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February 16, 2010
OFFICERS: Mark Jaede, vacant, David Warne, Michael Tripp
IFO BOARD: Thomas Hergert, Debra Leigh, Susan Motin
NEGOTIATOR: Michael Connaughton
BUSINESS: (Unit Representative) Bill Hudson; (ACCT) vacant; (BCIS) Susantha Herath, vacant; (FIRE) Li Zhang; (MGMT) Larry Roth, Orn Bodvarsson; (MKGB) Jim Johnson, Rajesh Gulati
EDUCATION: (Unit Representative) Frances Kayona; (CFS) Fati Zarghami; (CEHEEP) Trae Downing, Bob Murphy; (HPERSS) Hector Antunez, vacant; (HURL) vacant; (ELCP) Tina Livingston, Chaturi Edrisinha; (IM) Fred Hill; (SPED) Michael Pickle, Janet Salk (TDEV) vacant, Steve Hornstein, vacant
FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES: (Unit Representative) Judy Kilborn; (ART) Julie Baugnet, Kathryn Gainey; (CDSI) Cindy Lofton; (CMST) Matt Vorrell, Eddah Mutuo-Kombo, Marla Kanengieter; (ENGL) Judith Dorn, Jamie Heiman, Jim Robinson, Carol Mohrbacher; (FORL) Shawn Jarvis, Bill Langen; (COMM) vacant, vacant; (MUSIC) Matt Ferrell, vacant; (PHIL) Paul Neiman; (THFD) Jeffrey Bleam
SCIENCE & ENGINEERING: (Unit Representative) Balsy Kasi; (AVIA) Steve Anderson; (BIOL) Kristin Gulrud, Maureen Tubbiola, Matt Julius; (CHEM) Rebecca Krystyniak, Mohammad Mahroof-Tahir; (CSCI) Andrew Anda, vacant; (EAS) Bob Weisman; (EE) vacant, Mahbub Hossain; (ETS) Tony Akubue; (ME) Steve Covey; (MATH) Dale Buske, Janis Cimperman, Stephanie Houdek; (NURS) Darlene Copley, Patricia Bresser; (PHYS) Maria Womack; (STAT) Ezzat Kirmani
SOCIAL SCIENCES: (Unit Representative) Tracy Ore; (CMTY) Rona Karasik; (CJS) Mario Hesse, Mary Clifford; (ECON) Arta Ratha, David Switzer; (ES) Christopher Lehman; (GEOG) Hung Chin Yu; (HIST) Jeff Mullins, Maureen O’Brien; (POL) Morgan Nyendu, Shoua Yang; (PSYC) Chris Jazwinski, Jody Illies; (SW) Sandra Chesborough; Cathy Stilwill; (SAN) Matthew Tornow, Robert Lavenda, Sandrine Zerbib; (WS) Elizabeth Berila
SPECIAL SERVICES: (Unit Representative) JoAnn Gasparino; (Academic Support) Geoffrey Tabakin; (COUN) Steve Jenkins; (LR&TS) Chris Inkster, Sandra Q. Williams, Tom Steman; (MEN’S ATHL) vacant; (WOMEN’S ATHL) vacant
GUEST: Lalita Subrahmanyan
1. Call to order at 3:20 p.m.
2. Approval/Filing of Minutes
a. Senate Minutes February 2, 2010 (FS021610 2.a,)
Motion to approve Faculty Senate minutes from February 2, 2010, and all actions included—(Herath/Tabakin). Passed
b. Executive Committee Minutes February 9, 2010 (FS021610 2.b.1)
Motion to approve EC minutes of February 9, 2010, and to separate EC motions below—(Roth/Langen). Passed
Separated:
Motion that the IFO/FA submit a grievance on behalf of the COB for scheduling practices, starting the process at the informal/Provost-level. Passed
Motion that the IFO/FA submit a grievance on behalf of the COB for the non-committee structure concerning the Circles of Interest, starting the process at the informal/Provost-level. Passed
c. University Curriculum Committee (UCC) Minutes January 21, 2010 and January 28, 2010 (FS021610 2.c.1-2c.2)
Motion to approve the UCC minutes of January 21, 2010, and all actions included—(Motin/Gasparino). Passed
Motion to approve UCC minutes of January 28, 2010, and all actions included—(Kilborn/Hergert). Passed
d. General Education Committee Minutes February 5, 2010 (FS021620 2.d)—filed.
e. Assessment Steering Committee Minutes January 27, 2010 (FS020210 2.d)—filed.
f. CETL Advisory Committee Minutes October 19, 2009—filed; January 27, 2010 (FS021610 2.f.1-2.f.2)—the intention of the motion in the January 27th minutes is that classes would be cancelled for the colloquium day, which was explained by Lalita Subrahmanyan from CETL. There was discussion and the motion to NOT cancel classes this semester was passed.
