Unapproved Minutes of the Faculty Senate Meeting

October 22, 2008

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

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The fourth meeting of the 2008-2009 year was called to order at 12:10 PM.

Members Present: Emenyonu (Accounting); Rogers (Anthropology); Lavin (Art); Feng (Biology); Pang (Chemistry); Madlock (Communication); Jirsa (Com Disorders/MFT); DaPonte (Computer Science); Fopiano (Couns/Sch Psych); Fleming (Earth Science); Mills (Econ/Finance); Diamantis (Education); Goldberg (Education); Madonia (Ed Leadership); Larocco (English); Shea (English); Johnson (English); Petrie (English); Swartz (Exercise Science); Calahan (Exercise Science);  Olson (Foreign Language); Heidkamp (Geography); Paddock (History); Metaxas (History); Dunklee (Journalism); Bielefield (Info & Library Science); Hedreen (Library Services); Toce (Library Services); Prince (Marketing); Scheuermann (Mathematics); Gubitose (Mathematics); O’Brien (Media Studies); Nelson (Nursing); Rebeschi (Nursing); Anderson (Parti Time Faculty); Goldblatt (Part Time Faculty); Pettigrew (Philosophy); Horch (Physics); Buterbaugh (Political Science); Sherman (Psychology); Colwell (Psychology); Faraclas (Public Health); Jan Jones (Recreation/Leisure); Cusato (Science Ed/Env Stud); Cameron (Social Work); Bloch (Sociology); Tamura (Special Ed/Reading); Nye (Theatre); Weiss (UCF).

Members Absent:  Vu (Art); Maloney (Athletics); Lawler (Counseling); Pelayo (Foreign Language); Page (Management);  _______ (Music); Carrano (Part-Time Faculty); _______ (Part-Time Faculty); _________ (Social Work); Brucker (Special Ed/Reading).

The minutes of October 8, 2008, were approved.

Announcements:

ü Senator Heidkamp invited all faculty to visit the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) display on November 19^th, from 10 am - 3 pm.

ü Senator Dunklee announced that Friday 24^th is High School Journalism Day and about 350 youngsters from high schools around the state will be visiting Southern.

President’s Report  ~~ President Johnson distributed the report and addressed the following:

• The BOT members and Chancellor Carter met with some members of the Executive senate committee along with AAUP members, to discuss current issues.  Issues such as the current budget crisis and the recommendation to increase class enrollments; the absence of permanent Deans in the School of Education and the School of Business, both of which were not addressed directly.  In addition, the Chancellor Carter made the observation that, in his view, we haven’t communicated a coherent, distinctive identity, with concerns that our status as “flagship graduate school” is questionable, given our recent enrollment numbers.  A comment was made that quality shouldn’t be measured with numbers. 
• President Johnson recommended that the senate forms an ad-hoc committee that will work on a distinct/persuasive description of what education is from Southern CT State University.  Phrases such as “CSU in New Haven” or “A Hand Up in your Education” were proposed, phrases that will attract future students and the phrases should parallel the University Strategic Plan mission as it was published.
• Volunteers for the ad-hoc committee are senators Pettigrew, Dunklee, Heidkamp, and O’Brien.

Standing Committee Updates:

ü Personnel Policy ~~  Senator Cusato reported that they will be visiting the Chairs Council and the Deans Council to discuss the 6^th Year Professional Assessment document.

ü Rules ~~  Senator O’Brien reported that they will be presenting the Graduate Rules of Order resolution and the committee will also be discussing the By-Laws charge that the Rules committee should be asking and receiving reports from the All Universities committees.

ü Student Policy ~~ Senator Madonia reported that the committee met with Dr. Herron and Dr. Troiano to discuss and redefine the involvement of faculty on the Academic Honesty issues and the Student Services, especially for late afternoon and evening hours.  The Academic Honesty issue is more complicated since the new policy instituted by the Attorney General’s office for all campuses to adopt and our job is to make such language that will make it easy for the implementation at our campus. 

