Academic Senate Meeting Minutes 10/01/2013

 

 

 

 

 ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING

MINUTES

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

SEVEN HILLS CONFERENCE CENTER

NOB HILL ROOM

2:00 – 5:00 p.m.

 

OPEN FLOOR PERIOD:  2:00 - 2:10 p.m.

The Open Floor Period provides an informal opportunity for faculty members to raise questions or make comments directed to Senate officers or to university administrators.  Please arrive promptly at 2:00 p.m.

CALL TO ORDER: 2:10 p.m. 2:11 PM

 

 

ATTENDANCE:

 

Absences: Alvarenga, Gabriela(exc);  Azadpur, Mohammad (abs); Alamilla Boyd, Nan (abs); Baines, AnnMarie (exc); Barranco, Joseph (exc); Bartscher, Patricia (exc); Chang, Sandy (abs); Donohue, Patricia (abs); Gamboa, Yolanda (exc) ; Getz, Trevor (exc); Landry, Lynette (exc); Lau, Jenny (abs); Strong, Robert (exc); Tumbat, Gulnur (abs); Wanek, Linda (abs); Williams, Robert(abs); Wong, Les (exc); Yee-Melichar Darlene (exc)

 

Parliamentarian: Ray Trautman

 

Guests: Gail Evans, Jared Garrasso, Nancy Gerber, Helen Goldsmith, Ann Hallum, Lishet Sunship

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Jay Ward, Associate Director, Office of International Programs:  International Education Week, November 12-15, 2013- Announced our 14^th year of celebrating International Education Week, which will include 75-100 events around the campus.
• Gayle Orr-Smith, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator & Gene Chelberg, AVP for Strategic Planning & University Communications:  SF State Office of Emergency Preparedness is encouraging the entire campus community to participate in the Great California Shake Out at 10:17a.m., October 17, 2013- Need to raise campus awareness of Emergency Preparedness, especially earthquakes. Please update your information in the campus Emergency Notification System.
• Rob Collins- 43rd anniversary of College of Ethnic Studies, Thursday October 3, 2013.
• Call for Proposals: WAC Conference

AGENDA ITEM #1—Approval of the Minutes for September 17, 2013

Minutes approved as submitted.

 

AGENDA ITEM #2—Approval of the Agenda for October 1, 2013

Agenda approved as submitted.

 

AGENDA ITEM #3—Chair’s Report

• Executive Committee will have a Breakfast Meeting with President Wong and Provost Rosser next Tuesday, 10/8/13. If you have topics you’d like us to bring up, please contact Ex Comm.
• We will discuss Strategic Planning Theme #3- Academic Master Plan- at our next Senate meeting on 10/15/13.
• Chair Hanley is available by phone, email, and in the Senate office ADM 551
• Observe a minute of silence for SFSU student Justin Valdez, who was gunned down last Sunday night.

 

AGENDA ITEM #4—Report from Provost Sue V. Rosser—Review of Retention, Tenure, & Promotion for 2013

Report on Academic Affairs 2012-2013.

• Received WASC reaccreditation for 10 years this summer. This represented a cross-institutional activity, and the Provost thanked all of the university units for working together to make this successful.
• Metro Academies awarded $675,000 per year from Chancellor’s office. This will allow for continued success in graduating first generation low income students, almost 25% of graduating class.
• Promising Course Redesign- received money from CSU for courses and advising.
• Chancellor White loved his visit to SFSU, and was quite impressed with our presentation on faculty and student research.
• We welcomed 31 new T/TT colleagues this year. 34 hired but three delayed start date until next year. Provost has approved 42 new T/TT faculty this year, and told the Deans to balance the overall fiscal health and competing needs of their particular college. Deans and Provost discussed need for strategic hires rather than replacement hires to move the institution forward. Provost’s slide show (available on the Senate iLearn site) gave a snapshot of faculty data for the past 5 years, and how the percentage of T/TT faculty decreased due to budget cuts and not filling vacant positions. Average percentage of T/TT faculty in the CSU is around 60%, well short of the 75% mark recommended by Academic Senate Statewide. SF State is in the mid-60% range.
• Tenure and Promotion data from 2012-2013- consistency in tenure and promotion recommendations from UTPC, Provost and President. There was only one case where UTPC made different recommendation from Provost and President. Almost all of the faculty who were recommended for tenure and promotion received it last year.  

