MINUTES
of the Academic Senate Meeting onTUESDAY, September 23, 2003
Senate Members Present:
Eunice Aaron |
Robert Fung |
Aina J. Otero |
Alvin Alvarez |
Oswaldo Garcia |
Pete Palmer |
Guadalupe Alvia |
John Gemello |
Wenshen Pong |
Patricia Bartscher |
Deborah Gerson |
Brett Smith |
Marian Berstein |
Jan Gregory |
Miriam Smith |
John Blando |
Bruce Heiman |
Saul Steier |
Tara Bohannon |
Marlon Hom |
Genie Stowers |
Christopher Carrington |
Rick Houlberg |
Rob Strong |
Gene Chelberg |
Scott Jerris |
Dean Suzuki |
Yu Charn Chen |
Karen Johnson-Brennan |
Dawn Terrell |
Caran Colvin |
Joel Kassiola |
Connie Ulasewicz |
A. Reynaldo Contreras |
Martha Klironomos |
Mary Ann Van Dam |
Robert Corrigan |
Midori McKeon |
Pamela Vaughn |
Robert Daniels |
David Meredith |
Penelope Warren |
James Edwards |
Leroy Morishita |
Robert Williams |
Ned Fielden |
Amy Nichols |
Nini Yang |
Senate
Members Absent: Natalie Batista, Robert Cherny (excused), Sam Gill,
Jaimes Guerrero, Don Scoble
(excused)
Visitors: Judith Bettelheim, Lilia Chavez, Wan-Lee Cheng, Ann Hallum, Trustee Kathleen Kaiser, Bruce Macher,
Mitch Turitz, Marilyn Verhey,
Sylvia S. Walters, Gail Whitaker
CALL TO ORDER 2:10
p.m.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Senate Chair Edwards
issued a welcome to the new CSU faculty Trustee Kathy Kaiser, who is
making San Francisco
State University her first campus visit today.
Senate Chair Edwards
noted two town hall meetings to be held on campus to address questions and
concerns about the university budget. The meetings will occur on Wednesday
1 October 12:00-1:30 p.m. and Thursday 2 October 2:00-3:30
p.m. in McKenna theater, and will include remarks by
President Robert A. Corrigan, Vice President for Administration and
Finance Leroy Morishita, and Vice President
for Academic Affairs/Provost John Gemello.
Senate Chair Edwards
announced that a reception to welcome all senators, faculty members and staff
back to campus would be held directly after the senate meeting adjourns at
4:00 p.m. today at the University Club.
Senate Chair Edwards
announced that nominations for the four administrative search committees
were now closed, with an impressive group of faculty who have
put their names forward for election. The ballot will be in faculty mailboxes
on 1 October and there will be one week, until Wednesday 8 October at 5:00 p.m. to complete voting.
Secretary Fielden
mentioned the introduction of a new sign-in sheet for senators, now present
at the placard table outside the senate room. He asked all senators and visitors
to sign in on their arrival, particularly if arriving after the 2:10
p.m. call to order. This new procedure will improve attendance
accuracy.
Senator Meredith,
chair of APC, announced that his committee needed to meet directly after today’s
senate session.
CFA Chapter President
Turitz announced that yesterday was the last day to
register new voters before the October election, and that total number had
reached 1,375. He further mentioned that statewide CFA President John Travis
will be on campus this Thursday 25 September to address campus senators, who
are invited for lunch at 12:00 p.m. in the Verducci room of
the University Club. Additionally, he will address the budget on the same
day from 3:00-5:00 p.m.
at the University Club.
Senate Chair Edwards
congratulated CFA, the President’s office, and Associated Students for their
outstanding efforts on the voter registration initiative.
Senate Chair Edwards
noted that he would defer his chair’s report in order to make more time
for remarks from our visiting Trustee.
Senate Chair Edwards
noted an agenda change, that item 7, a resolution on the K/U Education Bond
Initiative, is a consent item from the Executive Committee and is in first
and second reading.
AGENDA ITEM #1 - APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR 23 September, 2003
m/s/p Stier,
Carrington
AGENDA ITEM #2 - APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES FOR 9 September, 2003
Senator
Otero asked for correction on her surname
spelling.
m/s/p Houlberg,
Aaron
AGENDA ITEM #3 - FACULTY TRUSTEE KATHY KAISER.
Trustee Kaiser
gave thanks for having her at her first campus and noted that SFSU’s
statewide Senator Cherny is representing David Spence in Sacramento and also mentioned Gary Hammerstrom
as another example of strong SFSU representation at the state wide level.
As far as my current remarks go, the phrase in real estate is “location, location,
location” - my remarks today and for some time will be “budget, budget, budget.”
