CCSU Faculty Senate

Minutes - April 13, 2015 - 3:05pm

CCSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING

Present: Anderson, C.; Antonucci, C.; Baratta, C.; Barr, B.; Bilisoly, R.; Blitz, D.; Boscarino, N.; Callery, T.; Cistulli, M.; D'Addio, D.; Dukes, C.; Emeagwali, G.; Fafunwa-Ndibe, S.; Foster, P.; Fothergill, W.; Gamache, J.; Garcia-Bowen, M.; Ghodsi, R.; Johnson, D.; Jones, C.; Kapper, M.; Karpuk, P.; Kean, K.; Kim, Y.; Knopf, K.; Koplowitz, B.; Kostelis, K.; Kovel, J.; Larsen, K.; Mahony, M.; Marquette, C.; Martin, M.; McGuire, M.; Melnyk, J.; Moffo Simpson, T.; Mongillo, M.; Oyanadel, D.; Paolino, J.; Pearson, F.; Phillips, E.; Pozorski, A.; Prozzo, J.; Ragusett, J.; Sadanand, N.; Santoro, K.; Sarisley, E.; Shen, X.; Simmons, R.; Solomon, P.; Spector, D.; Tomoda, S.; Williams, C.; Wood, R.

Ex-Officio: Adair, S.; Fitzgerald, G.; Lovitt, C.; Malhas, F.

Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.

President of the Senate: Cohen, S.

Guests: Don Adams (Philosophy); Yvonne Kirby (OIRA); Vivian Martin (Journalism)

The Steering Committee recommends the following items for inclusion on the Consent Agenda:

1. Minutes

4a, v. through vii. Minor bylaw revisions

Items accepted on the Consent Agenda will be approved without discussion or vote. Please indicate if you would like to have any item removed from the Consent Agenda for discussion and/or floor vote.

Item 4a, vi removed from Consent Agenda at the request of Senator Spector
Remaining items approved unanimously

1. Minutes

a. Minutes of March 9, 2015

Approved as consent agenda item

2. Announcements:

a. AAUP President (M. A. Mahony)

The CSU-AAUP and CCSU-AAUP elections have concluded. There will be two runoff elections for a delegate at-large and a council member.
The National AAUP report on the economic status of the profession is available. It is important to know that faculty salaries are not responsible for increases in tuition.
There will be a Chapter Meeting on April 22, in the Marcus White Living Room, at 3pm.
There will be a Promotion and Tenure workshop on Thursday, April 16. If you would like to attend, please inform the Provost's Office.
Despite what the Connecticut Mirror says, AAUP has not been asked for concessions. Rather, AAUP leadership has been asked to meet with BOR President Gray to discuss the budget situation.

b. SUOAF-AFSCME President (C. Dukes for L. Bigelow)

The Legislative Breakfast will be on April 10, and on April 24, there will be a caucus meeting in preparation for the April 27 Faculty Senate meeting.

c. SGA (S. Sonet)

No report.

d. FAC to the Board of Regents (S. Adair)

The FAC approved a resolution that asks for all initiatives to be removed from Transform CSCU 2020, and for the Steering Committee to be given the ability to decide whether or not to put them back.
On Friday, the first annual systemwide conference was held at Middlesex Community College. It was successful (over 200 attendees). The keynote speaker argued for shared governance.
The FAC will address the BOR in May.

e. President of the Senate (S. Cohen)

The new Transform CSCU 2020 Steering Committee met, and argued that its charge should be changed. The original charge has the Steering Committee acting as a liaison between the BOR and the 17 institutions. The Committee would like a new charge in the vein of the FAC resolution on Transform CSCU 2020. Otherwise, the committee would not really be a steering committee.
The Transform Steering Committee wants a moratorium on Transform and all initiatives frozen, and for the initiatives to be reviewed one by one, for approval, removal; perhaps some initiatives could be added, or they could be given to the individual campuses.
The Leadership Group met and agreed that if the Transform Steering Committee is not given genuine, believable control over Transform, then we cannot participate in it anymore and it is time for a vote of no confidence. The Leadership Group will make a recommendation on whether or not to proceed.
Adding the Board itself to the no confidence resolution was seen as unnecessary; since the Board appointed President Gray, a vote of no confidence in him is in effect a vote of no confidence in the Board.
The President of the Senate and President Miller will hold an Open Forum on Tuesday, April 21.
There was discussion of what the role of the BOR is supposed to be (lobby for the block grant and distribute it among the 17 institutions).

3. Committee Reports

a. Elections Committee (J. Melnyk)

The call for nominations for the various Standing Committees of the Faculty is out. We have 44 nominations so far, but we need many more.

b. Student Employment Task Force (C. Andreoletti, M. Collins)

The report was presented, and the Career Planning Guide (which is not yet fully functional) was demonstrated.
Report accepted by the Faculty Senate

c. Curriculum Committee (P. Karpuk)

Items 35, 36, 37 are present for informational purposes only. They have not been approved by the Curriculum Committee yet.
Motion: To approve the Curriculum Committee report, items 1 through 34, with a minor correction to item 6 (ESCI should be changed to GSCI).
Approved unanimously

d. Academic Assessment Committee (J. Mulrooney)

Senator Spector asked whether this proposed assessment of General Education learning outcome is a one-time endeavor. Answer: no, the committee hopes that this would be done going forward.
Senator Spector then expressed concerns about the extra work imposed on faculty, since doing this in the future would require collection of artifacts by faculty. He also expressed a conceptual concern; since General Education is supposed to prepare people for a lifetime of learning and participation in society, it doesn't seem to make sense to evaluate its outcomes based on a handful of artifacts.
CCSU-AAUP President Mahony warned faculty members about the danger of an increasing administrative burden.
Committee Chair Mulrooney said that addressing this issue is urgent, since we need to demonstrate to NEASC that we have made progress in assessing General Education. The burden would not be onerous if we assessed 1 or 2 outcomes per year. Provost Lovitt agreed; our high-stakes NEASC assessment will be in 2018. He said that faculty members could be paid to come on a Saturday morning to perform this assessment task, and hopefully that would satisfy NEASC.
Senator Spector moved to amend the resolution's last sentence by changing "collected" to "voluntarily collected by faculty".
- Amendment approved unanimously
CCSU-AAUP President Mahony wonders who will pay for copying the student work that will be used for this.
It was emphasized that the result of the assessment cannot be used to evaluate faculty members or department. All identifying information will be removed by OIRA before faculty can look at the artifacts.
Senator Foster called for quorum. A quorum was not present, and therefore the meeting adjourned.

4. New Business

a. Committee on Committees - Updates to Committee Bylaws (B. Barr)

i. Academic Standards Committee

ii. Excellence in Teaching Committee

iii. Information Technology Committee

iv. Sabbatical Leave Committee (AAUP)

v. Committee on Academic Advising

vi. Grade Appeals Committee

vii. Promotion and Tenure Committee