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ACADEMIC SENATE MINUTES October 18, 2007 |
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11:30 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.
ACADEMIC SENATE CHAMBERS
Members Present: Altar, Bedell, Bhattacharya,
Bruschke, Buck, Bullock, Burgtorf, Carroll, Dabirian, Drezner, Fidalgo,
Fromson, Grewal, Guerin, Hewitt, Hickok, Jarvis, Junn, Kanel,
Absent: Alva, Arnold, Gass, Gordon, Green,
Palmer, Pasternack, Richter, Shapiro, Smith,
I.
CALL
TO ORDER
Chair Guerin called the
meeting to order at 11:31 a.m.
II.
URGENT
BUSINESS
None.
III.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Senator Rhoten invited
all faculty to a series of workshops facilitated by her and Senator Stein on academic
integrity. For more information on the workshop dates, locations, and
registration, faculty may contact Senator Stein at andistein@fullerton.edu or x5434.
In Senator Spitzer’s
stead, Senator Jarvis announced that Carl Bernstein, an investigative reporter whose
reporting led to the uncovering of the Watergate scandal, will speak about his
new biography on Senator Hillary Clinton at the Nixon Presidential Library on
October 22, 2007 at 4:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Faculty
members are encouraged to bring their classes. More information can be obtained
by calling (714)983-9120 or at nixon@nara.gov.
IV.
CONSENT
CALENDAR
M/S/P
[Bedell/Drezner] to approve the consent calendar as amended:
4.1 Nominees to Search Committees
Director – Freshman Programs
Nominees: Charles H. Lee (CNSM);
Danielle Zacherl (CNSM); Dennis Siebenaler (ARTS);
Andi Stein (COMM); Kari Knutson-Miller (HHD)
4.2 Nominees to Ad Hoc
Committees
AD HOC: UNIVERSITY CLUB
BUILDING COMMITTEE
Nominees: Debra Noble (ARTS); Ellen
Junn (HHD); Sandra Sutphen (Emeriti); Pending
AD HOC: Brochure
Revision – Academic Field Trips – Faculty and Staff Guidelines
Nominees: Leslie Grier (HHD); Phil Armstrong (CNSM); Pending Mitch Fennell
(ART);
Pending Paul Stapp (NSM)
AD HOC: Brochure
Revision – Faculty Responsibilities for Student Health and Safety
Nominees: Mougo Nyaggah (SOC SCI);
Kari Knutsen-Miller (HHD); Harold Rogers (CNSM);
Sandra Sutphen (Emeriti)
V.
TIME
CERTAIN
Time Certain
11:45 a.m.
Subject: Recognition of Senator
Mohinder Grewal, Recently Named One of the “50 Leaders to Watch for their
Contributions Made to the Global Navigation and Positioning Industry, 2007 -
2008”
Faculty and Senate colleague Mohinder Grewal was recognized for his
accomplishment in being named one of the “50 Leaders to Watch for their
Contributions Made to the Global Navigation and Positioning Industry, 2007 and
2008” in the May issue of GPS World magazine. In January, the professor of electrical
engineering celebrated the publishing of the second edition of his book
entitled Global Positioning Systems:
Inertial Navigation and Integration by Wiley and Sons. Dr. Grewal explained
that his main contribution was in serving as an architect of a system that makes
satellite navigation more accurate. He was congratulated by his fellow Senators
and colleagues from the
VI.
STATEWIDE
ACADEMIC SENATE REPORT
Chair Guerin reported
that she met with the Faculty Affairs Committee during the Statewide Academic
Senate Interim Committees meetings last week. A substantial amount of time was
spent discussing and preparing a resolution on what the Board of Trustees and
the Chancellor should do when they receive votes of no confidence in campus
presidents. The Statewide Academic Senate will meet in November.
VII.
CHAIR’S
REPORT
Chair Guerin reported
that all campus Senate Chairs met with the Provosts and discussed the campus
responses to the draft of the Access to Excellence document. Also discussed was
the importance of liaison between student affairs and academic affairs with
respect to student development.
She added that our
campus WASC proposal has been mailed to the WASC committee. We should receive a
response in early December.
Chair Guerin pointed out
that we had to postpone the completion of our discussion of items 8.1 and 9.1
because VP Hagan and Mr. Dickerson were attending a retreat and unable to
attend this meeting.
VIII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
8.1
IX.
