ACADEMIC SENATE
MINUTES
Members Present: Allen,
Arkenberg, Bedell, Boyum, Buck, Byrnes, Cox, Emry, Erickson, Fitch, Fromson,
Gannon, Gass, Gilbert, Gordon, Guerin, Hagan, Hall, Hewitt, Junn, Klassen,
Kelly, Kreiner, Meyer, Michalopoulos,
Members Absent:
Jones, Reisman, and Jewett
I.
CALL TO ORDER
Chair Gilbert
called the meeting to order at
II.
URGENT BUSINESS
None.
III.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
President
Gordon announced he wanted to bring everyone up-to-date on the discussion that
took place at the last Senate meeting regarding summer school. Conversations between the CSU and CFA are in
process; until a final answer is reached, there is not much he can say.
Senator
Nanjundappa announced he spoke to the Chief Lobbyist in
Senator Hagan
reminded members with the passage of Proposition 55, the funding of $50 million
will be available to begin construction of the
Chair Gilbert,
on behalf of the Senate, thanked Senator Hagan for providing the majority of
the funds required to purchase the microphone system for the Senate Chamber and
Titan Shops for its role in ordering the equipment. He also reminded Senators to complete the
recently distributed “Interest in Committee Service” form and urged the members
to encourage their younger colleagues to begin getting involved in the work of
the Senate.
Senator
Sutphen announced the 8th Annual Western Region Assessment
Conference will be held on campus
Senator Boyum
announced that the BS in Computer Engineering has received final approval and
will be in place this fall.
Chair Gilbert
announced Dr. Michele Druon, Department of Modern Languages and Literature, has
been selected to serve as a resident director in International Programs in
Senator
Russell announced the 34th Annual Philosophy Symposium will be held
March 18 – 19 in TSU.
Senator Fitch
announced the “Gender Research at CSUF” event being held on March 11 as part of
Women’s History Month.
IV.
CHAIRS REPORT
No chairs
report.
V.
CONSENT CALENDAR
It was m/s/p [Nanjundappa/Pasternack] to
approve the following Consent Calendar:
A. ASD 04-15 Academic Senate Minutes
Time Certain
James Woodward, Chair PRBC
Subject: PRBC Report
Mr. Woodward
joined the Senate members to present a report on PRBC activities. The Committee
has considered several proposals for their financial implications; the Senate
has received the recommendations and already acted on most of them. The chief activity of the PRBC in the fall
semester is to receive reports from division heads. In these reports, division heads discuss
implementation of their budget from last year and the current year’s
budget. The committee is now examining
how to cut an estimated $15-16 million out of the $233 million general funds
support for campus. Replacing
state-supported with fee-supported summer school is projected to reduce the cut
to about $11 million. He then invited
questions from the senators.
Nanjundappa: Tried to find budget information on the CSUF website,
but could not find information beyond the date of 1999. Shouldn’t the website be updated?
Woodward: The bylaws of the PRBC were crafted during
one of my earlier terms on the PRBC, and they stipulate that the CFO of the
university, Sherri Newcomb, is to provide budget information at the cost center
level to the PRBC in the fall of each year, ideally for the previous five years
so that information is available as context for the discussions that take place
in the spring. It is his understanding
that this has happened only haphazardly over the last five or six years. Mr. Woodward showed the senators a thick
volume that has the budget at the cost center level; the committee currently
has information for this year and last year.
This information is not on-line. PRBC
requested a summary version of the university budget, and now has a four-page
summary for this year. If this
information continues to be compiled, one can determine what has changed from
year to year. Last year there were substantial budget cuts in most divisions,
except in those where even small cuts would seriously damage their operations,
such as Advancement and the Executive Vice President’s office. This year we are
looking at a comparable or perhaps somewhat larger reduction; PRBC begins
discussions on how that might be implemented tomorrow afternoon.
Vargas: Are these data widely available?
Woodward: Technically speaking, all of the information
for the university is public information. There have been requests that the
information be put on-line. The question
as to whether or not it should be generally accessible to anyone on the website
has not been formally decided by the committee, and no formal action has been
taken on that at this point. Mr.
Woodward informed the Senators he has asked Ms. Newcomb to provide the 4-page
budget for this year to the Senate office.
Senator
Shapiro stated it is important to understand that all of the documents the
committee is working with currently this year are draft documents. The final budget for the university will not
be known with any real certainty until after the governor has made revisions to
the budget. However, $11 million, as Ms.
Newcomb pointed out, is probably the minimum we can expect to get away with as
far as cuts for next year. The system as
a whole over the past three years has absorbed $771 million in cuts and we are
projected to continue this pattern again for this year.
Rutemiller: Did your committee have some input that
affected some changes to the budget?
Woodward: That, of course, is the key issue. He has
been assured by all of the division heads that the committee will indeed be
part of an interactive process in figuring how the cuts are to be absorbed. The answer will become evident in the next
few weeks.
Vargas: It would be a good practice for various
constituencies on campus to have an updated copy of the budget available in the
Senate office.
