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:
BIOL247: Biodiversity, a new three credit hour general
education CQ course effective Spring 1995, if approved.
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:
HPED163: Advanced Weight Training, a new half credit general
education course to be offered first in the Fall of 1994.
Under the one meeting rule, senate approved one course:
BIOL462: Molecular Biology, an existing three credit hour
course now requesting four hours credit effective Fall, 1995.
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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