Minutes: September 7th, 2004

ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING

M I N U T E S

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2004

Attendance:

Absent:

Alvarez, Alvin (exc), Edwards, James (exc), Irvine, Patricia

(exc),

Visitors:

Susan Alunan, Elise Earthman, Ann Hallum, Barbara Luzardi,

Richard McKeethen, Minoo Moallem,  Enrique Riveros-Schafer, Chris Treadway, Todd

Swenson, Donald Taylor, Trujillo, Mitch Turitz, Pamela Vaughn, Marilyn Verhey, Jennifer

Wissink, Yenbo Wu

CALL TO ORDER: 2:10 p.m.

ANNOUNCEMENTS Senate Chair Colvin welcomed new and returning

senators to the 2004-2005 Academic Senate. She indicated that the microphones

had been reconfigured from previous years. When speaking into them, senators

will not be able to hear their own voices, but the oratory will still be

recorded.

Chair

Colvin

indicated that directly following the regular senate session would be an

orientation session for new senators or any returning senators that wished a

review of senate policy and procedures.

Chair

Colvin

announced that Bob Cherny, former SFSU and CSU State Academic Senate

chair would be serving as “parliamentarian” for the senate for the fall

semester, which helped explain his presence at the senate table.

Chair

Colvin

indicated that at the next senate meeting, on September 21, the current

statewide academic chair David McNeil would be present to talk about the issue

of lower division transfer students. A wine and cheese reception on the 5^th

floor of the Administration building would follow.

Chair

Colvin

urged senators to visit the senate website to view discontinuance documents,

and to inform their colleagues of their presence on the site.

Vice-chair

Williams

spoke to the Asilomar bi-annual retreat plans for January 2005. He indicated

that the theme of the retreat this year would be “The Making of A Scholar:

Staff and Faculty Contributions.” Currently there are almost 60 participants so

far and the retreat needs another 150 attendees to achieve a critical mass. He

mentioned two information items: When he inquired around campus as to why

people came to Asilomar, the answer invariably was that attendees sought to

establish a connection with their peers. He urged senators to have the courage

to connect with other colleagues, to remake old friends and find new friends.

The conference days were divided into categories of scholarship and teaching,

scholarship and research, and scholarship and service. Presenters are needed,

and he suggested that faculty who had received Fulbrights or other grants might

want to talk about their experiences. The deadline for proposals would be 29

October and he hoped that there might be some supplemental funds from the

administration to help offset retreat costs.

Senator

Chelberg announced that there was a new version of the campus “access

guide and map” and senators had been furnished copies. He urged senators to use

guide, and welcomed any feedback. More copies could be had at the DPRC office.

AGENDA

ITEM #1—APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR September 7, 2004

Senator

Chelberg asked that item number 11, the meeting schedule for spring

2005, not come as consent item, but rather in first reading.

The

Agenda was approved by consent as amended.

AGENDA

ITEM #2—APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES FOR THE LAST MEETING OF THE FORMER

SENATE ON May 11, 2004

Senator

McKeon noted that on Page five, in the middle of the page, a

question mark should follow the phrase “college dean.”

The

Minutes for May 11, 2004 of the senate were approved by consent as amended.

AGENDA

ITEM #3—APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES FOR THE FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW

SENATE ON May 11, 2004

Approved

by consent.

AGEND

ITEM #4—INTRODUCTION OF NEW ADMINISTRATORS

Chair

Colvin introduced the new administrators to the senate, who included Marilyn

Verhey, Faculty Affairs; Ann Hallum, Graduate Studies; William

Perttula, Acting Dean of Business; Don Taylor, acting Dean of HHS; Kenneth

Paap, ORSP; Enrique Riveros-Schafer, Academic Resources; and Susan

Alunan, acting director of the Urban Institute.

AGENDA

ITEM #5—REPORT FROM MARILYN VERHEY, DEAN of FACULTY AFFAIRS & PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT—BOYER MODEL & SCHOLARSHIP RECONSIDERED: PRIORITIES OF THE

PROFESSORIATE

Dean

of Faculty Affairs Verhey noted that in the fall of 2002, Provost

Gemello and then Senate Chair Cherny had charged the Professional

Development Council to consider the issue of professional development on

campus, who then made both administrative and conceptual recommendations. She wished

to outline the latter part of their recommendations.

