Approved Minutes of the Faculty Senate Meeting
April 18, 2001
http://www.scsu.ctstateu.edu/organizations/facultysenate
The fifteenth meeting of the
2000-2001 year was called to order at 12:10 PM. Senator George Puerschner served as the chair of the
meeting.
Members Present:
Rao, Brownell, Lavin,
Martinelli, Puerschner, Coburn-Enquist, Fullmer, Thorson, Corbett, Cairns,
Petrie, Hood, Johnson, Mee, Kemler, Palma, Verplaetse, Judd, Petto, Dunklee,
Schofield-Bodt, Mick, Laird, Bennett, Grant, Bochain, Wallace, Prince, Young,
Volkman, Paulson, Sherman, Kahlbaugh, Bulmer, Hagemen, Dripchak, Haymes, Ryan,
Brucker, Major, Watts.
Visitors:
Jim Tait.
Members Absent:
Jirsa (Comm Disorder/MFT),
Maloney (Athletics), Sherman (Communication), DaPonte (Computer Science),
Landino (Counseling), Nwachuku (Couns/Sch Psych), Sakalowsky (Geography),
Bielefield (Library Services), Nodoushani (Management), Moss (Music), Berman
(Part-time faculty), McCormack (Part-time faculty), Bidarian (Physics),
MacGregor (Recreation/Leisure).
Minutes of Faculty Senate
meeting – April 11, 2001 were approved as amended.
Announcements:
Standing Committee
Reports:
·
Jirsa and Puerschner
have requested the committee to study the possibility of the Senate President
being elected for a three year term.
·
Two “Changes in
calendar” resolutions will be presented under new business.
·
“Student Misconduct
Proposal” was distributed in the previous meeting. Please review.
·
Ballots for the
University-wide elections will be sent out by the end of the week.
UCF:
A motion was made to change
the order of business. First - discuss
new business items 1, 2, 4 and 7 (a 2/3rd major is required for
these issues); next - discuss old business and last - remaining items of new
business. The motion passed
unanimously.
New Business:
1. A Proposed Change To The Faculty Senate Constitution
Regarding Faculty Initiative And Referendum - Proposed by George Puerschner:
VI.
Faculty Referendum on Senate Action
A. Any faculty member may petition the Faculty Senate to
conduct a faculty-wide referendum with respect to any action taken by the Senate.
Signatures of a minimum of 40 faculty (full and/or part-time)
are required for this petition.
VII.
Faculty Initiative for Senate Action
The Senate shall be bound to consider for
enactment proposals which:
1. have been petitioned for by a minimum of 40
faculty (full and/or part-time) or,
2. have been recommended by a meeting of the
instructional faculty bargaining unit, announced and open to all members of
that group
The
motion passed with the necessary 2/3rd vote (37-1-0).
2. A Proposed Change To The Faculty Senate Constitution
Regarding Faculty Initiative And Referendum - Proposed by Art Paulson:
VI.
Faculty Referendum on Senate Action
The
Elections Committee shall conduct the referendum, with a majority of
the voting faculty required for rescinding any Senate action.
The
motion did not pass with the necessary 2/3rd vote (34-4-0).
3. Rules Committee – Proposed By-Law revision
After
some discussion the motion was referred back to the committee.
Since the necessary quorum
was no longer present, a motion was made to revert to the original order of
business. The motion passed
unanimously.
Old Business: Rules Committee: 3 Curricula resolutions
After some discussion an
amendment to the first resolution was suggested by Senator Petto. This amendment will be discussed in the next
meeting under old business (th eamendment will be sent out with the next
agenda). Further discussion on the
resolution was postponed to the next meeting.
Meeting was adjourned at
1:50 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Professors Mark Heidmann
and Robert McEachern have requested that the minutes of the Faculty Senate
meeting from February 21, 2001 should be corrected (see attached document).
Clarifications of the
Faculty Senate Minutes from February 21, 2001
The following notes clarify
some of the statements attributed to Mark Heidmann, Chair of the Southern
Writing Board, from the 2/21/01 minutes from the Faculty Senate meeting. It should be noted that all discussions of
Writing Board guidelines, policies, and procedures represent work done by the
Board as part of a pilot project. The pilot will end in Fall 2001; the Board
will then, after input from the faculty, make final recommendations for
guidelines, policies, and procedures, which will then be voted on by the UCF.
