Faculty Assembly Minutes September 28, 2015
Chair: Joan M. Carroll Recorder: Joan M. Carroll
Members Absent:
ANT – ______/ CPS – Barbara Streets / ECO – David AndrewsM&M – Sarfraz Mian / PHY – Scott Roby
SA – ______
The meeting was called to order at 3:11 pm.
I. Approval of Agenda – The agenda was approved as distributed.
II. Approval of minutes of August 28, 2015 meetings – The chair explained that the attendance sheet from August 28 was inaccurate and that she would update the attendance after checking with members during this meeting. The body subsequently approved the minutes as distributed with the understanding that the “Members Absent” section would be updated by the chair..
III. FA Chair’s Report – Joan Carroll
Barbara Shaffer has announced that she will retire at the end of this academic year. Accordingly, a search committee must be formed to find her replacement. Consistent with the Faculty Bylaws, the Personnel Policies Council will be calling for nominations and volunteers for this committee, the members of which will be elected by the voting faculty of the Library.
Susan Camp, the previous chair of Faculty Assembly, will be in town next weekend and early next week. She said that she would love to catch up with as many people as are interested next Monday, October 5 at Old City Hall starting at about 4:00 pm.
Our excellent clerk, Sarah Balseiro, has taken an internship at Novelis and is no longer able to serve. If anyone has a student nearly as capable as Sarah has been, please let the chair know.
Please say your name and constituency before speaking
Please continue to send electronic copies of all handouts and reports to . We will convert handouts to PDF for posting on our website and sharing through Google Drive.
Please continue to support our green initiatives by bringing your own reusable beverage container to FA meetings.
.
IV. Reports of Councils, Committees, and Task Forces
● Academic Policies Council – Eve Clarke
Met on September 18 and welcomed new members: Mary McCune and Michelle Bishop. Elections were conducted with the following results: Sue Fettes, chair; Eve Clark, recorder and reporter for FA,Jason Zenor, in charge of updating the APC website after his Drupel training.
Changes to the Accounting Minor were reviewed and sent back to the department for some corrections.
The following footnote to the catalog for the Theatre Program was approved: "A C- or better must be earned in all courses credited to the major."
Proposed revisions to the Psychology Honors Program were reviewed and sent back to the department for some changes.
Next meeting is Friday, October 3.
● Student Issues & Concerns Council – Lisa Glidden
Discussing test accommodations for students who are non-native English speakers, and working with Auxiliary services on buses to and from NYC during breaks.
● Personnel Policies Council – Gwen Kay
Will revise the bylaws to replace the term “Non-FA” with “At-large” to more clearly reflect the intent of the May 2015 bylaws revision – that these council seats can be filled by either FA or Non-FA faculty and/or staff.
Discussed Appendix A, Section III of the Faculty Bylaws, Review of Academic Administrative Officers, noting that we have not complied with this provision in a very long time. See more under New Business.
Also discussed Appendix B, Term and Continuing Appointment – each department must have clear expectations about how materials for retention, promotion and tenure are evaluated. There have been variation in how promotion and reappointment reviews have been conducted from department to department, college to school. PPC recommends that every department reaffirm extant policy or create same.
● Graduate Council – Mary Toale
Reviewed two course proposals from the School of Business and returned them for revisions. Reviewed and approved the PSY 522 proposal.
The council is also discussing the issue of graduate transfer credits as current policies are unclear in the catalog.
● General Education Council – Michael Nehring
Has decided that a 10% sample size will be adequate in assessing the Gen Ed objectives related to English composition.
V. Elections
● Vacancies on FA Councils and Committees
Personnel Policies Council
Non FA 15-17 Ola Kraszkpulska THT
Priorities and Planning Council
School of C M & A 13-16 Christine Hirsch COM
General Education Council
School of Business 14-17 Pam Cox M&M
Student Issues and Concerns Council
Non-FA 15-17 Michelle Bishop Library
Undergraduate Curriculum Council
Penfield Library 15-17 Kathryn Johns-Masten Library
School of Business 15-17 Hema Rao AFL
School of C M & A 15-17 Taejin Jung COM
School of Education 15-17 Anne Fairbrother C&I
School of Education 14-16 Donna Matteson Tech
Campus Concept Committee
CLAS 15-18 Rich Weyhing HIS
Voting Fac or Prof Staff 14-17 Greg Brewster THT
Student Association 15-16 Emily Nassir Student
Auxiliary Services Board 15-18 Steve Abraham M&M
Assessment Advisory Committee
CLAS Humanities Murat Yasar THT
School of Business Susan Wright AFL
School of C M & A Ola Kraszkpulska THT
School of Education Michael LeBlanc CPS
VI. Unfinished Business
● Proposed MA degree in Strategic Communication (Communication Studies Department)
Passed 40–1
● Proposed 2019-20 College Calendar Passed 28–13
Discussion, primarily about the fall 2019 calendar:
Did we count the number of MWF classes? Including the time for final exams, the schedule includes the required number of class meeting minutes.
Could we consider ending the semester on a Monday or Tuesday (rather than Friday) to make up for Labor Day?
When classes do not meet on one day of the week, (science) labs must be cancelled for the entire week so that all sections of a class have the same number of lab experiences.
If we were to move to a secular calendar, if would be, by default, a Christian calendar.
The proposed calendar is consistent with the principles that we discussed at great length last year and adopted.
VII. New Business – Administrative Officer Review
The Personnel Policies Council is looking for guidance on fulfilling our responsibility for review of Academic Administrative officers as set out in Appendix A, Section III of our bylaws. At this point, both the president and the dean of the School of Business should be reviewed.
Discussion:
This is an important means to give feedback to our administrators. They are a part of us and we regularly review each other.
Where would the report(s) go? For the president, to her and the chancellor; for the dean, to him and the provost.
We might want to reach out to sister campuses, particularly Fredonia who learned a lot in negotiating this process.
Do we know anything about the chancellor’s review of the president? Might this be redundant?
Our bylaws require this and we should move forward. There is no need to vote on this.
Meeting adjourned 4:20 pm.
2