The

committee addressed a program of services that would affect faculty across the

spectrum of their careers, as outlined in the senators’ handouts. The committee

developed a philosophy of faculty development, known nationally as the Boyer

model, and created by a former president of the Carnegie foundation. This model

includes several facets: the scholarship of teaching, the scholarship of

discovery, often thought of as “research,” the scholarship of application, and

the scholarship of integration. The committee floated a “trial balloon” program

at the last Asilomar regarding this model. The committee generated a report in

2003, which then went to the Faculty Affairs Committee for discussion, and was

endorsed as a planning model for faculty development activities. The handout

has additional resources listed, keeping in mind this particular model,

AGENDA

ITEM #6—REPORT FROM YENBO WU, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS—INTERNATIONAL

EDUCATION WEEK

Due

to extraordinary efficiency in the senate, this agenda item was reached before

the principle presenter had arrived, and so the Senate moved to item 7 with the

identical result. Therefore Item number 8, a report from Cherny was

heard, in part, until presenters for items 6 and 7 arrived. Their reports,

while not presented in strict chronological order, are listed in their proper

places in the agenda.

Yenbo

Wu

director of international programs sought to remind senators that nationwide

International programs week was on the calendar for the Fall, November 15-19, 

the fourth time for our campus. This year would also have a busy week, and he

sought the senate’s assistance.

Jennifer

Wissink

also spoke to international education week, noting that the week highlighted

not only the cultural understandings of international life, but also was a part

of the university’s mission as outlined in CUSP II. The week would include a

series of foreign films and talks, and would continue to serve as a campus-wide

event incorporating everyone. There were several ways to participate:

coordinating or developing an event, and there were proposal forms available

for involvement; she also wanted to remind the campus of the plans that were

already in place. She encouraged senators as faculty to participate, to take

their classes to the events, and to incorporate themes of internationalism into

their courses. Her office would be forming a campus-wide committee, and future

meetings would be scheduled shortly. Contact information was listed on the

proposal form.

AGENDA

ITEM #7—REPORT FROM CHRIS TREADWAY, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT & COMMUNITY

RELATIONS—VOTER REGISTRATION

Chris

Treadway, Susan Alunan and David Abella were also present. Treadway indicated

that the campus had been active in voter registration in the past, including

various student groups and CFA. She stated that campus had tried to coordinate

voter registrations efforts this year.

Treadway listed several of the ways

the office had been working to this aim: working with external groups that do

voter education, to help distribute voter education material; working with the

San Francisco Department of Elections to do presentations; providing forums for

student education; working with the San Francisco mayor’s office; hosting a

voter rally; hosting an education forum including the School Board and the

Superintendent of schools; creating a website with information, key deadlines

for registration, etc.; working with political science students to create an

information fact sheet on the election for the District 7 Board of Supervisors;

and working on developing some free incentives for students to register.

Finally an exit survey would help inform campus on how well the efforts worked.

Senator

Abella indicated that the Associated Students were working to target

students living on campus to register. He thought that an additional polling

place on campus would be a good idea, with a possible second precinct. The goal

for registration was 3,500 students over 10% of the campus population.

Alunan

stated

that in

collaboration with other organizations the Urban Institute was pushing for

civic and political engagement, and all of these efforts were strictly

non-partisan. Several projects urban institute clear project brownbag with dept

of elections and professor cook next week. There has been some collaboration

with Democracy Matters, a national organization from the East coast. Adonal

Foyle, the center for the local NBA basketball team the Warriors would lend his

support to a gathering in Berkeley on September 18^th for a rally for

democracy, possibly coming to campus on the 30^th. CFA was planning

to do registration tables. Plans were in place for a “proclamation for San Francisco youth” vote day. Just prior to the election the radio station KMEL would have

a rally in quad. She was very anxious to encourage our students to be

politically and civically engaged.

Treadway indicated she would be

presenting a Calendar of activities, and would have dates and times of the CFA

tables, and urged senators to contact her with details.

