| Present: Marilyn Baguinon, Len Barish, William Bateman (President), Eric Beaven, Kristin Bremer, Kate Clair, Roberta Crisson, Mike Demetor, Patricia Derr, William Donner, Jack Entriken, Diane Fegely, Lisa Frye (Secretary), Ina Grapenthin, Jo Cohen Hamilton for Deborah Barlieb, Kathy Hartman, Roger Hibbs, Ted Hickman, Yong Huang for James Hall, James Hvidding, William Jefferson, Tracy Keyes, Lori Don Levan, Robert Martin, Justin McCleary for Kevin Erdie, Matt McKernan, George Paterno, Morris Perinchief, Slyvia Pham, Ilene Prokup, Dennis Rains, Karen Rauch, Robert Ryan, Paul Sable, Maria Sanelli, Loline Saras, Randy Schaeffer, Judith Smith (Vice-President), Laura Springman, Pietro Toggia, Carlos Vargas-Aburto, and Madan Varma. |
| W. Bateman asked that all University Senate members introduce themselves and say whom they represent. He announced the Senate meeting dates for the upcoming year. W. Bateman announced that the APSCUF Service Awards Ceremony would be held tonight at the Kutztown Tavern, 2nd floor, starting at 5:00 p.m. K. Clair announced that there was a faculty showing going on tonight in the Sharadin Art Building until 6:00 p.m. |
| E. Beaven moved, M. Varma seconded, to approve the Agenda. The motion passed. |
| E. Beaven moved, R. Schaeffer seconded, to approve the Minutes of the May 4, 2006 meeting. M. Baguinon noted some corrections to May’s minutes. Under IV. Committee & Task Force Reports, Section B, second paragraph, in the third sentence, the “a” should be omitted. Under IV, Section E, third paragraph, in the first sentence, it should be “passed,” not “ passÈ.” M. Sanelli noted that in V. Old Business, second paragraph, the 3rd sentence, “involvement of the faculty” should be replaced by involvement of the Senate.” The minutes were approved as amended. |
| J. Smith, Chair, reported that, even though the University Senate approved committee appointments at the May meeting, there are still a few openings on committees. She said that college representatives on the committee will try to fill these vacancies. After that, if there are still committee openings, another call will go out. The Committee on Committees will hold their first meeting of the semester on Thursday, September 14. |
| W. Bateman distributed the Budget Mission Statement and the eight Principles of University Decentralization that were approved by the Strategic Planning and Resources Committee on April 21, 2006. The handouts also list all the BRC meetings since its inception with a brief description of each meeting. BRC members, W. Bateman and G Silberman, visited Seton Hall over the summer along with representatives from West Chester to determine whether or not the software package being used there would be suitable for use here at KU to support decentralization of the budget since it is unlikely that SAP will do so. G. The next step in the budget decentralization process is for the BRC members from the business office to write up a KU version of the West Chester decentralization budget system. After that happens, the full membership of the BRC will consider point by point what features of that system would be appropriate at KU. Open hearings will keep the KU Community informed and allow input to improve the plan before KU moves to implementation. K. Bremer questioned if there were any discussions at this point as to who might be the winners or losers if this plan were implemented. Besides being too soon to make such as assessment, W. Bateman stated that he feels all departments should be able to achieve gains because they can make decisions about how they want to control their budgets. However, he said it is really too soon to assess who would have the potential to make the biggest gains in terms of quality or funding. W. Bateman pointed out that the academic deans play an important role in a decentralized budget process because they oversee and assist departments with their budget choices. W. Bateman announced that Mike Demetor has replaced Doreen Tobin on the BRC at this time while she is on loan to East Stroudsburg University. |
| F. Garman, Vice Chair of the SPRC, said that their first meeting of the year is going to take place on Friday, September 15. He stated that there are two main priorities this year. The first priority is for all SPRC members to become well versed in the state funding formulas and the performance indicators that drive much of our budget here at KU. The committee hopes to provide a number of forums where that information can be disbursed to faculty at large so they can have a better understanding of performance funding at KU. The other priority is budget decentralization. The SPRC wants to keep a close watch on this work in process in order to be sure that there is significant faculty input. |
V. Old Business
A. Discussion about the Academic Forum
| W. Bateman announced that each of the Senate members should have received a copy of the memo that he sent to the President on behalf of the Senate about the Academic Forum. W. Bateman also noted that he said sent a second email to Senators about the Forum. At this time the floor was open for discussion.