Motion to approve CETL Advisory Committee minutes of January 27, 2010, and all actions included—(Tabakin/Akubue). Amended
Amendment: Motion to amend by specifying that classes will not be cancelled this semester—(Ore/Motin). Passed
Motion to approve CETL Advisory Committee minutes of January 27, 2010, with the amendment to specify that classes will not be cancelled this semester. Passed
g. Division of General Studies (DGS) Advisory Committee Minutes September 8, 2009; September 22, 2009; October 13, 2009; October 27, 2009; November 24, 2009; and December 8, 2009 (FS021610 2.g.1-2.g.6)—filed.
3. Treasurer’s Report—no report at this time.
4. Consent Agenda
Cultural Diversity Committee: Geoffrey Tabakin (ACADEMIC SUPPORT)
Motion to approve Consent Agenda—(Karasik/Motin). Passed
5. Special Elections—none.
6.
Call for New Agenda Items—none.
7. Announcements
a. Election of Officers for 2010-11 (see also 9.b.)—today is the day for the Elections Committee to bring forward their nominations. There will be an additional Senate meeting to meet the Elections Committee Voting Schedule on February 23, 2010, 3:30-5:30 p.m., in the Atwood Ballroom. This is not the last chance for people to volunteer.
b. Status of Strategic Program Appraisal (see also 9.c.)—the Provost has been sending out information. Jaede does not have anything to add. All faculty have access to Strategic Planning documents on the SCSU website and Jaede gave instructions.
Motion to move the agenda to item 9.c—(Langen/Gasparino). Passed
c. Delegate Assembly—Jaede asked for volunteers, and several people spoke about the importance of getting full representation from SCSU.
d. Report on Meet and Confer (see also 9.d. and 9.e.)—Jaede discussed the adjunct use item discussed at M&C; program review; formation of search committees, which are below on the agenda; and the OCE handbook in the COE.
8. Unfinished Business
a. Pictures on Class Lists (FS 040108 9.g.)—sent to Meet and Confer—Hergert gave an update from the meeting he attended yesterday. The photos from IDs will be used, there will be an opt-out option for students, and faculty do not want to have photos appear at all times. There will be a pilot this summer and hopefully implemented in fall.
b. Electronic Voting (FS112508 9.d.1) (Dorn)—motion referred to IFO—Dorn is trying to contact the IFO but she has had no response. Jaede will bring this up at IFO Board on Thursday.
c. Resource Allocation information request (Kalia)—Jaede is waiting for information from Kalia regarding International figures.
d. Program Review—last meeting there was a robust discussion and this was referred to departments and Academic Affairs. Due to the short timeframe Academic Affairs has not responded. This will remain on the agenda for the next meeting.
Motion to go to item 9.d—(Motin/seconded.). Passed
9. New Business
a. Dropping students for non-attendance (FS 021610 9.a.)—proposed policy in your packets.
Motion to take the notion of dropping for non-attendance and the policies from our sister institutions to Meet and Confer—(Kilborn/Tripp). Amended
Motion to amend: that the SCSU FA endorses a policy whereby faculty members may drop a student who has not attended the first day of class—(Warne/seconded). Passed
Furthermore, for students that have an LDA submitted, that there be a consistent and transparent procedure for them being left on or removed from the grade roster—(Mullens/seconded). Out of order—offered as separated motions
Separated motions:
Motion that the SCSU FA endorses a policy whereby faculty members may drop a student who has not attended the first day of class. Passed
Motion that students that have an LDA submitted, that there be a consistent and transparent procedure for them being left on or removed from the grade roster. Passed
b. Nominations from Elections Committee (FS 021610 9.b.)
President
Elect: Mark Jaede
IFO Board: Jayantha Herath or Debra Leigh
Negotiator: Michael Connaughton or Jayantha Herath or Roland Specht-Jarvis
c. Motion from Foreign Languages re: Strategic Program Appraisal: The Department of Foreign Languages and Literature plans to make a motion at today’s Faculty Senate meeting to postpone any decisions pending in the current Program Appraisal process until the budget situation that will impact all decisions is clarified and fully understood.