 

Questions from the floor?

 

Issues that were raised by Senators included: future plans to bring the numbers of T/TT faculty back up to a more sustainable level; concern that faculty are doing more work as the abundance of service opportunities continues to grow because there are fewer T/TT faculty, and how can we hire more permanent faculty? Other concerns were faculty morale and continued efforts to retain our current faculty; cost of living issues in the Bay Area and the need for faculty salaries that allow them to live in the Bay Area; this is a large issue for our campus and conversations have begun with the Chancellor’s office to improve retention rates by paying faculty differentially rather than the current uniform CSU pay scale. Need to conduct exit interviews to determine why faculty are leaving SFSU. Issue of trends in hiring related to race/ethnicity- across the institution as a whole, increasingly large percentages of new hires are women, as well as men of color. Need to quell rumors that lots of people are not getting tenured and/or promoted; take these data back to departments to ease faculty’s minds. Early tenure decisions were discussed- candidate needs to be stellar in all three areas to come up early. Most departmental RTP criteria do not address early tenure criteria. Cluster hires, what are they? What’s the timeline? [Cluster hires are being delayed until April 2014 at the request of the Deans].

 

AGENDA ITEM #5—Guest: Hank Reichman, Professor, History:  AAUP Committee A Chair: Academic Freedom & Tenure

http://www.aaup.org/about/committees/standing-committees#ComA

 

Aimed at providing context for proposed Academic Freedom Policy that was passed by Senate last year but not signed by the President. Professor Reichman provided commentary about academic freedom and its status today based on experience in AAUP, and made remarks that provide a context for us to look at our own Academic Freedom policy. Dr. Reichman entertained questions from Senators regarding intellectual property, ownership of course materials, using your SFSU title/department in making public statements, and many other relevant issues. An AAUP Book of Policies is coming out in 2015 for AAUP Centennial. Available on www.aaup.org. If you’re a CFA member, you can join AAUP for free!

 

 

AGENDA ITEM #6—Report: Standing Committee Chairs & CSU Senators—Brief Updates

 

• Senator Bettinger- APC report- Committee working on 7^th cycle review.
• Senator Baines- FAC- since Baines was excused from today’s Senate meeting, Senator Getz gave the committee report. Committee is discussing the need to reemphasize service as part of RTP policy revision; heard from Brian Beatty and Maggie Beers on Online Course Evaluation.
• Senator Barranco- CRAC- since Senate Barranco was excused from today’s Senate meeting, Senator LI provided the committee report. CRAC is in the process of reviewing Complementary Studies Proposals, and determining whether cross-listed courses conform with guidelines for CS.
• Senator Lopez- SAC- Met with Residence Life to discuss living-learning communities. Future topics include SUGS, parking and transportation, and student representation.
• Senator Carleton- SIC- Committee is exploring gaps in existing system of informal complaints, and information gathering of complaints that are not being addressed
• Senator Pelaud- Statewide- had orientation to statewide AS CSU.

 

AGENDA ITEM #7—Recommendation from the Executive Committee: Proposed Resolution Urging Governor Brown to Appoint a CSU Faculty Trustee, 1^st Reading

 

Submitted by Executive Committee in first reading. Senator Collins moved item #7- speak to the item. Read the resolution of statewide AS. Absence of faculty trustee denies faculty voice and representation. Resolution was adopted by acclimation.

 

AGENDA ITEM #8—Academic Senate Elections:

1. All-University on Teacher Education Committee (AUTEC)—1 Academic Senate representative to serve a one-year term (2013-2014)
   1. Antwi Akom, Associate Professor, Africana Studies
   2. Robert Pope, Assistant Professor, Nursing

ELECTION RESULTS- Professor Antwi Akom will be the Senate representative to AUTEC.

 

1. Baccalaureate Requirements Committee—1 Academic Senate representative to serve a one-year term, 2013-2014

Senator Lorna Hill accepts nomination by Senator Kilday-Hicks- Hill elected by acclimation and will be the Senate representative to BRC.

 

AGENDA ITEM #9—Adjournment—no later than 5:00p.m.

 

Adjournment 4:41PM.

 

 

Respectfully submitted by Eileen Levy, Secretary