Minutes - February 11, 2019 - 3:05pm
CCSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING
Present: Adair, S.; Amaya, L.; Austad, C.; Ayeni, T.; Baratta, C.; Bernstein, S.; Bigelow, L.; Bishop, J.; Bishop, R.; Blitz, D.; Boscarino, N.; Chen, S.; Cistulli, M.; Emiliani, B.; Farhat, J.; Gamache, J.; Garcia-Bowen, M.; Gardner, P.; Givens, E.; Gutierrez, S.; Hughes, H.; Kapper, M.; Karas, R.; Karpuk, P.; Kean, K.; Kim, Y.; Kriscenski, J.; Kullgren, A.; Kurkjian, C.; Langevin, K.; Leonidas, E.; Martin-Troy, K.; Mendez-Mendez, S.; Menoche, C.; Morales, A.; Moreno-Fuentes, G.; Ngazimbi, E.; Pancsofar, E.; Petras, S.; Ragusett, J.; Ruhs, T.; Sakaki, H.; Singhal, R.; Siporin, R.; Small, I.; Sohn, Y.M.; Sommers, B.; Spear, E.; Spector, D.; Spillman, D.; Stickland, A.; Tafrate, L.; Tellier, A.; Thomas, J.; Vedeler, H.; Williams, L.; York, C.
Ex-Officio: Dauwalder, D.; Fitzgerald, G.; Kremens, Z.; Toro, Z.; Wolff, R.
Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.
President of the Senate: Jackson, M.
Guests: Sharon Clapp (Library); Kevin Corcoran (System Office); Kassandra Fruin (SGA); Beth Merenstein (Curriculum Committee); Robbin Smith (Political Science)
1. Minutes
a. Minutes of January 28, 2019
- Approved unanimously
2. Announcements:
a. AAUP President (L. Williams)
- The legislative session has begun. Several bills that would impact higher education have been proposed, including one that would require a study of higher education in Connecticut.
b. SUOAF-AFSCME President (L. Bigelow)
- SUOAF-AFSCME is working on a complaint on the issue of Institutional Research consolidation.
c. SGA (K. Fruin)
- The Academic Resource Fair will be on Wednesday, March 7, from 11am to 2pm, in Alumni Hall.
d. FAC to the Board of Regents (S. Adair)
- The BOR rejected the FAC's recommendations on how the consolidation of academic programs should proceed, assuming it does.
- The fifth annual FAC conference will be on Friday, April 5, at CCSU.
e. President of the Senate (M. Jackson)
- The Strategic Plan was discussed, and faculty were encouraged to complete online surveys by the deadline of February 14.
3. Committee Reports
a. Open Educational Resources Advisory Council (S. Clapp)
- Sharon Clapp of the Library, and Kevin Corcoran of the System Office, presented the report on Open Educational resources.
- It was clarified that the Community Colleges' NOLO designator is a section-level attribute, so it is possible for some sections of a course to have it and others not. Senator Blitz expressed concerns about this creating competition among faculty, and inducing students to select sections based on the cost of the textbook.
- Senator Karpuk worried that in some fields, editions prices below $40 are poor quality translations that are inadequate for scholarly use.
- Report received by the Faculty Senate
b. Curriculum Committee (B. Merenstein)
- Approved unanimously
4. New Business
a. Committee on Committees: Bylaws of the Diversity Committee
- Senator Emiliani of the Committee on Committees expressed the following four concerns:
- What are the “principles of equity”? Should these be listed or cited in the bylaws? Does the term “equity” need to be defined in the bylaws?
- Does the term “social justice” need to be defined in the bylaws?
- Should there be a term limit for members? Say, three years?
- Is a quorum consisting of 20% of the Committee’s total membership adequate to conduct the committee's business?
- Senator Latour answered that the answer to items three and four should be "no" and "yes" respectively, because the committee has an open membership structure.
- For items one and two, a motion to amend by adding "as generally understood" after "principles of equity" was defeated unanimously.
- Senators suggested that items one and two could be answered by referring to university documents, such as ones found on the website of the Office of Diversity and Equity.
- Motion to amend (Karpuk/Spector) by adding a new bullet point between bullet points four and five: "Promote diversity in the curriculum"
- Approved unanimously
- Motion (Latour/Best): To approve the bylaws as amended, with the request that the Diversity Committee consider Senator Emiliani's first two points.
- Approved unanimously
b. Response to BOR's Proposed Institutional Research Consolidation
- Motion (Bigelow/Farhat): To approve the creation of an ad hoc committee to write a letter addressing this issue.
- Senator Blitz stated that the letter should make clear that we do not approve of any consolidation.
- Approved unanimously
c. Electronic Student Opinion Surveys - for information only at this point
- Senators were asked to take this issue to their constituencies for discussion; the policy will be on the agenda for the February 25 meeting.
5. Adjournment
- The meeting adjourned at 4:33pm.