Some of the specific issues are CMS, enrollment, contract issues, and student
fees - all budget issues. She mentioned coming to office in one of the worst
possible years, and noted the significant political issues before the CSU.
She mentioned being told
by the legislature not to ask for faculty compensation and not to ask for
enrollment funding. But of course many more students are coming. The UCs are turning away students, and
even CSU Chico has turned away 25 percent of the new students. The private
universities can absorb a small overflow and the community colleges are really
hurt badly. Where are the students going to go? How will we be able to teach
them with fewer resources? How can we continue to get more productive?
The board will approve
a budget on 1 October, and Richard West estimates that $54 million
will be our mandated increased cost as a system. She mentioned issues such
as faculty salaries and other difficulties. She stated that the board will
ask for more money for faculty compensation, will ask for money for students.
And the crisis will be when they receive the answer to those questions. Funded
student enrollment has already been decreasing over time.
Bright spots include the
Board’s discussion of Proposition 54. Normally the board is not a political
board unless political events affect the CSU, and this affects the CSU big
time. It is a crime to erase knowledge about our students.
The board is supporting
new funding - building increases, enrollment increases. The board cannot speak
to the contract, since that is a collective bargaining issue. SFSU student
David Abella is a member on the CSU fees
panel and Trustee Kaiser hoped for a good strategic plan from the panel.
The Teacher Integrative
Program is an attempt to resolve legislative qualms about cleaning up our
act and she hopes that we will be able to have effective teachers out in 4
years.
Trustee Kaiser
ended by noting the importance of voting and monitoring legislators and legislation.
During the Question period:
Senator Daniels
asked about limits of enrollment listed in the master plan, and whether we
could revise the numbers.
Trustee Kaiser
wondered if Senator Daniels wanted the truth or not. She noted that
the theoretical Master plan stipulated that the UC system would take the top
12% of students, and the CSU the top 25%, whereas in fact UC takes the top
8% and we take 25%. Campuses do do selective applications,
although this is a tricky issue. Impacting is an issue - there are ways to
do it, but you have to make sure it works properly
Senator Williams
expressed pleasure that Proposition 54 was handled well by the Board, and
that it makes an important statement.
Trustee Kaiser mentioned the mixed appointment profile on the board, and thus was
especially pleased that board came together on this issue.
Senator Meredith
wondered if the board is taking notice of teacher training issues.
Trustee Kaiser
mentioned educational equity and Title 9, and that huge tension in education
now involves school principals. She mentioned federal guidelines that she
felt were color-blind in the worst possible way. Little attention is paid
to internal student demographics and she felt that our job is to educate for
the best possible chance of success. Nothing gets more attention than the
“no child left behind” initiative.
Senate Chair Edwards noted the need to move to time certain
Agenda item 6.
AGENDA ITEM #6 - MASTER
OF ARTS IN ART 1ST READING: Time certain - no later than 2:30 p.m.
m/s/p
Nichols, Vaughn
Senator Nichols,
chair of CRAC, noted that in the senate packet was the request to revise the
requirements for the Master’s of Arts in Art. This proposal was reviewed
by CRAC 2 times prior to being placed on the Agenda. The first proposed change
was to define specializations in “Art of Asia” and “Art of the Spanish-speaking
World” in the bulletin. A wide range of courses in both areas of study already
exists. The department wished to formalize these courses by grouping them
into emphasis areas for advising current students and informational purposes
for prospective students. Page 3 of the proposal has the course listings
grouped by emphases.
The second proposed change
was the addition of one new core course (Art 703 Art History Research Applications)
to the curriculum which will reduce the required elective options from
6 to 3 units total. The number of units required
to graduate would remain the same. Art 703 will be a prerequisite for ART
898. Currently, students have difficulty completing their MA thesis independently
of a structured seminar situation. This change would assist matriculating
students to graduation in a timelier manner.
Faculty representing the
proposal includes Judith Bettelheim and Sylvia
Walters.
Dean Whitaker made
a modest comment—formalizing this not a request for new concentration but
an emphasis, which is useful for advising purposes.
Senator Steier
asked for clarification about course 897 - is that
a thesis course?
Walters
answered in the affirmative.
Move to second reading
m/s/p
Carrington, Houlberg
Senator Steier
commented that he didn’t make his first question clear: there is a course
898 as well as 897, which seems to overlap 703.
Bettelheim noted that course 897 is for a student who needs
more preparation for their thesis, to be undertaken before 898. 703 is a dedicated
seminar for all thesis students to discuss methods. This is a four semester
program, and 703 is the beginning of thesis preparation.
Senator McKeon
asked a question regarding the emphasis on the Spanish speaking world, whether
students needed to demonstrate a certain level of Spanish language proficiency.
Bettelheim noted that there is a language requirement for a
thesis, and students must pass a language exam before their thesis work.
