Faculty Senate Minutes, 17 March 1998

Millersville University, Faculty Senate

Minutes

Faculty Senate Meeting

17 March 1998

Chairperson D. Eidam called the meeting to order at 4:08 PM in Chryst 210. All Departments were represented except Business Administration, Earth Sciences, Economics, Educational Foundations, History, Music, and Sociology and Anthropology. Vice President for Finance, Dr. Bernice Rydell, attended and presented a special report (see below), as did Dr. Linda Suskie Assistant to the President. The Student Senate President, Melissa Dinofia and Snapper reporter, David Burkholder, also attended.

D. Eidam said that corrections to the minutes of the previous meeting (March 3) should be communicated to new permanent secretary J. Alden -- X3048 or E-mail jalden@marauder.

REPORTS

Chairperson

D. Eidam asked that chairpersons of Senate Committees notify him of any changes needed to be made to the list of mandated meeting times. He requested that he be notified of times for next year or that the time slot be left blank.

As of 27 February, 42% of the budget has been spent.

The Administration has provided a new academic proposal form with a minor change -- just the change of a word. New forms will be on the web page next week and will be available to all departments. June 1 is the deadline for switching to new form. Any course already in the works at that time will be on the old form. (See attachment)

SPARC Meeting. Two items discussed. 1. The budget--which is really a matrix to our detriment, discussed principles for use in the future. Senators are to be E-mailed on this.

2. Middle States Assessment (Dr. Suskie to report)

D. Eidam had received communication from the Academic Policy Committee acting chair Rich France. The committee had met for 45 minutes re. music dept. proposal and the consensus is that this should be referred to the General Ed. Review Committee. So R. France will call the Committee, as this would be the appropriate committee to consider the change.

Student Senate

M. Dinofia said that the Student Senate's last "on-the-road" meeting was held last week. One more allocations meeting is to be held (April 5). Senators can expect to hear from new students elected to the Student Senate. She invited faculty members to co-sponsor an open forum on the plus/minus grading system to be held in April.

D. Eidam said that he and Dr. Piperberg will formally co-sponsor the forum. The rationale has been distributed.

Ms. Dinofia said she had spoken at Get Acquainted Day with Dr. Caputo and Mr. Davis. This was the first time a student had attended and she hoped the practice would continue in the future.

Graduate Student Organization

The organization president Bodinski -- Unfortunately the V.P. was recently diagnosed with leukemia. She said that if Senators could talk to students about the organization, interested students could contact her at 209 Byerly, or E-mail her at Bodinski@aol.com or leave a message in the mailbox at the SMC.

Administrative Officers

Provost

Provost McNairy said that the Lockey lecture for tonight had been moved to Pucillo because of the response. There was some concern with faculty representation on three committees--CPC, ACAC and Group-Ware. Dr. McNairy hoped faculty would come out and meet Group-Ware vendors who would be visiting campus to discuss Group-Ware and its benefits to faculty. Membership on the committees had been expanded as follows:

2 more faculty on ACAC 2 more faculty on CPC 3 more faculty on Group-Ware

Vice-President for Finance and Administration

Vice President Rydell--presented a report on the expansion and renovation of Gordinier and an up-date on major construction projects. Wickersham is to be complete by July of this year, work on Hash/Bassler has begun--completion--January 1999 and Roddy is almost on target and the building due to open in January of 1999.

Lyle, built in 1949, has had no major renovation. The dining room is to be renovated. We will see a different kind of facility for students and it is planned to take some room and create a deli to serve students and faculty late in the evening on the north side of campus.

Gordinier. Has had one renovation--on the second floor with the expansion of the conference center. When the renovation took place, space was lost in the production area. The expansion will include food production and a bakery area on the first floor expanding outward for the bakery area, a second floor on top, and provide another conference room. In addition, the dining of faculty and staff, most of which occurs during mid-day hours, will be looked at and an area on the first floor will be converted to a faculty/staff dining area. This will have a designated purpose during the day and will also be available during the evening and weekends if John [Roscoe] needs the space.

In addition more and more students are eating lunch in the foyer but there is not enough space. An area on the southwest side will be provided for students to have a place to eat a more casual type of lunch or to study.

Renovations to the first floor will include an additional entrance for visitors--thus providing two entrances. Funding is to come from Auxiliary Enterprises. Funds will not be taken from education and general funding or tuition or students fees. It will be shared by charges for meetings and conference operations and the monies set aside each year for renovation and restoration of buildings.

In response to a question from D. Eidam regarding full booking March through July, John Roscoe said it was the same every year. C. Stameshkin asked how the Inn was doing and Dr. Rydell said that the Inn had had a very good summer but winter figures were not yet available.

Asked about completion of the renovations, Dr. Rydell said Lyle dining hall and kitchen should be ready in time for September opening. the total project may be delayed into the New Year. For Gordinier, it is planned to start around September on the outside so that there will be as little disturbance as possible on the interior.

Dr. Rydell reminded the Senate that President Caputo had said that the budget would be reduced by $2 million each year.

Associate Provost for Academic Programs and Services

Dr. Judi Roller--Associate Provost--reminded senators about visitors to campus in connection with the retention of students of color on Friday Mar. 20. It is hoped that the session will be videotaped. The visitors have been invited under the Social Equity Grant. Dr. Roller is also talking with faculty persons at Indiana and Nebraska.

Assistant to the President

Mrs. Linda Suskie--Assistant to the President
(Chair of the Computing Policy Council) (See also Standards for Employee's Computers that appeared in Exchange--contains list of supported equipment.)

