CCSU Faculty Senate

Minutes—January 27, 2014

VAC 105 3:05 PM

Present: Anderson, C.; Arena, J.; Barr, B.; Bernstein, S.; Bilisoly, R.; Blake, E.; Blitz, D.; Boscarino, N.; Braverman, S.; Cox, S.; Delventhal, T.; Dharavath, N.; Diamond, C.; Duquette, J.; Emeagwali, G.; Fallon, M.; Foster, P.; Fothergill, W.; Garcia-Bowen, M.; Hermes, K.; Hicks, E.; Horowitz, S.; Jackson, M.; Johnson, D.; Karpuk, P.; Kean, K.; Knopf, K.; Kovel, J.; Larsen, K.; Latour, F.; Leon, J.; Liard-Muriente, C.; Love, K.; Mamed, O.; Marquette, C.; Martin-Troy, K.; McGuire, M.; Melnyk, J.; Pancsofar, E.; Pearson, F.; Phillips, E.; Pozorski, A.; Ragusett, J.; Reasco, A.; Retelle, E.; Ribchinsky, J.; Santoro, K.; Sarisley, E.; Sweeney, D.; Tellier, A.; Tomoda, S.; Tully, J.; Vickrey, R.; White, C.; Williams, C.

Ex-Officio: Fitzgerald, G.; Malhas, F.; Pease, S.; Shojai, S.

Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.

President of the Senate: Cohen, S.

Guests: Stephen Adair (FAC to the BOR); Mary Ann Mahony (AAUP President); Chad Valk (UPBC Chair)

1. Approval of Minutes, December 9, 2013

2. Announcements

a. AAUP President (M. A. Mahony)

On Thursday, January 23, the AAUP hosted a Meet and Greet with Board of Regents members, CSU faculty, students and alumni. This was part of an effort to get the BOR to know more about us and what we do. The Meet and Greet was both a success and a disappointment. It was a success because there were many CSU alumni, students (both undergraduate and graduate) from each CSU; the CSU alumni included a Harvard Law graduate and someone who was involved with Clinton's globalization initiative. In addition, Provost Lovitt, President Miller, BOR President Gray, members of the BOR staff, and the press (Hartford Courant) were present. It was a disappointment because no BOR members (other than FAC representative Stephen Adair) were present.

AAUP and Senate Presidents have met with legislators (Representative Roberta Willis and State Senator Steve Cassano, of the Higher Education Committee).

The AAUP will be in contact with department chairs and department AAUP liaisons. In particular, the chairs group will meet on February 7.

A new "breakpoint agreement" improves pension calculations for those in Tiers 2, 2A and 3. For more details, please contact Caryl Greatorex, or see this link.

b. SUOAF-AFSCME President (E. Hicks)

A new "breakpoint agreement" improves pension calculations for those in Tiers 2, 2A and 3. For more details, please see this link.

There will be a union meeting/luncheon/social on March 17.

Members are encouraged to attend the "Women of Influence" gala; tickets for members may be subsidized.

A salary calculation tool will be available, so that members can compute their new salary for 2014-15 and 2015-16.

SUOAF-AFSCME insists that SUOAF-AFSCME job titles should not be used for university assistants, graduate students, etc.

c. SGA (B. Choplick)

No announcements.

d. FAC to the BOR (S. Adair)

Stephen Adair is the new Chair of the FAC, and thus is now a non-voting member of the Board of Regents. The Vice-Chair is Bob Brown of Tunxis Community College.

The FAC was allowed to name two people to a committee that is working on designing a new common academic calendar for ConnSCU. The common calendar should be ready in a couple of weeks.

The BOR will soon have a new TAP program manager, so we should expect to see some movement on TAP soon.

FAC members will soon meet with Roberta Willis and Steve Cassano. One issue that will be brought up is faculty representation on the BOR.

