Millersville University, Faculty Senate

MINUTES

FACULTY SENATE MEETING

7 March 1995


Prior Minutes
Reports
...| Chairperson | Student Senate | President | VP Acad Affairs | VP Student Affairs |
Committee Reports
...| UCPRC | Univ Theme | Faculty Student Athletic | Joint Senate Conference | International Studies
Proposed Courses
Business
...| Completion of Major

Chairperson D. Eidam called the meeting to order at 4:07 p.m. in Chryst Hall, Room 210. All departmental senators attended except Health and Physical Education. J. Haugh, E. Kobeski and T. Miskelly attended for the student senate while J. Hoffman attended for the Snapper.

Minutes

Senate agreed to approve the 21 February 1995 and 7 March meeting minutes at the 4 April 1995 senate meeting.

Reports

Chairperson's Report

Chairperson D. Eidam distributed the chairperson's report (see Attachment A). A D. Hutchens/W. Dorman motion to wait until the Fall of 1995 to fill an unexpired vacancy on the Academic Policies Committee passed. Senate will meet this summer on Tuesday, June 13, 1995, at 3 PM at a location to be announced.

Student Senate

Student senate president, J. Haugh, greeted senators. He mentioned some constitutional changes. He said student senate is searching for a faculty advisor. Please contact T. Miskelly, E. Kobeski, or J. Haugh if anyone would like to be an advisor. Student senate discussed an audit of student religious organizations. There is concern that all student religious orgnizations spend their allocations appropriately. Student senate is now in the midst of student allocations. The student senate allocation committee meets each Sunday to hear requests for allocations. Student senate has opened nominations for next year's officers. Two candidates for student president are E. Kobeski and T. Miskelly.

Administrative Officers

President

President J. Caputo discussed Pennsylvania Governor T. Ridge's budget message. MU was expecting a more generous budget than it received. The feeling before today's budget announcement was the budget increase would be a percentage higher than the rate of inflation--perhaps in the 3.5 to 4 percent increase range. That is not what Governor Ridge said.

The governor rolled over the tuition challenge grant into our base budget. He also took two line items and rolled them into this year's budget. Nevertheless, the appropriations the governor is recommending are flat. The number of dollars is the same as last year. The governor has created a new tuition challenge grant. The tuition challenge grant for the entire state is $15 million. The SSHE gets its share only if it keeps its tuition increases below 4.5 percent.

The governor also increased PHEA by $32 million. PHEA is the loan and grant program in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania that is available to all institutions of higher education not just the SSHE. The bottom line is that our share of the tuition challenge grant will result in about a $239 or 2.5 percent increase per student next year. MU's costs go up at least 4.5 percent a year. MU may have a shortfall in funds and will be in a financial crunch if the governor has his way. The Virginia system has tekan enormous cuts this year.

Vice-President for Academic Affairs

Provost F. McNairy shared information with senate. Last year a decision was made to appoint a director of the graduate component. However, discussion of graduate education had not been as extensive as it might have been. MU is having discussions at school councils, within the departments, and with the graduate coordinators. MU is discussing where it wants to go with, how to structure, and administer graduate education. There are many proposals. MU wants the faculty to have an opportunity to discuss the issues.

The Spring Convocation will be Wednesday, April 12, at 4 PM. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Robert Zemsky from the Unviersity of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zemsky discussed higher education and its future on television recently. MU has asked him to speak about the external and internal pressures on higher education. The format will be: the convocation will begin at 4 PM, Dr. Zemsky will speak and take questions in Lehr Speakers Hall, and then everyone will eat.

Vice-President for Student Affairs

Vice-President for Student Affairs G. Reighard said that his staff had planned lots of activities for students this Spring. The last Saturday in April MU will have an all day carnival for students, two athletic events in the afternoon, a Spring football game in the evening, activities in the gymnasium until 1 PM, and finally a massive breakfast for all students who stay up all night. Reighard's staff is working closely to cooperate with students on the event.

On the same weekend the local VFW has asked permission to bring on campus National Guard equipment from the Vietnam era. They will display it in a parking lot behind the student center.

