Faculty Senate Minutes, 11 July 1996

MINUTES

FACULTY SENATE MEETING

11 July 1996

Chairperson D. Eidam called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. in Roddy Science Center, Room 137. All departmental senators attended except those from the Business Administration, Counseling and Human Development, Educational Foundations, and Special Education Departments.

Minutes

Senate approved the 7 May 1996 meeting minutes with the following correction: on page 4013, fourth paragraph down, seventh line down, change "...now a small class..." to "...a class of 70 students..."

Reports

Chairperson's Report

Chairperson D. Eidam began his report by recognizing senator M. Warmkessel to sepak to senate. Warmkessel said that senators who have Email accounts on Marauder (MU's Sun Workstation) are aware of senate's Marauder account. Currently the account exists because of senate's Web page. While she originally did not think of the account as a mechanism for sending mail, Warmkessel asked if senators wanted to encourage students and others to communicate with them. She suggested the possibility of establishing an official reflector. Incoming email for senate would be reflected to all senators with Marauder accounts.

Eidam said he had mixed feelings about the reflector. At the time senate discussed plus/minus grades, he received some hate mail from students. He proposed that the topic be an agenda item for the next meeting. Eidam distributed a copy of the senate committee lection openings for the Fall to senators and asked the secretary to attach it to the minutes (see Attachment A).

Eidam recognized senator C. McLeod to speak to senate. McLeod moved that effective immediately, the senate Chair shall send two (2) copies of each curricular proposal that is submitted to senate to the Director of Academic Advisement. the motion passed. Eidam said that in the future he would need five copies of course proposals--two for the Director of Academic Advisement, two for the Provost, and one for himself.

Administrative Officers

Vice President for Finance and Administration

Vice President for Finance and Administration B. Rydell discussed MU's budget picture. she said the budget for 1996-1997 is not final as of today. it will be final in August when PAC meets. There are three reasons for delaying the final budget. The first has to do with the tuition increase for the coming year. The Board of Governors normally acts on the tuition increases. this year they will act July 18. there is speculation of the Board approving a 4.5% tuition increase.

Because MU is not receiving an increase in appropriations for 1996-1997, students for the first time will bear the major cost of their education and not the commonwealth. If appropriations do not increase, students will continue to assume more of the burden in the future. A 4.5% increase will mean about a $145 increase in tuition for an instate and about $369 for an out of state student given that out of state is about 2.5 times instate tuition. There is also a proposal to limit the out of state tuition increase to $145.

The second reason for dealying the final budget is summer enrollments. while undergraduate enrollments are meeting MU's projections in both sessions, graduate enrollments are not. While the summer session is not over, the dollar shortfall may be about $350,000. The third reason for dealying the final budget is the Fall enrollment. Until this week, MU was pessimistic about them. There is a problem. MU develops its budget based on instate and out of state students. Suppose MU does meet its total projected Fall and Spring enrollment. However, if there were fewer out of state students, revenue could go down.

Some events have helped our budget this year. All bargaining units are negotiating now and AFSCME workers have settled their contract. We still do not know when three units--APSCUF, the police, and health center nurses--will settle on contracts. For the coming year we are not in bad shape. About $600,000 from the 1995-1996 budget will move to the 1996-1997 budget.

Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs J. Stager discussed the enrollment situation. Summer enrollments in the graduate area are down about 15 percent from last year and from our projections. The drop will have a large financial impact on the University.

For our Fall enrollments we have about 100 more deposits from students than we would like to enroll. In the past we have had about 13-15 percent falloffs of students from the number of paid deposits. This year MU delayed taking depostis until June. A month ago MU projected that we would have less students in the Fall. About 70 June-January students were allowed to enroll in the Fall. Now enrollments are closer to projections. The registrar is agitating for more seats and sections.

Stager discussed the plus/minus grade issue. Dean's Council has started to discuss it. They have not approved what senate passed. Council will look at implementation issues and see what is involved. It will not be in place this coming year except on an experimental basis.

Stager discussed two other items. Almost two years ago senate passed an Academic Amnesty policy. Stager clarified the question of who is eligible for academic amnesty. Two items are minimal requirments. A qualifying student must not have been enrolled in MU for at least five years and must not have been in good academic standing (less than a 2.0 cumulative) when she left MU. Studens with higher than a 2.0 cumulative are ineligible. MU will enforce this rule.

Students will need to apply for academic amnesty at the time they reenroll; they are ineligible for amnesty several semesters after they reenrolled. MU will send students who reenroll at MU and are eligible for academic amnesty a brochure that describes the academic amnesty program.

