently the items that you cross list. This is a pedagogical issue when you have interdisciplinary programs.

Sen. Katherine Levy (Music) asked does this have to be applied at the University level or can it be dealt with at the department level. Dr. Straight responded I think so. It is always open to the department to propose courses for their majors.

There being no further discussion, the vote on the amendment was taken. The motion to amend the proposal failed by voice vote.

Discussion then centered on the original proposal, as amended by the McVicker amendment.

Sen. Bowser stated that subsequent to making the amendment that crossed off the words "except for certain programs", some chairs have indicated a problem in that this doesn't allow them to require more than 66 credit hours. Can we substitute with some language to provide for some departments that need to have more credit hours in their programs?

Sen. McVicker suggested that the language that says "students must earn a minimum of 66..." give those departments the leeway they need beginning in 2009 to change their requirements then. Or perhaps "Except for certain programs as defined in this catalog..." Dr. Straight responded that this is an editorial issue. Sen. Bowser added she would hope so. There are exceptions that would require a "please refer to [the individual program]". It is not so much just a friendly reminder to the student, but it is good to see when it comes to degree audits, as well.

Sen. Reddy rose to speak against the motion. This is a bad mistake. The rationale as I understand it is that there didn't appear to be a rational difference between the B.S. and the B.A. degree requirements. I think there was rationality. Some B.S. degrees were interdisciplinary. B.A. degrees tend to be less so. There can perhaps be a demand within the major for more credits. That does have implications in encouraging majors, and the likelihood of interdisciplinary programs. I don't think that is what we want to do. It also implies that the major is more important than it actually is. What do our students do after graduation? In general, our students don't necessarily get jobs that are overwhelmingly related to their majors. Many students think that if they load up on major courses they will get a better job. That is mythological.

Dr. Ellen Litwicki (History) spoke in favor of the proposal. History is behind this. We checked into other SUNY schools. Cortland and Plattsburgh don't have requirements for credits in the major, only a minimum of 90 hours in the liberal arts and sciences for the B.A. Brockport has a maximum of 54 hours in one discipline. This suggests that each school has the possibility to set its own number, and there is no hard and fast rule for it. I also tried to find out what the distinction between the B.A. and the B.S. degree was, and couldn't find any real hard and fast distinction. Sen. Bowser then stated that there is a NY State Education Dept. requirement for a Bachelor of Arts that at least