NEW
BUSINESS
9.1 ASD 07-151 Faculty/Staff Housing Survey Results and Current Status
[Dickerson] - Postponed
9.2 ASD 07-150 ASCSU Consultation on Professional Fee for Graduate
Business Degrees (Waiver) – Postponed
9.3 CSUF Academic Senate Comments on the CSU Strategic Planning
Initiative, Access to Excellence
Senators responded to the draft of the initiative, with these questions
in mind:
·
Does this vision of our future
match with your vision of the future
to the CSU?
·
Do you agree with what has
been identified as the three core goals to work toward? Do you find that this
plan motivates you to reach those goals?
·
Do you agree with the
strategies selected to reach those goals? Does the plan address the resource
needs and responsibilities of the strategic initiatives?
·
Are there clearly stated
objectives that permit assessment of whether or not the objectives have been
met? Are there strategic metrics or benchmarks to help us make those decisions?
·
Does this strategic plan
include regular monitoring of progress?
o
Senator Drezner: There is very
little mention about research. Should specify “for applied research” in the few
places it is mentioned.
o
Senator Fromson: Disappointed
that there was no mention of student responsibility. Faculty have an obligation
to the students and students have an obligation to themselves, in the area of
study outside of the classroom.
o
Senator Hewitt: (1) There is
nothing in the initiative that addresses funding for these plans; (2) One of
the accountability indicators is reducing the achievement gap. However, we do
not have responsibility for student education before they get to this level, so
using this as a measure for CSU faculty is dangerous; (3) Increasing fees will
effect students who come from middle class families that do not qualify for
financial assistance. As fees increase, a fair number of students may not be
able to afford graduate programs, especially; (4) Very little has been done
about faculty and administrative turnover because of poor funding; (5) Research
and sustainability could help bring in more funding.
o
Senator Bedell: This document
was quite anti-intellectual in its approach to research and scholarship and
would like to see that reworked. Also, issues of quality need to be addressed
throughout the document.
o
Senator Bruschke: (1) Document
seems to have a bias against liberal arts areas; (2) Accountability has to be linked
the amount of resources we have.
o
Senator Carroll: (1) Will
faculty be responsible for increasing high school graduation rates?
(2) Perhaps we should present our campus’ collective opinion on
measuring accountability to the CSU.
o
Senator Nyaggah: Workload is a
problem for faculty. Are we accountable for what we are unable to do? Reduce
the number of classes, increase research funding.
o
Senator Dabirian: Web
technology should be incorporated into the strategy of making better use of
evidence to improve learning.
o
Senator Guerin: (1) Would like
the document to provide specific benchmarks and parameters that indicate what
they want us to achieve; (2) Document should recognize that in order for the
CSU to fulfill the goal of increasing the proportion of college graduates in
California, sufficient funding will be necessary.
o
Senator McConnell: Concerned
about the use of the language regarding “the educational pipeline”, more
specifically, our use of abbreviations “P-16” and “P-20” to refer to pre-school
through college and pre-school through doctorate. Would like the document to
emphasize what distinguishes higher education from secondary education.
o
Senator Bullock: (1) Document
mentions growth and adding approximately 130,000 new students to the CSU system
each year by 2020, but does not reference a plan of action to address this
growth; (2) Defensive tone of the document suggests that things are going
terribly wrong in higher education and that somehow we have to remedy this
terrible mess we are in. However, it does not identify evidence that this
“mess” exists.
o
Senator Williams: (1) Document
lists the strategy of improving retention and increasing graduation by removing
barriers to degree completion. How many of those barriers are student barriers
and how many are institutional barriers? (2) What are the tradeoffs for the
cost of increasing the use of technology?
o
Senator Burgtorf: Concerned
about the goal of reducing excess credit. Some students may desire to take
additional classes to broaden their university experience. This document defies
the purpose of the university. We should ignore it.
o
Senator Stang: If we are going
to create a long term plan (i.e., over ten years, or twenty years), there
should also be short term objectives, markers of progress toward the long term
goal.
o
Senator Carroll: Concerned
that a few of us have been using the words “assessment” and “accountability”
interchangeably. Assessment is an idea and a process of evaluating how we can
be better at what we do. Accountability has expectations of performance and
also expectations of punishment for not reaching certain benchmarks or levels.
