Minutes - September 11, 2017 - 3:05pm
CCSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING
Present: Adair, S.; Anton, M.; Austad, C.; Bailesteanu, M.; Bell, T.; Bernstein, S.; Best, F.; Bigelow, L.; Bishop, J.; Bishop, R.; Blitz, D.; Boncoddo, R.; Boscarino, N.; Callery, T.; Cistulli, M.; Criscola, J.; Dhar, P.; Dharavath, N.; Donohue, M.; Emiliani, B.; Farhat, J.; Foster, P.; Garcia, V.; Ghodsi, R.; Gross, S.; Horton, M.; Hughes, H.; Jarvis, K.; Kapper, M.; Kim, Y.; Koulidobrova, H.; Kyem, P.; Lapuerta, P.; Latour, F.; Leonidas, E.; Livingston, P.; LoGiudice, S.; Martin-Troy, K.; Mendez-Mendez, S.; Menoche, C.; Minor, L.; Misbach, K.; Mongillo, M.; Nelson, W.; Oyewumi, O.; Paolino, J.; Phillips, E.; Puleo, T.; Sadanand, N.; Sakaki, H.; Sohn, Y.; Spear, E.; Spillman, D.; Stickland, A.; Thornton, E.; Vedeler, H.; Watson, S.; Williams, C.; Williams, L.; York, C.; Zering, J.
Ex-Officio: Fitzgerald, G.; Kremens, Z.; Pease, S.; Sommers, B.
Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.
President of the Senate: Cohen, S.
Guests: Yvonne Kirby (OIRA); Brendan Kruh (SGA); Jason Snyder (School of Business); Peter Troiano (Interim VP Student Affairs); Robert Wolff (UPBC Chair)
Meeting in Constitution Room; Reception to Follow
1. Minutes
- Approved unanimously
2. Introduction of Senators
3. Announcements:
a. AAUP President (L. Williams)
- The chapter meeting will be on September 23. The focus will be the "three Cs": concessions, contract, consolidation.
b. SUOAF-AFSCME President (L. Bigelow)
- If members have questions about the new contract, they should contact Jody Barr and/or Lisa Bigelow.
- Myrna Garcia-Bowen to the FAC, and Lisa Washko is the alternate.
- We are waiting for information about minority recruitment funds.
- Some searches are on the way for critical positions, although a good number are still frozen.
- The Ana Grace project now has a home at CCSU.
c. SGA (B. Kruh)
- The SGA has a new president, Brendan Kruh, who spoke about many events and projects that the SGA is planning for the year. These include getting students involved on various committees, establishing a good relationship with the New Britain community, and making sure students are informed about the legislative process.
d. FAC to the Board of Regents (S. Adair)
- The so-called "Students First" process is ongoing; the workgroups met over the summer, and the Steering Committee met for the first time today. There is an FAC representative on the community college consolidation workgroup. A progress report is expected at the next BOR meeting (October 19).
- The BOR has agreed that the Board's IT policy should reflect that data involving experiments on human subjects will be confidential, provided the the research has been approved by the institutional review board.
- The BOR is planning to spend $15 million on a program called "Student Success Through Quality Instruction", proposed by the ACUE (Association of College and University Educators).
- The BOR has resurrected the Code of Conduct proposal. The FAC has objections; among other things, the FAC supports the following statement: "any employment disciplinary action must be based upon violations of laws or policies that exist independently from this Code of Conduct". The BOR claims that the statement is redundant. There is an opportunity to submit feedback to the BOR.
e. Secretary of the Senate (F. Latour)
- The Faculty Senate website has been updated with the minutes of meetings from 2000-01 through 2003-04.
f. President of the Senate (S. Cohen)
- President Cohen spoke of how he is proud of being a faculty member at CCSU:
- The Senate has said and done hard things to defend CCSU in front of the BOR.
- The Faculty has embraced President Toro's efforts to increase enrollment.
- President Cohen will insist on true shared governance, with authority over curricular issues and an advisory role over other issues.
- The CSU Faculty Leadership group will meet to discuss the so-called "Students First" plan.
- Our NEASC accreditation process is under way. The site visit will be in September 2018; a draft of our report will be available in coming months. President Toro has met with the NEASC steering committee.
- The Senate and its committees will have to deal with many issues this coming year: the Connecticut budget situation and how it affects us, "Students First", General Education revision, assessment, the Provost search, the Dean searches, a 5-year Academic Plan, etc. In other words, this will be a busy year.
4. Elections
a. Elections Committee*
- Senators Bernstein, Foster, Ghodsi, Latour, Spillman, and York were elected to the committee, unanimously.
b. Call for Nominations: Vice President of the Senate
- Motion (Latour/Foster): Nominations for Vice President of the Senate will be open until Friday, September 22, 5pm, and will be posted on the Faculty Senate website along with the candidate statements.
- Approved unanimously
5. Committee Reports
a. University Planning and Budget Committee (R. Wolff)
- Annual Report 2016-17
- Review of Strategic Plan
- Downtown Planning Memo and Report
- UPBC Budget Report 2016-17
- President Toro's Response to Budget Recommendations
- UPBC Chair Robert Wolff presented the report and attached documents, which were accepted by the Senate.
6. New Business:
- A steering committee consisting of Senators J.Bishop, Cistulli, Foster, Jarvis, Phillips, Secretary Latour, the future Vice President, and President Cohen, was approved unanimously.
a. Approval of Steering Committee
- Approved unanimously
c. Request to add two members to the Library Committee
- Approved unanimously
d. Spring 2018 Senate schedule
- Motion (Latour/Callery): To change the date of the fourth meeting of Spring 2018 from March 5 to March 19.
- Approved unanimously
- Motion (Best/Cohen): The Faculty Senate endorses the FAC's request to add the following sentence to the proposed Code of Conduct: "Any employment disciplinary action must be based upon violations of laws or policies that exist independently from this Code of Conduct."
Senate President Cohen will notify the BOR of this endorsement.
- Approved unanimously
- Senator Blitz announced that he would present a motion relative to the BOR's $15 million ACUE proposal at the next Faculty Senate meeting.
e. BOR Code of Conduct (added to agenda by unanimous consent)
f. Notice of impending motion (D. Blitz)
7. President’s Report (S. Cohen)
- Included as part the President's announcements
8. Adjournment
- The meeting adjourned at 4:10pm.
*Senate By-laws: 2.1.1 The first order of business of each initial fall meeting of the Faculty Senate shall be the election of the members of the Elections Committee… 2.6.2 The Elections Committee shall consist of six Senators elected annually from different areas of the University.