AGENDA

ITEM #8—REPORT FROM ROBERT CHERNY, IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR, CSU ACADEMIC

SENATE—ACADEMIC FREEDOM: RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Cherny indicated that the main

focus of his report was a bill that came to legislature last spring, whose

central issue was something about which all of us need to be informed. Senate

Bill 1335, sponsored by senator Morrow, known colloquially as “the student

bill of rights” has as its central premise the notion that students need

protection from faculty attempts at indoctrination. http://www.noindoctrination.org/

Supporters of the bill produced testimony from around the state that suggested

patterns of faculty indoctrination. The senate Bill was purported to solve this

problem. Opponents to the bill pointed to evidence that suggested that

protections were already in place and alerted the group to the issue about

adequate protections to students’ rights. However; the bill came to the

legislature via a nationwide student association, with the same idea. It almost

certainly will come back again in the near future, and the community needs to

be prepared in several ways. Cherny suggested checking the student

website for further information.[Secretary’s note - http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/]

Among other things, it showed how to detect political bias in hiring. David

Horowitz [Secretary’s note - http://www.frontpagemag.com/AboutHorowitz/index.asp]

has links at his own site for this organization, and very likely serves as a

mentor to the organization. SFSU faculty appear on the indoctrination website,

and Cherny urged senators to be aware of what is out there.

Cherny interrupted his report

while the senate moved to agenda items 7 and 8.

Cherny resumed by noting that

these groups made the argument that faculty have behaved improperly, introduced

political bias into classes, and consequently have asked for a whole series of

countermeasures - balanced reading lists, balance in hiring, assurances that

punitive measures not be directed against students with differing political

views. He urged faculty to think carefully about this, as it is often very

tempting to use the classroom to air one’s own political views.

Cherny suggested that students

might come to department chairs with complaints. He thought that the correct

response would ideally not be “there is nothing to do, that faculty member has

got tenure,” which would only encourage students to go to the legislature.

Rather, he suggested that chairs point out to the student that there are

guidelines to student rights and responsibilities. Campus already has a student

grievance procedure, and students need to make aware that they have a process.

If no students file grievances, then that would be important data. Campus needs

to be able to say that there was a process, with guarantees, that classrooms

would not be used inappropriately and that student rights have protections.

The

Student Affairs Committee would be looking at this, seeking updates as needed.

Last semester a student organization wanted to revise the campus mission

statement. If campus does not respond in a meaningful way, comments would

simply around or beyond us.

Senator

Gregory stated that this was an issue that would come before the

statewide senate through FAC. One of the problem areas was that the bulletin

copy that outlined this issue needed to be in greater proximity to the section

on student rights and responsibilities. She did not find any of this

information easily accessed on the campus website. Other campuses either have

one grievance mechanism for all kinds of issues, or identify different

processes depending on the issue. She thought it best to leave it to the SAC to

determine what was best for SFSU.

Senator

Bernard-Powers found that this discussion reminded her of attacks on the

academic cannon some fifteen years ago, and thought that we must have some

experience in dealing with similar issues. Perhaps a larger effort was needed.

Cherny responded that indeed

senate chairs had discussed this.

Bernard-Powers asked about other

resources of information.

Cherny responded that AAUP

[Secretary’s note http://www.aaup.org/] was a good source.

Senator

Abella observed that as a student senate representative he had had

experience in his committees on this topic and that as a political issue it was

real. CFA has recognized that students should have as many safeguards as

possible. One of the standing committees he is on is in fact working on its own

student bill of rights was being developed, and he found it encouraging as

other organizations were looking into this.

Senator

Steier asked Cherny for the list of websites, so that senators could

find them. [Secretary’s note, these are included in the minutes.] As testament

to his own devotion to academic balance in the curriculum, he expressed

willingness to teach, outside his normal specialization, a course on “The Flat

Earth.” He thought it might be particularly appropriate for misguided

geoscience students intimidated by the dominant scientific paradigm.

Cherny indicated that AAUP

documents were now coming to senators via the generosity of that organization.

AGENDA

ITEM #9—RECOMMENDATION from the Curriculum Review & Approval Committee—PROPOSED

REVISIONS TO THE WOMEN’S STUDIES PROGRAM

CRAC

Chair Nichols moved approval of agenda item 9, copies of which were in

the senate packets, a proposal for revision to major and minor in Women’s

Studies, a consent item. The proposal grew out of a 1999 program review,

discussions by faculty in the department, and results from an external review.

The basic pieces of the revision were a reduction in the number and units of

the core courses from 18-12, with the addition of a Senior Seminar to the core.

Minoo Moallem from Women’s Studies was present to summarize the

proposal.

Nichols,

Steier, m/s

Moallem emphasized that the

department was not changing the program substantially or eliminating any

courses. The revision was based on recommendations of the program review in 1999

- an action plan response. The proposed changes reflected the evolution of

three decades of women’s studies scholarship. The revision was aimed towards a

more integrated format, with greater consistency throughout. Central issues.