Motion—(Langen/Karasik): Postponed
The Faculty Senate requests that President Potter suspend all action based on Phase II of the Strategic Program Appraisal until such time as
1. the University devises a plan to absorb SCSU’s share of impending budget cuts
and
2. consistent parameters for all programs, both those reviewed in Phase II 2009/2010 and those for the 2010/2011 round of program appraisal, have been set and the results of that review made known,
and
3. a comprehensive plan for University reorganization has been proposed, reviewed and adopted by the appropriate bodies within the University.
Rationale:
While the Strategic Plan has been repeatedly evoked to justify the appraisal process, the process was neither conceived in its parameters nor mandated last fall by the Strategic Planning Committee. Whatever committee Lisa Foss chaired over last summer, it was not the SPC despite that assertion in the St. Cloud Times.
The original SPA process and parameters were revised a number of times and then cross-bred with rubrics devised by the SPC. As a result program appraisal was contradictory and incoherent. In particular, program scores with rubrics appeared to be skewed to conform with the data and parameters of the earlier SPA.
Next Year SCSU Administration is on record mandating the appraisal of programs in the upper 50% as designated by the 2009/’10 process. The FA as yet does not know if the SPC will have any role in setting the parameters of the appraisal, if they will be simply revealed by Management or indeed if the FA will even insist on a role for itself and the SPC.
Management’s rationale for the parameters, scope, objectives and urgency of SPA have been ill-defined and hardly go beyond stating that the SPA is necessary to eliminate “things that aren’t as important,” “to tune the university’s offerings more carefully” and to remove constraints on “our ability to move quickly and do new things.” Given the dimensions of the cuts already on the table and those which may be mandated next year by that SPA as well as budget cuts, a major university reorganization is under way. Since half the university hasn’t undergone Phase II, the radical cuts and changes to programs have been proposed without a bigger picture of programs seen as wholes. All of this is being done in part to facilitate the creation of as yet unrevealed program initiatives.
Especially incoherent has been the use of the words “interdisciplinary” and “international,” where programs seen by faculty as outstandingly international and interdisciplinary have been disregarded, even though these are considered major current values of SCSU.
SPA process forced assignment of numbers of programs to each of 3 categories—but no rationale is given why it is valuable simply to reduce programs. This makes it look like administration wants to create an appearance of making cuts.
Especially damaging to morale has been the SPA process’s appearance of pitting programs against one another. The unexplained emphasis on making significant cuts to program numbers sends faculty the signal that programs who successfully show their value are forcing other programs lower in the rankings.
Major and minor programs are deeply interconnected with General Education. How have the implications for the university’s broader Liberal Arts education been weighed?
If programs are assessed in terms of resources, quantitatively—FTE costs, expense of program, numbers of majors—then the same quantitative measures need to be applied across the board, in order to put programs into proportional perspective. Not all of the useful cost data have been made available to faculty. What if a program is really cheap? What damage does it do?
If SPA process has revealed programs that faculty agree ought to be cut, these cuts become uncontroversial.
SPA raises the question of who gets to decide what components make up a university. When major hallmarks of a liberal arts education have been listed as slated for elimination during this process, it raises the question of who gets to decide what counts as “central to SCSU’s mission”? Isn’t the better question: since the core university disciplines are obviously important to the long-term wellbeing of the whole community, what could be done to make them more effective and to promote them?
Motion to postpone for one week—(Dorn/Roth). Passed
d. Request from CETL Advisory Board and Administration to designate the CETL Advisory Board faculty members as the FA representatives to the search committee for the CETL Director. This is an internal search. There was discussion for and against the motion.
Motion to approve the CETL Advisory Board as the faculty members for the FA representatives to the search committee for CETL Director—(Tripp/Kilborn). Amended
Motion to amend that any vacated CETL Advisory Board members to the Search Committee would be filled by the normal elections process—(Dorn/Kilborn). Passed
Amended motion: to approve the CETL Advisory Board as the faculty members for the FA representatives to the search committee for CETL Director, and that vacated CETL Advisory Board members to the Search Committee would be filled by the normal elections process. Passed
e. Request from the Honors Program Faculty Advisory Committee and Administration to designate the members of the Honors Program Faculty Advisory Committee as the FA representatives to the search committee for the Honors Director
Motion to approve the Honors Program Faculty Advisory Committee as the faculty members of the Honors Director Search Committee, and that any vacated Committee members to the Search Committee would be filled by the normal elections process—(Weisman/seconded). Passed
10. Adjournment at 5:15 p.m.
Submitted by Polly Chappell, SCSU FA Administrative Assistant