Committee Reports

University Course and Program Review Committee

Committee chairperson C. McLeod introduced one course under the three meeting rule:

University Theme Committee

Unviersity Theme Committee chairperson J. Piperberg mentioned future theme events for this semester. On Friday, March 10, 11:30 AM-12:45 PM, Donald Friedman, a specialist from NASA, will talk about space spin-offs in Myers Auditorium of mcComsey Hall. On March 14 at 8 PM in Myers Auditorium, the final installment in the three part series on radioactivity will occur. The talk will cover low level nuclear waste. Cyril Wecht, a forensic specialist, can not speak on march 28 because of a court case. The current date for his talk is april 6, 1995. Piperberg did not know the room yet.

Piperberg said the committee had received four proposed themes for the 1997-1998 academic year. The first is entitled "MU: A Community of Learners." The second is "Culture and Communication in the Electronic Village." The third is "A 20th Century Retrospective." The fourth is "The Heritage of the American Indian." The committee will consider the proposals and make a recommendation to senate.

Faculty-Student Athletic Committee

Chairperson F. Erickson said that for over four years the committee has worked on the concept of a Millersville University Athletic Hall of Fame. Now for senate information, it is ready to submit a document (see Attachment B). The idea is to recognize outstanding contributions and extraordinary service of student athletes and others. The Hall of Fame will be self-supporting as much as possible.

Joint Senate Conference Committee

Chairperson S. Luek said the committee will meet on Tuesday, March 28 at 4 PM in room 241 of Byerly Hall. the purpose of the meeting is to address some student leadership issues and service by students on university committees. The meeting is in conjunction with a special student leadership committee.

International Studies Curriculum Committee

Chairperson O. Iglesias said the committee will meet March 15 at 12 noon.

Proposed Courses

Under the three meeting rule, senate approved one course:

Under the one meeting rule, senate approved one course:

Associate Provost for Academic Administration J. Stager asked a question about BIOL462: Molecular Biology. He asked if increasing the credits from three to four would affect the faculty load. Senator J. Piperberg said the course is going from five to six contact hours. The Biology Department will offer one section a year usually in the Fall. Associate Provost Stager said that the course change automatically increases the faculty load by one credit.

Stager also mentioned the Business Department course, BUAD455: Strategic Management, that senate approved at the February 21 meeting. Previously the course had 30-40 students attending as a non-writing course. Now that it is labeled a W course only 25 students could attend. Now MU needs two sections to accommodate the students who want to take it. The change has a cost impact on MU that has to be offset by other changes.

Chairperson D. Eidam said MU needed a method for its administration to be made aware of the resource implications of course changes. Stager said the problem is there is no administrative input into the course approval process. Course approvals do not go through school councils and they do not review the courses. Eidam said senate only makes curricular decisions; it does not make resource allocation decisions.

Senator C. McLeod said the governance manual permits the Provost to select a designee to sit in on Undergraduate Course and Program Review Committee meetings. The committee extends an invitation to the Provost to attend meetings. The Course and Program Review Committee examined the BIOL462 course closely for several meetings over an extended period of time. There was plenty of time for any objections to be voiced.

Senator J. Piperberg said that molecular biology was one of the hottest areas of biology and of science in general. He would be reluctant to give the course fewer hours than what it deserves. Provost F. McNairy said that Associate Provost Stager was not opposing the course. In response to a question from a senator, she said that Deans do not have any input in the course approval process.

Business

Motion Concerning Completion of the Major

Senate debated a Completion of the Major policy motion (see Attachment A). Alternate senator S. Casselberry spoke in favor of allowing departments to set their own individual grade requirements for courses that students take in their major. The purpose of the Sociology/Anthropology Department's 2.5 grade requirement within the major is not to control the number of students in the major. sociology wants to make entrance into the major as easy as possible. The Department expects a major to be serious about the major. Sociology wants to send a message to their students that they must be serious students. After a long discussion that lasted until 5:45 PM, senate moved to adjourn and return the motion to the next meeting's agenda.

Senate adjourned at 5:45 p.m. The next meeting will be Tuesday, 4 April 1995, from 4:05-5:45 p.m. in Chryst 210.

Respectfully submitted,

Marvin Margolis, Secretary
Faculty Senate


Prior Minutes
Reports
...| Chairperson | Student Senate | President | VP Acad Affairs | VP Student Affairs |
Committee Reports
...| UCPRC | Univ Theme | Faculty Student Athletic | Joint Senate Conference | International Studies
Proposed Courses
Business
...| Completion of Major

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