APPROVED MINUTES FOR THE 1ST REGULAR MEETING
OF THE FACULTY SENATE
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES-CAMDEN
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 12:25 p.m. in Room 121 Armitage Hall, Dr. Andrew Lees, President, presiding.
1. Dean Michael Palis reported the following:
Despite cuts in our budget, enrollment is up this year by 14% for undergraduates and 19% for graduate students.
Each and every faculty member who was considered for promotion last year received it.
Not only did the Ph.D. program in Childhood Studies begin last year, but two new doctoral programs were approved by the Board of Governors: in Computational and Integrated Biology; and in Public Affairs. These programs should launch in 2010.
Dr. Heike Bücking, Biology Department, and Dr. Georgia Arbuckle-Keil, Chemistry Department, have been awarded an NSF grant to bring in undergraduate students, both locally and abroad, to conduct summer research in the Pinelands.
There are now 140 new students in the Honors College, twice the number of those who enrolled in the College last year.
Rutgers has two satellite teaching locations: in Atlantic-Cape and Mays Landing. The Atlantic-Cape currently has programs in Criminal Justice, Science, and Psychology; as of spring 2009 it will offer courses toward a master’s degree in Liberal Studies.
There is a multi-million dollar renovation taking place in the Recreation Center that should be completed in spring 2009.
The campus is upgrading security to a centralized system that will include 270 cameras and digital signage across campus.
The Vice-Chancellor’s office hopes to move academic departments from the third and fourth floors of Armitage to buildings at 427 and 429 Cooper Street. Once this move has taken place, Armitage will be used for classrooms and student services (advising, Trio, EOF, etc.).
The new faculty workload policy is the culmination of a four-year project designed to acknowledge how scholarship is a “big part” of our responsibilities. Still in pilot form, it will be reviewed after three years.
In the meantime, however, Camden will have established a benchmark for a permanent 2/2 course load.
2. The minutes from the Faculty Senate meeting on March 11, 2008 were APPROVED, VOICE VOTE. The minutes from the Faculty Senate meeting on April 15, 2008 were APPROVED, VOICE VOTE.
3. Associate Chancellor Mary Beth Daisey reported that over the summer, the Rutgers University Senate approved a new interim academic integrity policy that went into effect on September 2, 2008 and will be reviewed after two years.
The new policy places control of academic integrity with the academic units and the individual campuses, with final say in the Chancellor’s hands (as opposed to authorities in New Brunswick). Faculty members can choose to handle minor (non-separable) violations themselves as part of the “educational process” by, for example, lowering a student’s grade, requiring students to redo assignments or complete additional work, or they can turn matters over to the Assistant and Associate Deans.
All violations, however, whether or not they were handled by the academic unit or central campus authorities, must be reported in order that repeat offenders can be identified.
In addition, a less bureaucratic appeals process for minor offenses has been established, with a committee comprised of faculty, students and an investigative administrator. Suspensions will still require hearings. The interim policy, along with forms and additional resources is posted at: https://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml Associate Chancellor Daisey expressed her readiness to help faculty members in all cases, including those involving students who are disrupting classes.
4. Dean Nancy Gulick presented a list of October 2008 graduates. Two Senators questioned a name on the list, but Dean Gulick assured them that she was personally making sure the student in question passed her summer course requirement for October 2008 graduation. Graduates were APROVED, VOICE VOTE pending satisfactory completion of all requirements.
5. Drs. Joseph Schiavo and Robert Ciervo presented the Scholastic Standing Committee’s proposal for a forgiveness policy to establish a viable mechanism for facilitating the return of capable, mature undergraduate students to CCAS and UC who had been dismissed for poor academic performance. The policy, modeled after similar policies at comparable universities, is intended to remove the impact of a poor term average on a student’s cumulative average and may be applied to a student’s academic record only once. There are five stipulations for the proposed policy:
- The student must have been matriculated in the College for at least two successive terms.
- The student must have been in a dismissed status for at least ten successive semesters.
- The student must petition the Faculty Committee on Scholastic Standing for permission to be readmitted to the College.
- The Faculty Committee on Scholastic Standing will review the petition and remove, by way of E prefix, from the cumulative average all the grades and degree credits from one term of poor academic performance or a maximum of 12 credits from more than one term.
- Upon receiving permission to reenroll, the student will be required to achieve a term average of at least 2.500 and to maintain a cumulative average consistent with that specified in the catalog for remaining in good academic standing. Attached to the proposal was list of various universities with an academic clemency policy, an academic forgiveness policy, or an academic renewal policy. This list also provided web addresses at which each university’s policy can be viewed.
6. Dr. Lees proposed changes in the FAS Bylaws as follows:
a. Section I, D.3, which pertains to elections of Faculty Senate Of
Faculty Senate officers; Language to be changed: “Not less than ten days before the Regular meeting in April, at which time the officers specified above are to be
elected, the names of the nominees shall be sent to each member of the Arts and Sciences Faculty eligible to vote. Additional nominations may be made from the floor.” Proposed new language: “Before the end of the spring semester, the names of nominees shall be sent from the Rules of Procedure Committee to each member of the Arts and Sciences Faculty eligible to vote.”
Explanation: For some time, this is the way elections have in fact been handled. We have not met regularly as a faculty in April for some time.
b. Section III, B.3, which pertains to the Appointments and Promotions Committee(s): Language to be eliminated: Section b, which indicates that one of the functions of the committee is “to be available to provide the Dean with advice as to the number of Advisory Committees, their size, and their composition by discipline or field, as provided in University Regulation 4.24.”
Explanation: The language in III.B.3 that immediately follows the language quoted above clearly indicates that there are to be three advisory committees (for Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences) and that each is to consist of six tenured faculty members appointed by the Dean.
c. In Section III, B.4, which pertains to an Honors Program Committee: Proposed change: Any reference to such a committee should be eliminated. The committee described here has not existed for over a decade. Dean Woll indicates that there are other committees for which he recruits members who give him advice and support.
d. Section III, B.5, which pertains to the Information Services
Committee: Proposed change: Replace reference under “membership” to “Audio- Visual Coordinator (ex officio); Director of Computer Services (ex officio)” with “Director of Information Technology (ex officio); Director of Computing and Instructional Technologies-FAS (ex officio).” Explanation: The current Director of Information Technology for the campus is David Gwalthney, who is on the current committee. He used to be Director of Computer Services, a position that no longer exists. Harold Winshel, who also serves on the committee, is the Director of Computing and Instructional Technologies-FAS. The
position of Audio-Visual Coordinator no longer exists. The above proposed changes in FAS Bylaws were APPROVED, VOICE VOTE.
7. Dr. Lees announced the need for the Faculty Senate President and Vice President to meet before Senate meetings with a Steering Committee. Dr. Laurie Bernstein suggested that the committee should include the current Faculty Senate secretary. The inclusion of the Faculty Senate Secretary was APPROVED, VOICE VOTE.
Meeting ended at 1:20.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Lees, Saidel, Bernstein, Vallone, Smith, Ledoux, Habib, Sill, Espiritu, Demaray, Rushing, Laguna, Cosentino-Dougherty, Verbrugghe, Still, H. Li, Burrell, Shienbaum, Thierry, Cosminsky, Hippolyte, Kehl
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Burke, Kortsarz, Shankman, Chao, Roseman, Caputo, Goertzel, Herrera
MEMBERS EXCUSED:
VanderVen, Karel, Gurfinkiel, Dunn
Submitted by:
Laurie Bernstein, Secretary
Faculty Senate (2008-2009)