Mark Heidmann – Chair of
Writing Board
·
Professor
Heidmann introduced Professor McEachern – Interim Director of the Writing
Board.
·
Prof.
Heidmann discussed the overall framework of the Writing Board.
·
Schools
across the country have provided support to faculty and students for “L”
courses.
·
The
Writing Board members represent all the schools.
·
The
goal is to create a culture of writing at SCSU.
·
The
sign of success is when writing becomes an integral part of all courses,
therefore making the Writing Board redundant. .
·
The
Writing Board evaluations have been very enthusiastic. SCSU’s writing program
has been cited twice in publications about schools rejuvenating their writing
programs.
·
A
number of applications have been received to get current “L” course approved as
new “L” course. The evaluation process is usually hour long.
Clarification: Several instructors who
have submitted a proposal to re-approve an existing L-course have reported
that preparing a proposal has taken about an hour. The approval process (which
parallels the approval process for an L-course that goes through UWIC) usually
takes 3-4 weeks. Instructors who have proposed L-courses can track the progress
of their courses through the SWP web site
(http://www.southernct.edu/committees/writingprogram//Status.htm).
·
The
Writing Board requires that “L” courses be reviewed every three times it is
taught. This review process is fairly simple, consisting of a single piece of
paper. The Board asks two questions that a self-reflective pedagogy will
inevitably consider: what went well? what am I going to change?
·
Heidmann,
McEachern and another faculty have reassigned time to work on the Writing
Board.
·
Writing
should not overwhelm your class.
·
The
Writing Program is open to all the faculty, not just “L” course instructors.
·
The
Writing Program is working on a proposal to require writing in all junior and
senior level courses.
Clarification: The Writing Board has never considered such a proposal and has no plans
to do so.
·
The
outcome is the faculty report – does it make a difference for students.
Clarification: At the conclusion of the pilot, the Board will evaluate its
success, using criteria developed by the UCF, as outlined in the Pilot
Program's charter. Among the criteria
are: more consistency in the character and quality of the L courses; more effective support and guidance to instructors who teach L-courses; improvement
in student writing; support for the
different qualities of good writing
practice in different disciplines; avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy; and
operating at a reasonable cost. The Board is also evaluating the Pilot Program
using other measures applicable to national Writing Across the Curriculum
programs. Probably the most difficult to measure will be "improving
student writing," since measuring writing improvement directly might
potentially involve re-grading student papers; the Board has serious
reservations about "looking over the shoulders" of L-course instructors
and second-guessing their evaluations of student work, therefore the Board is
seeking alternate means of measuring this criterion.
·
Will
all existing “L” courses have to be recognized as “L” course by the Writing
Board? - The answer to this issue depends on what the UCF decides at the end of
the pilot program.
·
The
Writing Board recommends for “L” courses: a) cap of 25 students; b) 25 pages of
writing; c) 10 pages of revisions; d) 50% or more of the grade should be based
on the writing.
Clarification: The Minutes combine criteria
from the old L-course Guidelines with parts of the new Guidelines. During the
Pilot, the Board has REDUCED the enrollment cap on all L-courses from 25 to 23
students and has instituted a cap of 20 for courses approved by the Board; the
Board hopes to reduce the enrollment cap further. The Board has said that a
minimum of 20 pages of writing must be required in each L-course, that
L-courses may allow students to include up to 10 pages of thoroughly-revised
writing in the page count, and has recommended that 50% of the grade be based
on writing, with the recognition that in certain applied, scientific,
technical, and quantitative fields other percentages may be more appropriate.
·
Each
faculty will have to attend the writing workshop at least once in their career.
Clarification: During the Pilot
Program, the Board has expected
instructors who teach L-courses to
attend a two-day writing workshop, with the understanding that workshop
attendance would be expected NO MORE THAN ONCE in an instructor's career. In recognition of their time and energy,
those who attend have been paid a stipend of $200.