E. Beaven asked Provost Vargas-Aburto if we can measure the quality of education now and then compare that to the quality of education once classes are moved into the Forum. C. Vargas-Aburto stated that the measures of the quality of education for classes taught in Forum should be the same as those currently being used to assess the quality of education in existing classrooms. L. Barish made a comment that there were no discussions involving the faculty when it was decided what courses would be taught in the Academic Forum. B. Hanna stated that a consulting firm helped pick the courses to be taught in the Academic Forum. M. Perinchief pointed out that the deans gave the department chairs no choice as to what courses would be taught in the Forum. Further discussion revealed that the academic deans were acting on orders from the former provost. Several faculty made the point that writing intensive aspects of some courses would suffer dramatically since it would not be possible to do the usual writing component in large classrooms. M. Sanelli asked, “What is the role of the University Senate in the process of academic decisions and the quality of academics here at KU?” She asked why the idea of the Academic Forum Building was never brought to the Senate since it was her understanding that the Senate should be consulted in such matters. W. Bateman responded that he expects to hear back from the President within the next few weeks and he hopes that the president will address that issue. J. Smith said that the Forum is at variance with the Kutztown University Mission Statement because of the large class sizes. K. Clair suggested that department chairs use the same allocations as were used before these classes were moved to the Academic Forum. K. Clair made a motion, seconded by R. Crisson, that President Cevallos respond to the issues addressed in the memo regarding the Academic Forum within 14 days. Concerns were expressed that department chairs would be turning in the Spring 2007 schedules in the meantime. Whereupon K. Clair stated that she wanted to change her motion to read that President Cevallos should respond within 4 days and that all department chairs should refuse to hand in their Spring 2007 schedules until the president responds. W. Bateman, as Senate President, ruled that change out of order since the Senate does not have the power to tell department chairs what to do in that regard. In addition, W. Bateman stated, as a department himself, that the date for turning in schedules is a soft date with opportunities for some changes to be made even after schedules were given to the deans. E. Beaven challenged the ruling of the chair. The vote was 21 in favor of overruling the chair to 14 against. Hence, the challenge failed to achieve a two-thirds majority since such a challenge requires a two-thirds majority to pass. K. Clair made a friendly amendment to the original motion to ask President Cevallos to respond to two addition issues: (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? The motion passed with two abstentions K. Bremer commented about APSCUF negotiations. She stated that he was told that the Chancellor has told all the university presidents to not make any local agreements with regard to class size at this time. K. Bremer claimed that class size is on the top of the list for current contract negotiations. J. McCleary, a student representative, stated that he appreciates the passion he has seen from the faculty regarding class size and that the students should also take some action. |
| A. Rules for posthumous degrees W. Bateman reported that the registrar, Kizzy Morris, had inquired as to the process for granting a Posthumous Degree here at the university. W. Bateman explained that the process that was followed in the past was that if the family of the deceased requests the degree, then it was brought to the Senate for approval. Following a favorable vote in Senate, the request would go to the Council of Trustees for approval. If that vote was favorable then the posthumous degree was granted. W. Bateman asked if it were the will of the Senate that this matter be submitted to a committee or could the Senate Executive Committee write a proposal to be considered at the next meeting of the Senate. The Senate opted for the second choice. |
| M. Baguinon moved, L. Barish seconded, to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 5:38 p.m. |