FACULTY ASSOCIATION

No. 2 North Office Center - St. Cloud State University - (320) 255-3979

Senate Minutes

December 3, 2002

 

Attendance:  (Those present indicated by an underline)

Officers:   Larkin, Fisher, Kang, S. Q. Williams

IFO Board:  A. Schoenberger, J. Foster, R. C. Johnson Negotiator: Langen

BUSINESS:  (Unit Representative) vacant, (ACCT) vacant, (BCIS) Herath, Song, (FIRE) Hudson,

(MGMT) Roth, Subbanarasimha,  (MKGB) Gulati, J.C. Johnson

EDUCATION:  (Unit Representative) T. Peterson, (CFS) Gilman, (LDR) Schulze, Kayona (CEEP) Petrangelo, Murphy, (HRESS) Zezony, C. Martin, (MHSC) Christensen, (HURL) Tripp, (SPED) Salk, vacant, (TDEV) Subrahmanyan, Tabakin, Hornstein

FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES:  (Unit Representative) Kilborn, (ART) Weston, (CDSI) Whites, (ENGL)Dorn, Condon, Robinson, Ross, (FORL) Mikoltchak, Splittgerber, (COMM) Rodriguez, vacant (MUSIC) Fuller, Springer, (PHIL) Gill, Nuccetelli, (Comm Std) Wildeson, Warne, Rehling, (THFD) Chisholm

SCIENCE & ENGINEERING: (Unit Representative) McKenna, (AVIA) Anderson, (BIOL) Cronn, Julius, Schoenfuss, (CHEM) Sadrai, Dvorak, (CSCI) Herath, (EAS) Hansen, (EE) Petzold, (ETS) Akubue, (ME) Covey, (MATH) Kalia, Theisen, Buske, (NURS) Bresser, (PHYS) Harlander, Haglin, (STST) Lawal

SOCIAL SCIENCES:  (Unit Representative) Ore, (CMTY) Karasik, (CJUS) Gilbertson, Prout, (ECON) Banaian, Grossman, (ES/WS) Lacourt, (GEOG) Wong, Bixby (HIST) Jaede, (POL) Wagner, (PSYC) Valdes, (SW) Chesborough, (SAN) Gold, Burmeister

SPECIAL SERVICES: (Unit Representative) C. Inkster, (COUN) Ulven, (LR&TS) Hill, Motin,

Hergert, (MEN’S ATHL) Glowatzke, (WOMEN’S ATHL) Odette

 

1.        Call to order at 3:20 p.m.

 

2.     Minutes:

a.     Motion to approve Faculty Senate minutes of November 19 (Prout/Whites) passed

b.        Executive Committee minutes of November 26:  FILED

c.     Motion to approve UCC minutes of November 7 (Schoenberger/Springer) passed

d.       International Student Services Committee minutes of October 22 and November 19: FILED

e.I.   Motion to accept the Contract Goals Committee minutes of October 23 (Kalia/Langen) passed

e.II. Motion to accept the Contract Goals Committee minutes of November 20 (Kalia/Langen) passed

f.         DGS Advisory Committee minutes of November 19: FILED

 

3.        Treasurer’s Report: None

 

4.     Consent Agenda

a.        Appoint Doris Bolliger (LR&TS) to the FCTE Advisory Committee

Motion to approve the consent agenda (Schoenberger/Motin) passed

 

5.        Additional agenda items

8.e.                Contract

8.f.                Nathan Church’s letter

8.g.  Items 3 F, G, H from the October 23 Contract Goals Committee minutes

 

6.                Announcements

a.     Meeting of state-employee union leaders

Items discussed:

1.                   Ratification of Contracts

At this point all contracts are “in limbo” and all have a same-sex domestic partner benefits clause.  At the fundraiser for the House Republican Caucus it was stated that the contracts would be approved if that clause were removed.  At this time the IFO position is that “we have a contract” and we have very strong options that don’t include striking.

2.                   Budget and quality of State Universities

b.       IFO Executive Committee

c.        Presidents’ Meeting

d.       University Council

The University Council (made up of leaders of campus labor unions and strategic planning committee and President Saigo) met and discussed the Independent Review Committee on Campus Culture.  President Larkin was informed that this committee is ready and will convene in about two weeks and will use a professional facilitator.