Macs and PCs will be discontinued in 1998. If employees have hard or software that will not be supported they may keep it for as long as they want. Standards are under constant review. The attachment is already out of date and Mrs. Suskie is trying to provide an announcement re. Dell. Banner will be accessed via the web. Faculty members who have questions are invited to contact their representative on CPC.

Middle States Self-Study. Mrs. Suskie and S. Casselberry co-chair. Basically all colleges and universities need to be accredited to qualify for federal monies and for students to qualify for federal monies. Funding will not be available if the institution is not accredited by a regional organization.

Also, accreditation contributes to institution credibility and reputation. Some of our reputation is hard to measure but when you are well regarded by Middle States it enhances reputation.

Process of Accreditation--is a lot of work, a lot of it is not fun but they want the process to be useful to us. We analyze ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses and ask the questions we have always wanted to ask. This is a chance to formally address issues already on our agenda.

There are two steps to the process:

Write a reported called Self-Study--describe and analyze ourselves and make recommendations to ourselves. We do not expect the Self-Study to have all the answers but we can identify problems.

The process culminates in our having people in the Mid Atlantic Region come sometime in the spring of 2000 (Ms. Suskie guessed this might be in March). They read the study all the way through and they come here with an agenda of three questions:

1. Are we worthy of being re-accredited--the answer for a school like Millersville is yes. We are in good financial shape; we have sound academic programs; minimally adequate support.

2. Are we fulfilling our mission? They take this very seriously and go around asking people.

3. Finally, is our Self-Study an honest and accurate portrayal of ourselves? If we say everything is great they will have questions for us. An incomplete Self-Study can get them really annoyed.

By the end of the semester we must submit a plan as to how we plan to do a Self-Study, how it will be organized, our basic objectives and something new--they want us to spell out exactly what questions we want addressed in each chapter.

(See handout Ms. Suskie provided) Mrs. Suskie requests that this be returned by March 20. This is a tentative list (not finalized). If you know of anybody who would be really good please suggest his or her names. If senators would like to suggest themselves, they may do so. Also if you think of any questions, please jot these down also. The deadline is March 20, but these will be accepted through the middle of next week.

Committees

Women's Studies Curriculum Committee.

B. Schneller reported that this week the committee approved Women Scientists Success Stories to be taught by Dr. Turchi in the fall of 1998. This will address achievements of contemporary women scientists and will be suitable for the Women's Studies Program. The only prerequisites are a 100-level G2 course and one Math course. Course number is WSTU 491 Topics in Women's Studies.

Graduate Course and Program Review Committee

R. Kerper submitted two courses:

Nurs. 541 Managing the Health Care Organization

and

Nurs. 542 Health Care Management: Issues of Policy, Ethics and Law.

Undergraduate Course and Program Review Committee

R. Wismer. submitted a proposal to increase the credit hours in Biol. 471 from its current 1-3 credit hours to 1-4 credit hours.

Business

Discussion of Math Honors 499 Dr. J. Osborne, Chair, Honors, present.

(This is a continuation of an issue raised at an earlier meeting). Dr. Osborne suggested that students be required to defend work done in 489 in the research project. This forces the student to create a committee and gives the student an idea of what will be expected of him or her and to put together a thesis proposal. Too often they tend to put the work off until the last minute and then a thesis that has to be revised substantially requires them to delay graduation.

R. Kerper asked how many departments had a defense at this level.

J. Osborne said it was his understanding that 489 used to require a defense but apparently no longer does. He suggested there should be a defense for 489 as well as 499. The catalogue requires a defense for 499.

Some discussion followed and D. Eidam said that without a motion to disapprove a course it was tacitly approved.

D. Eidam referred to minutes of a previous meeting that said that J. Osborne requested that the Senate consider the AW writing label for all honors thesis courses. D. Eidam said that J. Osborne could not make a motion to refer the matter to a committee but if someone else wished to ... (Dr. Osborne is not a member of the Senate.)

In discussion, R. Kerper asked if this should not be referred to General Education. C. Stameshkin said this was a gray area. M. Warmkessel said the proposal should not go to University Honors.

A Stameshkin/Wismer motion to ask APC and GERC chairs to confer to determine which committee will consider department honors theses to counting AW was passed.

There were no objections to reinstating the labels for Earth Sciences 241, Bio 628 and Nursing 560, so the requests received tacit approval. The labels for these courses had been removed last year.

Elections

M. Warmkessel to chair Honors Program Committee
Ana Borger-Reese to chair International Studies Curriculum Committee

Motion to reaffirm that plus/minus grades do not apply to Graduate Courses. D. Eidam ruled the motion out of order. He explained that a motion to reaffirm is not a motion it proposes that no action be taken it proposes that no change be made. At no time did this body ever consider or propose that plus/minus grades be applied to Graduate Courses. There is no way this could be construed to apply to Graduate courses; if they did so they would have to construe that D grades applied to Graduate courses. If we go through it, it becomes a parliamentary can of worms because if the motion is passed this precludes anyone coming during a session with a motion to have plus/minus grades. Worse, suppose it fails, we would have to say that we have applied plus/minus grades to Graduate courses. We have worked out that this be construed as a report. R. Kerper said that the Graduate committee had found no compelling reason for change.

D. Eidam said that as soon as Melissa Dinofia decided on a date for the forum referred to earlier, Senators would be E-mailed with the information.

The meeting adjourned at 5:20 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Jane Alden, Secretary
March 17, 1998

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