ü Technology ~~ Senator DaPonte reported that all classrooms have some level of technology and the committee is meeting with Joe Brignola and Tom Struble to discuss future investments of equipment, needs for upgrading existing equipment, and possible need to add new parts.

ü Academic Policy ~~  Senator Bloch reported that the committee met with Provost Williams to discuss a) course cancellations and “empty seats” in sections and the need to meet with deans and chairs to clarify this issue; and b) undergraduate catalogue’s language on probation and academically dismissed students, which is currently confusing.  The Provost along with the committee’s input will propose  a new statement which will be in collaboration with the Academic Policy committee and the Registrar’s office to be a more conservative policy in the near future.  They also agree that there should be early intervention with students having academic problems.  There is also the pending resolution on the repeating of a course with a low grade and the opportunity for the student to retake the course. The submitted and approved by President Norton resolution has not been acted upon.

ü Elections ~~ Senator Swartz reported that the results of the elections for the All University committees will be published later on today to all faculty via email.  The committee is investigating electronic methods of elections as done by AAUP recently.

ü Finance ~~  Senator Brucker was not present but the TA’s should be submitted as normal.  An issue was raised on the floor that TA’s can be completed with the online version but there is no notification received by the faculty upon its approval and thus the TA number is not received on time by faculty to travel and/or submit for expenses.  The issue has been brought to the Accounts Payable office and the Provost’s office.

Workload Ad Hoc committee report ~~   no report at this time.

UCF ~ ~ the committee is devoted to the General Education proposal from Jim Tait.  Tomorrow’s meeting will be focused on hearing alternative proposals with discussion from the floor.  They expect to have a vote shortly, by the end of this semester.  Another topic of discussion is to move to a paperless method of proposals except the signature forms.  But there is a problem where the typed forms at the present format can’t be saved, they are working with technology people to fix the issue.  They are also trying to make all electronic submissions to be password protected but there are no funds to support this endeavor. 

Graduate Council ~ no report

FASP update ~~ Senator Pettigrew (the co-chair of FASP) reported that he is working with Senator Paddock (the other co-chair of FASP) to develop a document for the support for research resources with real concrete elements and they are both working with the USPaRC committee to oversee the implementation of the USP.  Dr. Kennedy is scheduled to meet with the FASP committee soon.

At this time, there was a motion to move to New Business and act on the Graduate Council Rules of Order resolution.  Motion accepted unanimously.

New Business ~~ Graduate Council Rules of Order

The resolution to accept the Graduate Council Rules of Order was presented and discussion commenced.  Although the Graduate Council determines criteria for Graduate Faculty status, they are also sent to the department which verifies the members.  Exception:  individual faculty or the department can apply for membership for a full time or a part time faculty.  After discussion, the question was called and the motion was passed with 28 yes and 48 no.  The resolution was accepted with 36 yes, 1 no, and 4 abstentions. 

An amendment was presented for the statement that the Faculty Senate and the Graduate Council will continue discussions for the purpose of clarifying the relationship between the two bodies.  Amendment was accepted with 37 in favor, 0 against, and 3 abstentions. 

At this time, President Johnson thanked the Ad Hoc committee for the Graduate Council Rules of Order as the committee has successfully completed their charge.

President Johnson returned to Old Business:  Discussion on Professional Assessment.

Senator Cusato and chair of the Personnel Policy committee initiated discussion on the 6^th year Professional Assessment document, highlighting the CBA’s language.  The language does not identify specific responsibilities of candidates as they are evaluated at this level.  Discussion included suggestions that there has to be a clarification of what is the point of this assessment and its consequences; there could be some benefit if the criteria were well defined;  the FAAR could be used to provide such evidence of work from candidates.  The Personnel Policy committee will continue discussions on this issue.

The Senate adjourned at 2:00 pm.    

Respectfully submitted,

Dr. Maria Diamantis

Secretary of the Senate