Faculty Senate

Minutes - April 8, 2019 - 3:05pm

CCSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING

Present: Adair, S.; Amaya, L.; Austad, C.; Bailesteanu, M.; Bernstein, S.; Best, F.; Bishop, J.; Bishop, R.; Blitz, D.; Bray, A.; Broadus-Garcia, C.; Chakraborty, S.; Chen, S.; Emiliani, B.; Farhat, J.; Foster, P.; Gamache, J.; Garcia-Bowen, M.; Givens, E.; Gutierrez, S.; Halkin, S.; Hughes, H.; Kapper, M.; Karas, R.; Karpuk, P.; Kean, K.; Kim, Y.; Kriscenski, J.; Kullgren, A.; Kurkjian, C.; Langevin, K.; Latour, F.; Leonidas, E.; Menoche, C.; Mongillo, M.; Morales, A.; Moreno-Fuentes, G.; Ngazimbi, E.; Pancsofar, E.; Paolino, J.; Ragusett, J.; Ruhs, T.; Sakaki, H.; Siporin, R.; Small, I.; Sohn, Y.M.; Spear, E.; Spillman, D.; Styrczula, S.; Sylvester, C.; Teitler, J.; Thomas, J.; Vedeler, H.; Williams, L.

Ex-Officio: Fitzgerald, G.; Kremens, Z.; Toro, Z.; Wolff, R.

 

Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.

President of the Senate: Jackson, M.

Guests: Kassandra Fruin (SGA)

1. Minutes

a. Minutes of March 25, 2019

• Approved unanimously
  

2. Announcements:

a. AAUP President (L. Williams)

• There will be a Promotion and Tenure workshop on Tuesday, April 9, at 3pm in the Constitution Room.
• There will be a Chapter Meeting on Tuesday, April 16, at 3pm in the Connecticut Room. Issues to be discussed: work life balance issues facing faculty, the Age-Friendly University initiative, efforts for comprehensive child care.
• There will be a Sabbatical Leave workshop on Tuesday, April 23, at 3pm in the Connecticut Room.

b. SUOAF-AFSCME President (L. Bigelow)

• No announcements.

c. SGA (K. Fruin)

• The SGA President and Vice-President would like to thank the Steering Committee for inviting them to a meeting. There are plans to initiate a "conversation" so that students can understand how faculty contracts work. The plan would be to have two such meetings, with the first half-hour for students only and the second half-hour for students and faculty.
• The new Executive Board and Student Senate will be sworn in, in May.
  

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

• BOR President Ojakian prepared a 37-page-plus-appendices update on the so-called "Students First" for NECHE. One of the items discussed in that document is a “back office operations integration” of Information Technology, which is proposed on pages 31-32 of the document.
  • Motion (Blitz/Austad): The CCSU Faculty Senate rejects the “back office operations integration” of Information Technology, as proposed on pages 31-32 of the document titled “Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Students First Update for New England Commission of Higher Education, April 2019”.
    • Approved unanimously
• The “Reluctant Warriors” petition now has 1500 signatories, including 9 community college governance bodies.
  • Motion (Latour/Foster): The CCSU Faculty Senate endorses and signs the “Reluctant Warriors” petition.

e. President of the Senate (M. Jackson)

• The Presidential Open Forum was held on Wednesday, April 3.
• There are many ongoing searches: Chief Information Officer, Director of Marketing, Dean of the School of Engineering, Science, and Technology, and Dean of the School of Education and Professional Studies.
• President Toro will be meeting with NECHE on Thursday, April 11.
• The resolution and letter on the Restructuring of the Office of Institutions Research was sent last week. The BOR and its President have yet to respond.
• The Diversity Committee is investigating the issue of how to respond to racist graffiti on campus.
• A verbal offer has been made to a candidate for Interim Diversity Officer.

3. Unfinished Business

a. Creation of ad hoc committee on Promotion & Tenure guidelines review and revision. The committee will be asked to look at the following items:

1. Need to clarify the meaning of “meets” vs “exceeds” expectations and how these ratings should be used at all levels of evaluation.
2. Need clarification on how, or if, there can be an overall recommendation for promotion if a candidate receives at least one “does not meet” on any individual category.
3. Need to clarify for faculty P&T how work at previous institutions will be counted towards P&T here when credit is given towards tenure for work elsewhere. 
4. Need to clarify the evaluation of “comparable standards”.
5. Provost has agree to provide a breakdown of renewal decisions by race and gender.  Should we add that to the P&T bylaws, or to the P&T guidelines to formalize it in the future?
6. At the Senate meeting of May 1, 2017, a request was made to provide data on annual renewals for tenure-track faculty that would be combined with data on promotion and tenure candidates for the annual P&T report to the senate.  The ad hoc committee shall explore how a procedure can be put into place to obtain these data.
7. The ad hoc committee shall review previous P&T Committee reports to the senate for other suggested revisions.
   • At this point, the committee consists of Carrie Andreoletti, Felton Best, Tom Burkholder, Joseph Farhat, Pat Foster, Mark Jackson, and more members will be added. The committee will look at the seven issues above, plus the results of the pilot for online portfolios. The committee will report by September.

b. External Program Review (M. Fallon)

• Proposed policy (version 25)
• Previous version (version 22)
• Summary of changes
• Timetable of program review
  • Postponed to the next meeting

c. University Athletics Board bylaws (Committee on Committees)

• Motion to amend (Blitz/Karpuk) by adding an additional bullet point between the fourth point and the fifth point of item 2: "Statistical summary of athletic injuries."
• The words "statistical summary" were included to address concerns expressed by Senator Langevin about possible HIPAA violations.
  • Amendment approved unanimously
• Bylaws approved as amended, unanimously

d. Academic Integrity flowchart (for information only at this point - please share with your constituency)

5. Adjournment

• The meeting adjourned at 4:08pm