Academic Senate Meeting Minutes 2/4/2014

 

 

 

 

ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING

MINUTES

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

SEVEN HILLS CONFERENCE CENTER

NOB HILL ROOM

2:00 – 5:00 p.m.

 

Academic Senate minutes

 

 

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.

 

ATTENDANCE:

Absences: Alamilla Boyd, Nan  (leaveS14); Alvarenga, Gabriela (exc);  Boyle, Andrea  (abs);  Chang, Sandy (abs); Clavier, Sophie (abs);  Lau, Jenny (abs); Lewis, Julia (exc); McDougal, Serie; Monteiro, Ken (exc); Tumbat, Gulnur (leaveS14);  Wong, Les (exc)

Guests:Brian  Beatty, Nancy Gerber, Helen Goldsmith, Ann Hallum, Shawn Whalen

 

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.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Sen. Collins- Remind faculty to apply for Distinguished Awards in Teaching, Service and Professional Development

 

AGENDA ITEM #1—Approval of the Minutes for December 10, 2013

Approved as submitted.

 

AGENDA ITEM #2—Approval of the Agenda for February 4, 2014

Sen. Collins- Move to delete Agenda Item #7, Strategic Issues Planning Process, since Sen. Alvarenga is not here and can’t give a report.

Sen. Collins- Move to delete Agenda Item #9 so Ex Comm can further deliberate.

Agenda approved.

 

AGENDA ITEM #3—Chair’s Report

1. Congratulations to Sen. Salama on the birth of Noah Kyle Salama.

2. Report on sabbaticals- 40 full pay semester sabbaticals were granted for 2014-2015, which satisfies the minimum number of 12% of eligible faculty; 7 half pay sabbaticals were awarded. Chair Hanley made the argument that we need more sabbaticals in light of increased number of sabbatical eligibility and applications. We are hopeful that this number will be increased for the next round of sabbatical applications.

3. Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Service and Professional Development. Four awards will be given, two teaching awards (one for lecturers), one professional achievement award and one service award. Each teaching award is for $4000, and the others are $3000 each. We no longer have the Sarlo money for awards. Please encourage your colleagues to apply.

 

AGENDA ITEM #4—Report: Standing Committee Chairs & CSU Senators—Brief Updates

1. APC- Sen. Bettinger

Will meet with CRAC as EPC on Tuesday to continue work on the 7^th cycle document. Change in academic calendar will be coming to Senate.

2. CRAC- Sen. Barranco

Curriculum review is still in hiatus, as we are waiting to see how conversion to CS system is going. CRAC will be meeting with APC to form EPC next week to go over guidelines for 7^th cycle review.

3. FAC- Sen. Baines

Committee is continuing its work on new Post Tenure Review policy, Agenda for spring will include sabbaticals, electronic WPAF’s, and online course evaluation.

4. SIC- Sen. Carleton

Committee is exploring the relationship between service and assigned time as it relates to morale; meeting with AVP Ron Cortez about policy for informal grievances.

5. SAC- Eurania Lopez is gone this semester, and committee will have to elect new chair at next meeting.

6. Statewide Senate- Sen. Collins reported on the 1/23-24 ASCSU plenaries. ASCSU passed resolution, Commendation of Faculty Trustee and CSU Senator Bernadette Cheng. Topics discussed at Statewide Senate included: Recommendation for Nursing Preparation which asks for clarification of nursing and pre-nursing majors to help large numbers of pre-nursing students who do not succeed; reinstatement of faculty research funds; amend Title 5 and establish appropriate unit limits for Engineering degrees up to 132 units. Eligibility for emeritus status for lecturers will be discussed. Faculty representatives should be elected by faculty related to shared governance. Review of CSU admissions policy related to Math, use Common Core Standards for this purpose. Senators should visit the ASCSU website to be informed about their work. Sen. Pelaud reported on discussion of community college baccalaureate degrees. Sen. Yee-Melichar also provided information on ASCSU.

 

AGENDA ITEM #5—Report from President Wong—Update on Science Building

 

Thanks to all faculty, staff and students, and the Cabinet, as the past three weeks have been pretty interesting and intense in dealing with the Science Building closure! Despite frustrations, there has been incredible cooperation and teamwork to relocate 10,000 student registrations, and 100 faculty, along with staff. The mercury, lead and asbestos testing is continuing, and we can go to the website for further updates.