If this document is about accountability, I do not support it.
o
Senator Mead: Concerned about
funding. Document discusses plans for future years but does not address how we will
pay for ongoing programs. How do we maintain what we already have in place?
o
Senator Buck: (1) Biggest
issue is that this document does not address funding. The amount of funding
that the CSU has achieved under the compact has not been enough to sustain
quality. We need to get back to a reasonable student-faculty ratio. What is lacking
is someone with a voice to persuade the public that we need more funding in
higher education if we are to maintain quality; (2) Document focuses hugely on
assessment.
o
Senator Kanel: (1) It is inappropriate
to lump higher education with P-12 education; (2) Standardized assessment tools
will lead to faculty teaching to standard, which has not worked. Our University
has built-in avenues such (i.e. various committees) that assess standards and
curriculum; (3) Where is the evidence that there is a deficit?
o
Senator Jarvis: What is the
purpose of this document? Is it to set goals that we can easily meet so that we
are not too concerned? Is just to set larger goals? Is it just an internal
selling tool? Is this a real process for assessment and accountability?
Document reads that we should become more like ITT Tech.
o
Senator Randall: Echo the
suggestion that we make a strong statement to the Chancellor that we are in
opposition to this document. Thinks “accountability”
comes from the Chancellor’s attitude towards CSU faculty. He has made comments
that we have not been very productive. Concerned about narrowing our curriculum
to a set of observable objectives as opposed to authentic kinds of skills that
are qualitative in nature and cannot be reduced to a quantitative index.
o
Senator Klassen: Agreed with
Randall. Everyday we assess our students and work with our colleagues to help
each other to do a better job. More time should be spent on dealing with the
issues we face as our campus continues to grow, such as faculty hiring,
sabbaticals, and funding according to campus costs and needs.
o
Senator Bruschke: If the CSU is serious about implementing this
document, both the administration and the faculty would have to be equally
responsible.
o
Chair Guerin: Heard opinions
at the provost meeting that the document is “high on access and low on
quality”. Seems clear that this body concurs.
Chair Guerin stated that these comments will be melded together into a
report and brought back to next week’s Senate meeting for approval.
9.4 Discussion: Mentoring of Junior Faculty
With 170-80 newly hired
faculty, the mentoring of junior faculty was identified as priority number
three at the Academic Affairs/Academic Senate Retreat last August. Senators
offered the following input on how the Senate Executive Committee should pursue
this priority:
·
Senator Fidalgo: Clearly define what mentoring entails.
We need a clearly-delineated process.
·
Senator Stang: (1) There is a lot of literature on
mentoring available that could be used for formal mentor training; (2) From a
junior faculty perspective, mentoring is vital. It builds relationships and
connections; (3) Many of us choose informal mentoring. Sometimes junior faculty
may find it difficult to approach a mentor about something they are struggling
with, fearing that that mentor might be involved in determining their retention
or in their review process [conflict of interest within departments]; (4) We
need a better system of matching mentors.
·
Senator Junn: (1) Consult research literature on
mentoring; (2) Understand the purpose of mentoring (professional, community, or
psychological support?); (3) Consider matching methods; (4) Junior faculty
coming through the pipeline have different values than senior faculty. We
should use the junior faculty data from the COACHE study when building this
program to look at their values.
·
Senator Burgtorf: We should have a flexible policy on
mentoring, solicit interested people from campus to form an ad hoc committee,
and conduct a best practices forum.
·
Senator Hewitt: (1) Mentoring is very important for our junior
colleagues. It has made a huge impact on those who have had a good experience
with mentoring. However, not all of our colleagues are having a good
experience. Mentoring needs to be an active, not passive, process. We need a
program to train us to become better mentors. A lot of us did not have that
when we first came in. (2) Though mentoring is one of the most important
aspects of senior faculty members’ jobs, workload demands for senior faculty
make it difficult to do.
·
Senator Hickok: If any kind of proposals result from the
formation of an ad hoc committee on mentoring, please consult him as the
representative for the CAPS, ATHL, LIBR constituency because there may be
variations in mentoring needs.
·
Senator Buck: Encourage departments to set up a mentoring
program. There is value in informal mentor relationships.
·
Senator Fidalgo: In the selection of mentors, no one
should be forced to participate in mentorship.
·
Senator Drezner: In my department, we have a mentor for
teaching and a mentor for research. The chair assigns them, and it has worked
well.
·
Senator McConnell: Would not want to create a policy that
would disrupt the mentoring methods that have been working in departments.
·
Senator Mead: Define expectations for mentors.
X.
ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 12:45 p.m.