Mr. Woodward
informed the members that the minutes of the PRBC are public documents and the
meetings are open. There has been discussion by the committee as to whether
there should be a regular formal report to the Daily Titan; this has not
been a subject that has been greeted with complete consensus and unanimity. We are aware of the importance of public
conveyance of information.
Chair Gilbert,
on behalf of the Senate, thanked Mr. Woodward for his report. He noted that it
is crucial to have open communication, and thinks the administration is
committed to that. Chair Gilbert expressed
his thanks on behalf of the Senate to the committee for their hard work on the
development of the budget book over the last couple of years. Soon we will finally have the data stipulated
in the bylaw, longitudinal data for 5 years, so that we can understand better
how the budget is developed, cuts are made, and so forth. He also expressed thanks to Sherri Newcomb
for her leadership in developing this material for the committee.
VI.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A. ASD 04-12 Resolution
Clarifying Implementation of Plus/Minus Grading
It was m/s [Hall/Fromson] to approve document
ASD 04-12. Senator Hall explained this resolution
is a clarification and not a change in what the Senate had already passed. This resolution clarifies that a “C” is a 2.0
and a “D” is a 1.0 and that departments have autonomy in determining acceptable
grades for courses to satisfy major requirements.
Boyum: Clarified that in the first Resolve on line 16,
“the core competencies” refers to Section I, A. Oral Communication,
requirements in Section I, B. Written Communi-cations, requirement in Section
I, C. for Critical Thinking and requirements in III A. 1 for Mathematics. These are the so called “Golden Four.”
Pasternack: If a student gets a “C-“at the community
college, would that count for the “Golden Four?”
Gilbert: Admission and Records staff make that
determination. His understanding is that
they follow the practice of the community colleges for transfer students; there
is some variation in community college practices.
It was m/s [Pasternack/Michalopoulos] to amend
the Resolution on line 16, changing the “C” to “C-“and changing (2.0) to (1.7);
also in line 33, strike “C, e.g.” We seem to be putting our students at a
disadvantage compared to transfer students and should be fair to everybody.
The motion failed; Senator Pasternack’s amendment to the
Resolution was not adopted.
On the main
proposal, it was m/s
[Hewitt/Russell] to amend the Resolution in line 15, deleting the word “current;”
the Resolution would then read “supports the requirement that at least an
average grade of “C” must be attained.”
It was motioned
and accepted as a friendly amendment [Meyer]
as a follow up to Senator Hewitt’s amendment on line 15, to change the wording
to “requirements that at least a grade of “C-“ must be attained and an average
of 2.0.”
It was m/s [Shapiro/Junn] to call the
question. Motion passed to close debate on the amendment.
Senator Hewitt’s amendment to the Resolution failed.
The motion to approve ASD 04-12 as submitted passed.
VII.
NEW BUSINESS
A. ASD 04-18 New UPS Draft Library Policy
It was m/s
[Buck/Parker] to approve document ASD 04-18.
Senator Buck explained the major change made in the document was to
treat tenure/tenure-track and lecturer faculty more comparably.
Concerns about the policy were that it introduces
additional barriers to faculty research activities, increases library staff
workload to solve a problem that does not exist, wastes faculty members’ time
to physically return materials for inventory control, and is punitive to
faculty who have not violated their library privileges.
In support of the proposed policy, it was noted that
the library is a public resource, not a private supplier for faculty; that
students find it discouraging when needed materials are not on the shelf; and
that it seems prudent to “balance the books” once a year and is good management
practice.
Mr. Pollard reported that most faculty responded to
the policy when it was implemented last May; some faculty are still trying to account
for items they checked out long ago. His assessment is that it was a useful
exercise. Senator Cox provided data
regarding check-outs at our library: In May of 2003, there were 30,326 books
checked out to faculty, staff and grad students. At the beginning of March 2004, there are
7,934 books checked out to faculty, staff and grad students. These data suggest that a lot of material in
the offices prior to the physical return policy was implemented may not have
been absolutely essential for research. This
means that we have over 22,000 more items on the shelves and available for our
students to check out.
It was m/s [Shapiro/Fitch]
on page 2, under “Inventory Control and Renewal of Checkout Items” on line 3,
“To maintain appropriate control of the library materials, all checked–out
items must be renewed or returned to the Library at least once a year to allow
the Library to track and maintain records of its inventory.” Strike the next sentence in its
entirety. Change the third sentence to
read as follows: “For some categories of borrowers materials must be renewed or
returned to the Library once a year; for others materials need to be renewed or
returned twice a year.” On line 12,
change the sentence to read “For ease of remembering, the dates by which all
materials checked out must be renewed or returned to the Library by January 15
and June 15.” On line 14, change the
sentence to read “The first implementation of this new policy will be
It was m/s/p
[Byrnes/Bedell] to call the question and end debate.
Motion
failed to adopt the Shapiro amendment.
Returned to the main motion.
It was motioned
and accepted as a friendly amendment [Pasternack] on line 36 page 1, strike
the word “not infrequently” and replace with the word “frequently.”
It was m/s
[Buck/Fitch] an amendment to change the requirement to physically return books
to the library from once each year to every other year.
It was m/s/p
[Shapiro/Fitch] to adjourn. The meeting
was adjourned at