| Present: Marilyn Baguinon, Len Barish, William Bateman (President), Eric Beaven, Kate Clair, Roberta Crisson, Patricia Derr, William Donner, Jack Entriken, Diane Fegely, Sudarshan Fernando for Madan Varma, Lisa Frye (Secretary), Joe Gushen, Kathy Hartman, Ted Hickman, Yong Huang for James Hall, James Hvidding, William Jefferson, Robert Martin, John McAndrew, Justin McCleary for Kevin Erdie, Walter Nott, George Paterno, Morris Perinchief, Slyvia Pham, Ilene Prokup, Dennis Rains, Karen Rauch, Glenn Richardson for Kristin Bremer, Maria Sanelli, Loline Saras, Randy Schaeffer, Judith Smith (Vice-President), Peg Speirs for Lori Don Levan, Laura Springman, Pietro Toggia, Carlos Vargas-Aburto, and David Wagaman. |
| W. Bateman asked that all faculty members substituting for someone sign in on the sign-in sheet on the line for the person for whom they are a substitute. W. Bateman announced that he is the chair of the SECA Campaign again this year. On Tuesday, October 10, there will be a kickoff breakfast to start the local campaign. The main goal is to increase the participation rate of KU faculty and staff from last year when we ranked third out of the fourteen state system schools. |
| E. Beaven moved, M. Perinchief seconded, to approve the Agenda. The motion passed. |
| E. Beaven moved, and R. Schaeffer seconded, to approve the Minutes of the September 7, 2006 meeting. G. Richardson noted a correction under V. Old Business, page 4, third paragraph, second sentence should read “she” not “he”. M. Baguinon noted some corrections to the September minutes. Under IV. Committee & Task Force Reports, page 2, Section B, second paragraph, in the second sentence, the “G.” should be omitted. Under IV, page 2, Section B, third paragraph, in the second sentence, it should be “an,” not “ as”. Under V. Old Business, page 3, Section A, first paragraph, the second sentence, it should be “had,” not “said”. Under V. Old Business, page 3, Section A, last paragraph, second sentence, it should be “chair,” not “department”. Under V. Old Business, page 4, second paragraph should be “additional,” not "addition”. A period also needs to be added at the end of the sentence. The minutes were approved as corrected. |
| J. Smith, Chair, announced that the Student Government Board (SGB) has formed their own Committee on Committees in order to select and elect members to the various Governance Committees where student representation is needed. J. Smith reminded everyone that the Senate Web site is continually updated with the members of the Governance Committees. J. Smith reported that all the Governance Committee Chairs have been sent an email requesting them to call a meeting. If there wasn’t a chair listed, another member of the committee was sent an email requesting them to call the first meeting and elect a chair. Each Governance Committee is being asked to send a yearly report to the Senate that will be posted on the web site. |
| G. Silberman is in the process of adapting the West Chester version to Kutztown terminology. Once that is done, the BRC will look over each item to see what to include in the decentralized KU system. After this process starts, the BRC will share with the rest of the KU community what they have learned and ask for input. G. Silberman hopes to have this done by the end of 2006. G. Richardson felt that it would be very beneficial to invite Dr. Cevallos to the Senate meetings to speak about the decentralization process and to answer questions in regards to this process. W. Bateman stated that Dr. Cevallos attends Senate meetings when his schedule permits, but that he had been unable to attend the last two Senate meetings. |
| W. Bateman stated that Dan Benson was elected chair of SPRC. Other than that there was nothing to report. |
| W. Bateman spoke about the proposed rules for receiving a posthumous degree (see attached handout). J. Smith made the motion to accept the proposed rules of the posthumous degree, seconded by T. Hickman. The motion passed. |
| R. Crisson is concerned that the two specific questions in the motion from the Senate were not answered in President Cevallos’s response to W. Bateman’s letter. The two questions were: (1) What is the role of the Senate in regards to academic issues? and (2) How does the Academic Forum fit into the university mission statement? W. Bateman will bring these two important issues to the President again. M. Sanelli noted that part of the wording of the first question was lost in W. Bateman’s email to President Cevallos, but that the wording was correct in the motion in the Senate minutes. She feels that President Cevallos should attend a Senate meeting to discuss Senate’s role in academic issues. E. Beaven stated that changing the number of students in a class often causes changes to the syllabus and questioned whether Administration has the power to force a change to the syllabus. He said the historic framework of how courses came about at the university will also be forced to change. Once these changes occur, the Administration will state that it is past practice and the problem will not be solved. This issue needs to be addressed. Y. Huang spoke about how the student evaluations of a teacher teaching in the large classrooms may be affected due to the large class size. He feels that it is much harder to teach a large group versus a small group and thinks there should be different standards for those whom teach large classes. G. Richardson made three suggestions regarding with the Academic Forum building. (1) Be sure there are teaching assistants for those classes. (2) Assign more credit hours to the faculty member teaching the large classes. (3) Convert some classrooms in the Forum into computer labs since there is a computer lab shortage on campus. APSCUF is working on several of these issues and it has been mentioned at contract negotiations. Provost Vargas-Aburto noted that the quality of education at Kutztown must not be lowered. He noted how the organization of PASSHE (with a Chancellor) limits the ability of each school to respond to regional trends. He also noted that the CBA limits the administration in some ways, such as the use of teaching assistants. E. Beaven asked the provost how large classes will be assessed and evaluated. C. Vargas-Aburto stated that the current assessment tool should be able to be used for these classes. P. Derr brought up the issue of teaching assistants. Without a doctoral degree program or master program in many departments, Kutztown cannot provide teaching assistants for all programs on campus. Teaching assistants would not be qualified in many programs to help in the large classrooms and feels strongly that the parents of the students are paying money to send their children to a college where they are being taught by a faculty member with a terminal degree, not just a senior teaching a freshman. W. Jefferson stated that teaching assistants can be used for classroom management. M. Sanelli made a motion that was seconded by K. Clair. The motion is “The Academic Forum Ad-Hoc Committee, and any interested senators, will meet with the Provost three times this semester to brainstorm about possible alternatives to the present scheduling in the Academic Forum”. The motion passed. K. Clair made a motion, seconded by T. Hickman, to ask each academic department affected by the Academic Forum to review their course syllabi to see if teaching in the Academic Forum is in agreement with course syllabi as currently written where this information will be reported to the ad hoc Academic Forum committee by November 1. R. Schaeffer suggested an amendment to the motion to include the course outline/first-day handout in the material to be reviewed by these departments. The motion passed as amended. |
| None at this time. |
| R. Martin moved, and L. Barish seconded, to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 5:33 p.m. |