Motion that the Faculty Association make it clear to the Administration that the Independent Review Committee on Campus Culture decides its own facilitation and leadership structure. (Ore/Tabakin) passed

Steve Ludwig gave a report on capitol budgets. Lawrence Hall will be ready Fall ’03 with 100 beds and offices for Foreign Language and International Studies. Atwood will begin an addition on its west side and add a skyway to Centennial Hall. Eventually many buildings will be connected by skyways. This summer the campus electrical system will be replaced. The Rec center and stadium will be built by Halenbeck Hall and open Fall ’04. Communication Studies will go into Riverview once English comes out.

Chancellor McCormick will be on campus December 10th and will conduct an Open Forum in the Little Theater at 1:30. All are invited to attend.

The SCSU Audit was completed by MnSCU and there were no findings of any significance.

 

7.        Old (Unfinished Business)

None

 

8.     New Business

a.        Information for advisors

Annette Schoenberger asked faculty to let her know if there is information needed to help advising go more smoothly. Some of the concerns that were raised were:

--It would be helpful to know more about the Transfer Curriculum and what goes into majors and minors with respect to what students are transferring in. Annette mentioned an online page that would help with this [and later provided the URL: http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~scsu4u/transfer/equivalency/].

--Faculty would like to have access to the online information the Advising Center has for each student. That way we could see what courses they’ve taken. Annette said that if you have the student log in for you, you can then look at the student’s transcript.

--It would be good to have the paper transfer sheet available electronically. It was pointed out that we can always ask that a copy of this be faxed to our department, but it was felt that faculty should get the information automatically from Records.

--It would help if we could “train” the students as we advise them, and let them know that it is not acceptable to call a faculty member at home at night and on weekends to get their access code.

 

b.     First Year Experience Programs

Concerns expressed:

1.        The term “adjunct” needs to be removed, as the Director should be free to choose from current faculty.

2.        There should also be an understanding that junior faculty would receive “credit” for this work that would apply to the retention process.

-- taking all the core courses in one semester is not a good idea pedagogically

3.        There is a problem including Math 193 in this plan. Many students take courses other than Math 193 to satisfy the requirement. Also, there are prerequisites for Math 193.

4.        What three faculty on campus could credibly teach this variety of courses?

5.        A proposal of this nature should come from the faculty, but it is good that the administration is providing a budget for it.

6.        Do we really want adjuncts teaching all these core courses? Or providing the core information?

7.        This sounds like the “Sylvan Learning Center” approach.

8.        It should be offered in more colleges than just FAH.

9.        This will be a huge load for students – taking the equivalent of 19 credits in their first semester.

10.     It’s a good idea in that it would facilitate faculty and students to explore and collaborate across disciplines. The downside of this is that collaboration means a huge work “speedup” – faculty attend twice as many classes, etc.

11.     Students from large majors would not be well served to take this, as they’ll miss out on prereqs for classes in the major and they’ll be left behind.

12.     It’s probably too detailed an idea for the stage it’s in

13.     How will standards for the core curriculum be maintained?

14.     Faculty haven’t been sufficiently involved in the process and this really can’t be done without going through the curriculum process.

15.     We’d like to see a proposal that is more scholarly.

16.     Implementation by this fall is too early.

17.     Cohorts made up of only dorm students can be a “bubble” – it will be a very homogenous group lacking diversity

18.     First year cohorts do a wonderful job of retaining students.

19.     Nathan made it clear that the curriculum isn’t his.

20.     Roland wants feedback from faculty, and would seek proposals from faculty who would like to work on putting a program together.

21.  Is this going to end up like the Honors program – there’s money now to implement it, but what about support down the line?

 

Motion that the FA support the idea in principle with the caveat that proposals for integrated programs come from teams of interested faculty and be reviewed by the Gen Ed Committee for compliance with Gen Ed principles (Hornstein/Subrahmanyan) tabled

                Motion to refer this to the Academic Affairs Committee  (Jaede/Hergert) tabled

Motion to table this definitely until it can be discussed in Executive Committee(Jaede?Schoenberger) passed

22.      

                Motion to move to item 8.d. (Schoenberger/Peterson) passed

 

e.        Election of representative for the Teacher Education Collaboration Task Force:

On the ballot were Steve Hornstein (Teacher Development) and Marcelyn Smale (Music). Steve Hornstein was elected.

 

Motion to move to item 8.e. (Ore/Jaede) passed

 

f.         Contract Ratification

Motion that the Senate reaffirms its support for the existing contract as agreed by the IFO and MnSCU, including but not limited to the provision for domestic partner benefits. (Jaede/Schoenberger) passed

Motion to move to item 8.g. (Hergert/ Motin) passed

 

g.       Contract Goals Committee minutes, Oct 23

Motion that we postpone discussion of these items until parties from both sides can be present (Schoenberger/Condon)

 

Meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.