Where are we right now? This past Friday and Saturday, the first cycle of personal item tagging was initiated. Items were removed and cleaned Sunday and Monday. New air tests were being done yesterday and today to ensure that item removal does not disturb contaminants, as walking through a room can disturb contaminants. Expecting test results tomorrow on air contamination, and then next round of retrieval will occur Thursday and Friday. Looking to schedule large community Town Hall next week with health experts. Most troublesome issue is health threat posed to building occupants. We will provide reports soon and then schedule the meeting. Looking forward to health information, as levels of standards held by regulators have some variability. Three teams of consultants were brought on to double check all data that was collected. It is the consensus of all teams that the building be closed for the entire spring semester. President Wong spoke about this at Board of Trustees meeting last week, and an article appeared in the LA Times. SF State has become emblematic of the state of the physical plant in the CSU. There are many complex activities in Science Bldg, affecting so many people. There are $15M of grants in that building alone. We alerted Feds that sponsor us that we are in an emergency shutdown and are keeping them posted. LA Times article and Chancellor’s remarks motivated Gov. Brown to talk about the building with President Wong. He’s going to come look at the scale of the building, and has been complementary about our ability to find alternate sites.

Wong reported that there is support for a new building! This is going to take time, at least two years out before we can do anything. AVP Cortez is putting together an analysis of the relative merits of fixing the building to operational (not desired!).

This crisis has led us to begin asking questions about the other old buildings on campus. Science was built in 1953, Creative Arts in 1952, and Gym in1953, so we plan to test other buildings and rest of campus. We will want to start with the oldest buildings, and share these data with us as we get them. Impressed with spirit on campus to ensure we deliver our curriculum this semester. Kudos from people in Sacramento, parents, supporters throughout city and state, Chancellor about how we zeroed in and opened up first day of class- made Wong very proud!

 

AVP Cortez- Tiering buildings into 1, 2, 3. Reassign those numbers that need extra consideration. List will be ready in the next week, with the intent to test almost all buildings on campus. We will also examine air exhaust pathways, air flow around buildings, and drainage pipes around building.

Wong’s concern now is the safety of our employees as we know it today. Now we need to make sure that we’re remediating by standards.

Alasdair Smith, MD, is examining potential exposures and risks. Can people go directly to him?

 

AGENDA ITEM #6—Report from AVP for Academic Operations Brian Beatty—Update on Online Student Evaluations

Provided handout on Senate website, brief summary report for Fall 2013. 79% overall response rate, which is very high! Historical data shows that overall average was lower, 73.6%! Methods used to encourage students to complete their evaluations were very successful, e.g. repeated communication, reminders, and earlier access to grades. Faculty reporting positive experience, stressing importance of the evaluation of their students. FAC will also look at data in more detail. Beatty’s team will help faculty with data analysis. Goal for past fall was technical implementation of existing policy, and expect there may be some policy discussions in Senate about how we use the data.

Sen. Avani- as Dept. Chair, thank you very much for working with chairs through the process; we are very pleased with it.

Sen. Stowers- there was a problem with winter session, as evaluations were closed before the courses ended. Rethink keeping it open longer, since students were asked to do evals before they’ve had enough experience with the class. Timing for winter session is challenging.

Beatty will be looking at that, and come up with consistent interpretation of how policy applies to winter and summer sessions.

Sen. Davila- thanks for evaluating online courses! Is it possible to know response rate, as it’s ongoing? It is available, do send out notices at two week point so they can intervene with their students if they think response rate is too low.

Thank Brian and Sacha Bunge and Maggie Beers who worked on task force to set up Online Evaluations, and especially, former senator and SAC chair Bridget McCracken who got the ball rolling years ago.

 

AGENDA ITEM #7—Report: Update on Strategic Issues Planning Process—Senator Alvarenga

Item deleted

 

AGENDA ITEM #8—Senate Election—Academic Senate Officer, Vice Chair Spring 2014

Position Statements are available with agenda attachments

Nominees:

Cyrus Ginwala

Genie Stowers

Both posted candidate statements to Senate iLearn site. Are there further nominations from the floor? None, nominations closed.

 

Senator Cyrus Ginwala was elected to the Vice Chair position for Spring 2014.

 

AGENDA ITEM #9—Proposed Academic Senate Meeting Schedule for AY 2014-2015, 1^st Reading

Item deleted

 

AGENDA ITEM #10—Adjournment—no later than 5:00p.m.

Adjourned 3:41PM.

 

Respectfully submitted by Eileen Levy, Secretary