Moved
to close debate.
m/s/p
Houlberg, Vaughn
Revision is approved unanimously.
AGENDA ITEM #4 - PROVOST JOHN GEMELLO - Budget Impact and
the Instructional Program.
Provost Gemello outlined the current academic plans for the
University Academic Affairs, which took a 4.6 million dollar reduction in
its budget, split into two parts. We allocated some reduction to colleges,
about 2.2 million dollars. The college budgets were reduced by 6 %; 4-6% in
other academic units. The impact was similar to previous years - reductions
took place by salary savings, leaving positions unfilled and the like. The
second part, a reduction in the faculty budget was accomplished by altering
the student/faculty ratio (SFR).
One way to look at this
is by comparing other years, and we now are back at the student/faculty ratio
from 5 years ago, which had gradually been improved over that time. So we
are not going into uncharted waters - we have been here before. The University
has received growth funds, based on additional 1,300 FTE, which has helped.
Academic affairs has received 2.2 million dollars
extra. We increased target to colleges, allocated increased funds, and spread
them over several semesters. We just sent out the augmentation to the colleges
for the spring allowing us to meet our spring target. The net result, from
faculty budget, is similar to last year, but we need to teach more students.
In fall 2002 we offered 3,676 sections, in fall 2003 3,639 leading to reduction
of 37 sections. We did everything we could to keep things close. In 2002 there
were 20,274 FTES, in 2003 there are 20,793. We have an extra 500 students
in roughly the same number of classes.
We have kept the instructional
equipment budget intact and the library materials budget intact.
We relied on units making
reductions, sometimes in short-term ways. The University Budget Committee
(UBC) has discussed this at length, but the lateness of the budget makes this
a transitional year. We have had to make one-year decisions to finish off
the year. Next year, if nothing worse happens, we will have a 10 million dollar
shortfall, a permanent shortfall. This is now a permanent issue - the question
is how will we handle this.
UBC has added 3 new faculty
members: Velia Garcia, John Kim, and Lisa White.
We had the first meeting with the faculty members last week, desiring to involve
more faculty in the budget process. Provost Gemello
planned to meet with faculty members to discuss the budget as often and
long as necessary.
Senator Houlberg suggested that the notion of “going back”
to SFR from the past is not appropriate. Going “back” to a 22.1 SFR doesn’t
reflect reality. Teaching back then meant you were able to count on photocopiers,
support, etc. We are actually in uncharted waters, which don’t reflect what
we need to say as an institution.
AGENDA ITEM #5 - REPORT FROM STATEWIDE ACADEMIC SENATE.
Senator Gregory
noted that her report from the Faculty Affairs Committee as well as minutes
of the Plenary taken by David Hood at the last meeting were sent out
on email, and had nothing further to offer. Aaron commented that the
Fiscal and Government Affairs committee is facing some grim decisions. Until
discussion continues with trustees there is nothing further to report.
Senator Chelberg had a question to Gregory about what
email list was utilized for her mailing.
Several Senators were
not included in the list and so the Senate Email list will be updated.
AGENDA ITEM #7 -RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF K/U PUBLIC EDUCATION
FACILITIES BOND ACT, 1st and 2nd Reading.
This agenda item is a recommendation from the executive committee, as a
consent item, in first and second reading, concerning the approval of the
resolution in support of the Kindergarten through University Public Education
Facilities Bond Act.
m/s/p
Aaron, Gregory
Senator Aaron felt
troubled to even have to speak to this at all. We are in tough times for our
young people and students. We did the first half of this last year, in supporting
proposition 47, but we need to do this kind of thing again because we need
to take the long view. We need to send a strong message to young people that
we care about their education.
Senator Gregory
added only to say that we take a position on this terrible thing, and directed
our attention to a typo in the resolution in third “whereas” clause - line
2, “more than 300 school districts and their school construction and their
repair projects funded.”
Senator Carrington
asked if there is any particular project at SFSU to which this is directed.
Should we mention them?
Vice President for Administration
& Finance Morishita responded that the only current ones are the
minor capital outlays, but deferred maintenance will be affected in the future.
There may be one project on next year’s list that will be affected.
President Corrigan
stated that if this bond doesn’t pass, it will put us further back in the
queue for funding. We have major project in next major bond, which would put
us in worse shape.
Senator Heiman noted another typo in final clause: it should
be “it” not “if” in the last clause.
Move to close debate.
m/s/p
Houlblerg, Smith
Motion
to second reading.
m/s/p
Meredith, Carrington
The resolution is passed
by consent of the senate.
Trustee Kaiser expressed thanks for a fine and productive day at SFSU.
AGENDA ITEM #14—Adjournment of the Senate
Senate adjourned at 3:07PM
Respectfully Submitted
Ned Fielden, Secretary to the Faculty