Approved Minutes of the Faculty Senate Meeting

November 17, 2004

http://www.scsu.ctstateu.edu/organizations/facultysenate

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The sixth meeting of the 2004-2005 year was called to order at 12:10 PM.

The minutes of November 3, 2004 were approved as amended.

Members Present:

Emenyonu (Accounting); Rogers (Anthropology), Vu (Art), Slomba (Art), Lerud (Biology), Pang (Chemistry), Ullian (Communication), DaPonte (Computer Science), Lawler (Counseling), Fullmer (Earth Science), Mills (Econ/Finance), Diamantis (Education), Madonia (Ed Leadership), Blackmer (English), Johnson (English), Rinehardt (Exercise Science), Piemontese (Foreign Language), Sakalowsky (Geography), Amerman (History), Madison (History), Dunklee (Jounalism), Bielefield (Library Science),  Klassen (Library Service), Reynaga (Library Service), Stepanovich (Management),  Prince (Marketing), Bennett (Math), Brin (Math), O’Brien (Media Studies), Wagner (Nursing), Aronson (Nursing), Young (Part-time faculty), Capone (Part-time faculty), Pettigrew (Philosophy), Broadbridge (Physics), Paulson (Political Science), Sherman (Psychology), Brancazio (Psychology), Bulmer (Public Health), MacGregor (Recreation/Leisure), Cusato (Science Ed/Env Studies), Keenan (Social Work), Bloch (Sociology),  Brucker (Special Ed/Reading), Major (Special Ed/Reading), Nye (Theatre)

Members Absent:

Maloney (Athletics), Jirsa (Com Disorders/MFT), De Barbieri (Couns/Sch Psych), Corbett (Education), Heidman (English), Yang (Exercise Science), Pennisi (Foreign Language),  Kuss (Music), Anderson, E. (Part-time faculty), Anderson, J., (Part-time faculty), Dripchak (Social Work)

Visitors

Joe Fields, UCF

Announcements

• Rich Farricielli, Interim Vice President for Student Affairs, and Avon Dennis, Director of Financial Aid will be rescheduled to visit the Senate in the near future.
• Since there are no classes next Wednesday, the Senate Committees will meet on December 1^st ---  their last meeting for this semester and the full Senate’s last meeting for the semester will be on December 8^th.  
• Senator Brucker announced that the Chronicle will have the advertisement of the position for the VP of Institutional Research
• Senator Pettigrew reminded all senators that the last Cinema du Monde will be on Wednesday, December 1^st.
• Senator Klassen announced on the new Technology collection in the lobby of the library for students and faculty to use.
• A question was raised if it is true that Dean Faricielli, is the Dean required to sign off for students requesting an irregular schedule.  This will be checked and the Senate will be updated on.

President’s Report:

The president’s report was distributed.  President DaPonte highlighted the following:

Ø The Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) committee met to discuss the I+ grade and to develop new guidelines.

Ø President DaPonte met with Art Paulson, Ginny Metaxas and Linda Cunningham to discuss side letter for Interdisciplinary programs.  Senators voiced concerns that Senate’s advice must be sought by the Administration if an Interdisciplinary program is moved to different department, since those moves involve academic issues.   Sometimes though the move is seen by the administration as a faculty move which they can do without Senate’s approval.  

Ø There were several discussions on the Sabbatical Leave document and there is a request for an interpretation for discussion during the Executive meeting.

Ø Vice President Beatty and President DaPonte met to discuss the resolutions past during the last Senate meeting, travel funds, SAP, the new draft for hiring and evaluating university assistants, and interdisciplinary programs.

Ø President DaPonte updated the Senate that the Resolution of Support of the Academic Strategic Plan was presented to the President and approved.  The second resolution:  Minimum class size-course cancellation was presented but no decision is made yet.  A recommendation from the Senate floor for President DaPonte to send a news release through the Southern News letting students know of the process and timing of class cancellations.

Ø President DaPonte announced that President Norton has transferred $25,000 additional money, to the faculty travel account. 

Ø President DaPonte has forwarded a list of faculty names that were elected to serve on the VP searches.  He will keep the Senate updated on time line and status of the searches.

UCF Update – Joe Fields

• Prior to its last meeting, the UCF submitted their constitution to the Rules Committee.  UCF also changed their language for the faculty referendum on major General Education changes to be the same as the Senate’s majority vote language. 

Graduate Council – Jon Bloch

¨ No report

Standing Committee Reports

• Student Policy Committee

¨ The committee met with Chris Piscitelli for an update of the policy for off campus misconduct.  Discussions were very informative and although the policy is not perfect, it is a necessary and reasonable policy trying to address issues of students misconduct (prohibitive conduct) off campus.  The policy is for all CSU and the committee discussed its rationale and its implementation here at SCSU.  The discussions included SCSU’s jurisdiction on off campus events and how is this policy used, who monitors and who will track how this policy is used. 

• Technology Committee

¨ The committee will be presenting two resolutions during New Business.

• Academic Policy Committee

¨ No major resolutions forthcoming

• Elections Committee

¨ The committee is working on identifying which faculty is serving on what University wide committees.

•  Finance Committee

¨ An additional $25,000 have been transferred to the Faculty Travel Account by President Norton.  The balance for Full time faculty is $35,000 and for the Part time faculty is $8,000.

• Personnel Policy Committee

¨ The committee is discussing a resolution for the Sabbatical document for the need to be more specific of where the Sabbatical documents should be submitted as there was a case that a Sabbatical file was misplaced and was not acted upon till due dates were lapsed. 

¨ In addition, the committee is discussing issues such as:  should notification be forwarded to Deans if a faculty intends to apply for Sabbatical?  Should there be a time frame for the consultation between Deans, Chairs, and Chair of the Sabbatical Committee?  Should there be non-tenured members serving on the Sabbatical committee?

• Rules Committee

¨ The committee is deliberating on the UCF constitution and will be sending them to UCF

Old Business

• There was no old business

New Business

v Technology Resolution:  IT Competencies (for Information)

After the presentation of the resolution, a motion was made from the floor to send this resolution to President Norton for action.  It was accepted as a friendly amendment and the motion was unanimously accepted by voice vote.

After calling the question, a motion on the resolution was unanimously accepted.  The resolution will be presented to President Norton for action, with no changes.

v Technology Resolution:  Southern Web Site (for action) 

Some discussion followed the presentation of the resolution as information that there was a committee formed couple years ago but has never met, thus, never acted on the issue of the Southern Web site.  The Web site appears not be updated often enough to communicate to the Southern community and outside the community of important messages.  The Senate agrees on the importance of communication.

A friendly amendment was accepted by the Technology committee to include the wording of “Student Body” among the members on the committee. 

Motion to call the question passed with the majority voting yea and 3 nays.

Motion to accept the resolution as amended was passed with the majority voting yea, 2 nays, and 2 abstains.   

The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 PM

Respectively submitted,

Maria Diamantis