Borough of Manhattan Community College

The City University of New York

Academic Senate

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Minutes

October 26th, 2016

Room N451 immediately following College Council

I.  CALL TO ORDER: 2:19 pm

II.  ATTENDANCE: A quorum was achieved. The following senators were absent: Nur Ahamed, Robin Brown, Arthur Cain, Hector Castellanos, Judy Eng, Everett Flannery, Joel Hernandez, Jun Liang, Owen Meyers, Alicia Perdomo, Hasan Yumak

III.  APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES: Minutes from September 30th, 2016, were approved without revisions.

IV.  STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS FROM REPRESENTATIVES:

CURRICULUM COMMITTEE: The committee requested approval of the following items, which were all approved by the body:

i.  New Course: LIN 300 – Language, Gender and Sexuality. The vote was unanimous.

ii.  New Course: PSY 280 – Cultural Psychology. The vote was unanimous.

iii.  New Online Curriculum: Modern Languages A.A. The vote was unanimous.

iv.  New Curriculum: Public Health A.S. The vote was unanimous.

v.  Course Revision: CRJ 102 – Criminology. The vote was unanimous.

vi.  New Course: ASL 105 – Introductory American Sign Language I. The vote was unanimous.

vii.  New Course: ASL 106 – Introductory American Sign Language II. The vote was unanimous.

viii.  New Curriculum: Gender and Women’s Studies A.A. The vote was unanimous.

ix.  New Course: MAT 150.5 – Statistics with Algebra Workshop. This course was tabled by the CC and was not presented at the meeting.

b.  FACULTY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

i.  Joe Doctor Colloquium will be held in Richard Harris from 11:00am – 2:00 pm on April 20th, 2017.

ii.  The applications for Faculty Development grants will be changed to a digital format.

  1. INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE
  2. Committee has begun analyzing the raw data obtained for the eLearning survey.
  1. ACADEMIC STANDING COMMITTEE
  2. Committee read and acted on appeals regarding academic standing.
  3. The chair made a motion at the meeting that the committee need not require documentation for extenuating circumstances in order to grant Title IV financial aid appeals for students who have 2 or fewer semesters. The motion was approved unanimously.
  1. COMMITTEE ON STUDENT AFFAIRS
  2. Committee met with Dean Hutmaker and H. Mars to review and discuss the Early Alert system and Co-Curricular Transcript (CCT) updates.
  1. ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE
  2. Committee discussed the faculty vignettes produced last semester. Plans to get these disseminated, possibly by posting them on the BMCC website.
  1. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
  2. Committee plans to make presentations to all departments, explaining their role. Committee will contact departmental chairs over the next month.

V.  CHAIR’S REPORT

  1. COACHE survey progress update (SVP Wilks).
  2. Governance: committee has been formed with three faculty members (S. Bishop, H. Glaser, K. Levinson), three administrators (to be provided), and chaired by VP Diaz.
  3. Research: administration is establishing a research advisory committee.
  4. Interdisciplinary activity: administration plans to establish an RFP to incentivize faculty to work together.
  5. AS committees: lack of continuity on committee membership. Suggestion made that each year, 50% of the committee remains in place, and 50% can be new members.
  6. Instruction committee charged with reviewing and making suggestions for redesigning student evaluations for distance learning courses; currently evaluation for distance learning courses are the same as those for face-to-face courses.
  7. Assessment: Academic Freedom committee charged with reviewing how assessment is done at BMCC. Possibility exists for redesigning assessment approaches.

VI.  NEW BUSINESS

  1. Honors program update
  2. J. Schneiderman presented requirements and data on honors program.
  3. Motion to approve this program was made. Program approved (70 – 4).
  1. OER report
  2. K. Dreyer gave update on two initiatives: The Open Alternative Resource program and the Zero Cost Textbook degree (Z Degree). Zero textbook cost courses will be listed in the catalogue
  1. USF update by K. Conway:
  2. CUNY's budgetproposal, which is due to be approved by the Board of Trustees this evening, includes a request for continuation of the rationale tuition plan but at lower rates than prior years:an increase of $100 (CCs) or $250 (senior colleges) per year. If funding is available, the increase will not be implemented for CCs.

The budgetproposal also includes a request that NYC increase funding to senior colleges for the first time in over twenty years and asks NYC for $35 million to reduce the teaching load. Copies of the budget proposal can be found at the CUNY web site.

  1. The USF is holding a budget workshop on November 18th at CUNY Central 42nd street. Faculty Governance Leaders are encouraged to nominate two representatives from each college.

VII.  OLD BUSINESS

ADJOURNMENT 3:30pm

Respectfully submitted,

Sarah Salm, Secretary

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