Senate passed a program criteria policy in 1991 concerning academic minors (see page 70 in the current Governance Manual). Now a problem has arisen with program criteria item 12 in the Governance Manual. Item 12 says, "Students are prohibited from choosing any minor in which the courses needed to fulfill the requirements for the minor would duplicate one or more courses in their major department and are counted by the students in their major." item 12 prevents students from majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Statistics. Mathematics majors cannot use the same statistics courses to satisfy major and minor requirments. A student must take 18 credits beyond her major requirements to obtain a minor.

Committee Reports

UCPRC

Substituting as Undergraduate Course and Program Review Committee chairperson, B. Grosh introduced four courses under the two meeting rule:

CSCI330:

CSCI380:

PSYC356:

PSYC417:

Grosh said the Earth Science Department has asked for the deletion of ESCI241:Meteorology from the list of approved General Education courses. She also introduced changes in the prerequisites and some course numbewrs for the following Biology courses:

BIOL254 (154):

BIOL255 (155):

BIOL256:

BIOL261 (161):

Biology 100 or demonstrated competency in biology would be no longer required as a prerequisite for the four courses. Senator J. Piperberg asked for senate's unanimous consent to approve the Biology course changes at today's meeting. The reason is the changes are necessary in response to requests from the Administration of Lancaster General Hospital School of Nursing. Senate approved the changes.

Senator D. Hutchens asked that the two Computer Science courses be on the 3 September 1996 meeting agenda. Senate approved the two courses as needing only one meeting of approval.

Academic Standards Committee

Academic Standards Committee chairperson J. Piperberg said the committee met June 4 and 5, 1996. He submitted a report on the meetings (see Attachment B). Piperberg made the report an addendum to this year's annual report.

Faculty Emeritus

A M. Warmkessel/R. Benson motion to recommend Associate Professor of Librarianship Catherine Glass for faculty emeritus status passed unanimously (see Attachment C).

Proposed Courses

Senate approved one undergraduate course:

HUMN302:

Senate approved one undergraduate minor and one graduate program:

African American Studies Proposal

Master of Education Degree in Athletic Management and Athletic Coaching

Attachment D

Business

Report of the Class Schedule Audit Task Force

Dean A. Hoffman, Class Schedule Audit Task Force chairperson, presented the Task Force's summary report (Althout it is only a summary report, it is still too large to attach to the minutes. Contact Hoffman's office for a copy. the complete report is available in Ganser Library.) The Task Force consisted of S. Casselberry, M. Gonzalez, J. Rousseau, L. Suskie, and A. Hoffman. Provost F. McNairy charged the Task Force with conducting an analysis of the Fall and Spring master schedules to determine if there are patters of redundancy, inequities, inefficiencies, density problems, or other trends that reflect "red flags."

Hoffman began by noting the source of the data that the Task Force used for the report. He said the committee based the report on three semester's class section data. Based on its review of the class schedules and room use, the Task Force offered some general observations: (A sample of the observations follow.)

--Schedules should be driven by student needs, not faculty wishes, with courses scheduled from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and during evenings across the week (Monday through Friday plus some weekend sessions).

--Departments are reminded that they have a service mission to provide adequate numbers of seats and courses for an appropriate range of General Education as well as for their majors.

--It is possible that, if more large classes are created, more large instructional spaces will be needed. New or renovated classrooms should be equipped with the latest technologies that facilitate large-group instruction.

--The Registrar should be charged with reviewing and evaluating current classroom assignments in terms of appropriate use of all instructional spaces. Classes should be assigned to rooms in order to maximize efficiency rather than permit room size to dictate class size. the Registrar, in consultation with school deans, should distribute time slots in large classrooms to each department in a fair and efficient manner.

Proposal for Changes in MU's Class Attendance/Grading Policy--Returned to the Agenda

The Academic Policies Committee is recommending changes in MU's class attendance/grading policy (see Attachment A, pp. 3991-3993 of the 16 April 1996 senate minutes). Because time was running late, senate agreed to adjourn and return the item to the agenda of the next meeting.

Appropriate Curricular Review Process for Departmental Guidebooks and Handbooks--Returned to the Agenda

Senator R. Benson will move that sente refer to the Academic Policies Committee the question of the appropriate curricular review process for departmental handbooks and guidebooks.

Blue Sheets for Departmental Degree Requirements --Returned to the Agenda.

Senator R. Benson will move that senate refer to the Academic Policies committee the determination of a requirement that a department that offers an undergraduate degree must specify and distribute to students the degree's requirments.

Senate adjourned at 5:45 PM. The next meeting will be Tuesday, 3 September 1996, from 4:05-5:45 p.m. in Chryst 210.

Respectfully submitted,

Marvin Margolis, Secretary
Faculty Senate