On Friday January 17, BOR President Gray presented the newest version of ExcelCT / the ConnSCU plan to the BOR. Items included in his plan are a common academic calendar, the transfer and articulation policy, a common application across the system, a common ID, centralized facilities planning at the system level, more technology in the classroom, increasing enrollments, allowing students to take courses for college credit while in high school, the creation of Regents scholarships for students who graduate from community colleges and want to continue their education at a CSU, expanding online opportunities at Charter Oak and other state institutions, a plan to control tuition costs, to increase funding for the system, to increase the number of grants (with perhaps the CSUs as a resource for CCs to get those grants. He tried to get consensus for the plan at the BOR meeting, but that seems to be a difficult goal to reach.

e. President of the Faculty Senate (S. Cohen)

- The President of the Senate is pleased to announce the formation of the three joint Senate-Administration ad hoc committees I mentioned last semester. All three will report to the Senate by the end of the semester.
  Along with the SCSU Faculty Senate President, the CSU-AAUP vice-president, lobbyists, and staff, President Cohen met last week with State Senator Steve Cassano, the new co-chair of the legislature’s Higher Education committee. He is a long-time faculty member, now retired, at Manchester Community College, and seemed sympathetic to our concerns, including increasing the FAC’s voice on the BOR, hiring more full-time faculty, and protecting and enhancing CSU’s mission as Connecticut’s regional comprehensive universities with strong liberal arts programs.
  - Task Force on Minority Student Success.
    1. Charge: To develop recommendations for improving the retention, academic success, and graduation rates of students from underrepresented minority populations at CCSU.
    2. Members: Nancy Hoffman (co-chair), Joe Paige (co-chair), Evelyn Phillips, Beth Merenstein, Carlos Soler, Heather Rodriguez, Marisol Aponte.
  - Task Force on Online Learning.
    1. Charge: To develop recommendations for ensuring that CCSU delivers high quality online and hybrid instruction and demonstrates the effectiveness of its technologically mediated instruction.
    2. Members: Kris Larsen (co-chair), Glynis Fitzgerald (co-chair), David Blitz, David Oyanadel, Sharon Clapp, Talat Salama, Mary McCarthy.
  - Task Force on Student Employment.
    1. Charge: To develop recommendations for ensuring that all CCSU students identify an intended career path and have adequate opportunities to prepare for employment in their chosen field.
    2. Members: Mary Collins (co-chair), Carrie Andreoletti (co-chair), David Fearon, Ken Poppe, Cindy Cayer, Diane Hunter, Kim Kostelis.
- The President of the Senate also met with the Facilities Planning Committee last week for an update on various projects. The biggest items seem to be:
  - Groundbreaking for the new residence hall
  - Planning for a new student dining hall near Kaiser Lot
  - The Willard/DiLoreto rehab architect has been hired, and the project is about to enter planning stages. Stakeholders, including faculty, will be involved.
  - New food operation in Social Sciences Hall to open in March
- Finally, the Senate President would like to take a moment to outline some of the issues he anticipates coming before the Senate this semester, and invites Senators to raise others.
  - Excel CT (or whatever will succeed it)
  - Reorganization at the system office, especially new hires: “super-Provost,” IT head, TAP overseer
  - TAP pathways
  - New system-wide academic calendar
  - Part-time faculty budget and full-time faculty hiring
  - Division of IASC into two (a Senate committee and an interdisciplinary program)
  - Organizational changes involving STEM School and Teacher Education
  - Report from ad hoc committee on the issues raised by the Physics faculty: expected for the February 24 meeting
  - Information Technology issues
  - General Education reform

3. Committee Reports

a. Elections Committee (S. Bernstein)

The ballot for the election of the Board of Regents Research Award Committee and the Board of Regents Teaching Award Committee will be open until 11:59pm today. Please vote!

b. University Planning and Budget Committee (C. Valk)

UPBC Chair Chad Valk presented the report on the UPBC's meeting with BOR President Gray on January 10. Much of the discussion that followed focused on how there seems to be a desire among some to make us a "system", "17 in 1", etc., while in reality, we are 17 distinct institutions, with distinct missions, etc. In particular, Senator Blitz pointed out that despite all of this talk about us being a "system", we are not truly a system, in particular because ConnSCU does not include UConn. Another point of discussion was the difficulty of responding to these ever-changing "plans"; at this point, we do not even know if ExcelCT is still alive.

4. New Business

a. DEC Exceptions FS.13.14.013B

Approved unanimously

5. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:31pm.