The revised major and minor would encourage greater student collaboration, and

create more space for faculty to teach and provide better advising. The

revision allowed faculty more room to operate in their special areas of

interest.

Senator

Steier indicated that he always had troubles with any programs with the

word “studies” in their titles. These invariably tend to be very social science

oriented, whereas often the core scholarship is more humanities based. The

revision included no humanities courses, and he wanted to know why.

Moallem stressed that the program

took an interdisciplinary approach, and was not about social science vs.

humanities.

Senator

Carrington spoke as member of the CRAC committee and as a social

scientist, and expressed concern about the removal of research methods course.

Secondly he had concerns about the jettisoning of the sexuality courses

Moallem responded that these

topics would be handled in core courses, although they were 200 level classes.

Although an uneasy change, the department had decided to go along with

recommended program changes.

She

indicated that the program was moving from non-integrated format to one more

fully integrated. Sexuality was integrated into the core courses as part of the

redesign, and research methods would be included in all courses. A critical

perspective was included, and logic was added to all components, but it is

better to be included in the classes themselves.

Senator

Chen posed a minor question: what would be the minimum unit requirement

for minor program?

Moallem answered that it would be

18 units.

Senator

Heiman echoed concern about the replacement of the research methods

class. Students often needed these kinds of classes on their transcripts for

graduate school. He asked whether students would be able to think and act

critically with current scholarship.

Moallem responded that

interdisciplinary methodology had its own legitimacy and importance, and

students would by definition have to approach their studies from a variety of

perspectives.

State

Senator Gregory moved to second reading.

Second

Steier.

Motion

passed with dissent.

State

Senator Gregory

deduced that these concerns must have been discussed by CRAC and she would

yield to their judgment. She made an observation that the majority of speakers

had been of a certain category.

The

revision was approved.

AGENDA

ITEM #10—RECOMMENDATION from the Academic Policies Committee—PROPOSED SUMMER

SEMESTER CALENDAR FOR SUMMER 2005

Meredith, Abella m/s/p

Chair

of APC Meredith noted that the proposed calendar was very much like all

the other summer calendars in past few years. There was an open week between

summer and graduation, plus a similar open week at the end of instruction

before fall semester.

Meredith indicated that Barbara

Lazardi was present to address any questions.

Senator

Axler had some concerns about having 2 five-week sessions and one 8-week

session. The general principle is that during a regular semester, for each

class unit, 1-2 hours of work be done outside of class. Student taking six

units in the five week system would need to do 54 hours per week on classes,

which is unrealistic. Some subjects require time for absorption, and he found

the 8-week program preferable. He urged chairs and others to do a schedule for

what made academic sense.

Senator Steier suggested

that in his experience, a proposed course that was deemed inappropriate for a

given schedule would be weeded out by a dean or department chair.

Senator Gerson noted that

in past summer schedules had included five weekends, while this one only

provided four and that this was not enough. Her own experience indicated that

summer classes often had non-native speakers of English who had special

difficulties with this format. Everyone would be shortchanged, and she proposed

a 7-week schedule double what we do with attention to hours outside class.

Steier, Abella m/s to

second reading.

The

summer calendar was approved unanimously.

AGENDA ITEM #11—RECOMMENDATION FROM THE

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE—SENATE MEETING SCHEDULE FOR SPRING 2004

Meredith, Steier m/s

APC Chair Meredith indicated that the agenda

item could not come as a consent item since there had been mixed discussion in

the Executive Committee about the schedule.

Senator Steier asked why the status had changed.

Meredith responded that he had proposed swapping standing

committee meetings with senate meetings, so that final meetings would not be

standing committees with no business to do.

The

proposed schedule will return in two weeks to the senate for second

reading.

AGENDA ITEM #12—ADJOURNMENT

to be IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED by SENATE ORIENTATION.

Senator McKeon posed a procedural question. In voting during the

session, the chair had never asked for abstentions, and she thought that even

with voice votes there was a need to ask for abstentions.

Chair Colvin noted that Roberts Rules does not explicitly ask

for this action, but she took the point.

Senator McKeon noted some inconsistency from

year to year in the senate, and asked for greater clarity.

Senator Steier wanted the record to reflect

retroactively any senator’s voting abstentions.

Respectfully submitted,

Ned Fielden, 10 September 2004