Regular Meeting of the Faculty Senate
Unapproved Minutes
October 22, 2013
The meeting was called to order at 12:25 p.m.
Faculty Senate President Tyler Hoffman noted that a majority of the members were present and a quorum was reached.
1. A motion was made to approve the minutes from the September 17, 2013 meeting, as previously circulated. The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
2. Bill FitzGerald, on behalf of the Academic Policy Committee, presented courses for approval.
- New course – Elementary Cheminformatics
- New Course – General, Organic and Biochemistry I
- New Course – General, Organic and Biochemistry II
- New Course – General, Organic and Biochemistry Lab
- Name Change and Credit hour change – 50:163:481 – Child Well-Being (3 to 4 Cr)
- New Course – 56:163:662 – Adolescent Health
- New Course – 50:840:101 – Intro to Religious Studies
- New Course – 50:840:220 – Hinduism
- New Course – 50:840:222 – Buddhism
- New Course – 50:840:293, 294, 295 – Special Topics in Religion (lower level ST courses in addition to more advanced ST course)
- New Course – 50:040:401 – Capstone Studies in Religion
- New Course – 50:730:343 – Social Philosophy
- New Course – 50:730:330 – Ethics of War and Conflict
- New Course – 50:730:290 – Special Topics
- New Course – 50:730:220 – Mind Knowledge and Reality
- New Course – 50:965:353 – Special Topics: The Art of Playwriting Transformed
- Name Change: 50:698:401 – Museum Studies II (formerly Readings-Museum Studies).
One of the senators asked whether the existing course, General, Organic and Biochemistry, was being expanded from one to two semesters. It was explained that the existing course, intended for nursing students, would be renamed General, Organic and Biochemistry I, and that II would be a continuation, intended mostly for Health Sciences majors.
A motion was made to approve courses presented for approval. The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
3. The APC proposed a statement defining the scope of certificate programs offered at the Camden College of Arts and Sciences. The statement was written after conferring with colleagues in New Brunswick, and was included as an attachment in the meeting agenda packet. The proposed working definition was submitted for approval by the senate.
A question was asked about the process for approving courses for the Digital Humanities Certificate. Bill Fitzgerald explained that all courses will have to be submitted by individual departments to the ad hoc Digital Humanities Committee and vetted with certain course descriptions and learning objectives. He noted that the list of courses included in the Digital Humanities Certificate proposal were submitted as potential offerings and have not been approved in any official matter. A motion was made to approve the statement on certificate programs in CCAS and also to approve the Digital Humanities Certificate Program with the understanding that the course list is a work in progress and may change. A second question was posed, whether courses not in the humanities, perhaps in social sciences or other disciplines, might be included in this program, if they met the requirements and had a digital emphasis. Tyler Hoffman said that this could be explored by the Digital Humanities Committee. A call to second the motion was made. Some senators suggested that if non-humanities courses were to be included in the Digital Humanities Program, it might be better to call it the Digital Studies Certificate. Bill Fitzgerald explained that this had been debated among the Committee members and that the emphasis was still on the humanities, although there was no intention to exclude any discipline from proposing courses that meet the requirements.
The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
4. Proposal for a B.A. in Health Sciences. Joseph Martin said that the proposal for a new B.S. in Health Sciences had been revised and now had far fewer courses. He therefore thought it appropriate to change it from a B.S. to a B.A. A number of different possible career options for those completing this degree were also included in the proposal. Tyler stated that the documents in the agenda packet should have read “Draft Program Announcement Bachelor of Arts in Health Sciences at Rutgers—Camden”, and the degree abbreviation should also be B.A. Charlotte Markey said the external reviewer from Jefferson University who visited in September was very favorable toward the proposal and offered reassurance that we were on the right track to offer this major to students for careers or graduate programs. The reviewer made some suggestions to include in the proposal, including hiring a director of the program; an Introduction to Health Science class at the beginning of the program; and other courses added or changed for relevance. Questions were asked regarding the switch from B.S. to B.A.: Would the switch be an impediment for students seeking jobs? Should a “Science” major be offered as a B.A.? Dean Lindenmeyer explained that different schools have different cultures on the B.A./B.S. designation, so most graduate programs use course work and school accreditation as qualifiers to for students seeking admission, and not the designation of the degree. Professor Martin explained that the courses listed in the proposal, like the Digital Humanities Certificate proposal, were submitted as potential offerings, and have not been approved in any official matter.
A motion was made to approve the proposal. The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
5. General Education proposal – It was noted that Dean Lindenmeyer was invited by Tyler Hoffman to this meeting, in case there were questions for administration about this proposal. Prof. Charmé explained that the proposal presented today had few changes, if any, since the last Senate meeting. He reported on a workshop he had attended at Penn to see how these kinds of gen ed requirements had been working at other institutions, including Penn, and how such a proposal might work at Rutgers. Dean Lindenmeyer noted that there was support for this proposal from the Chancellor, the CCAS Administration, the School of Business and the School of Nursing. Professor Charmé discussed the next steps if this proposal were to be approved, including the creation of a small working group for each gen ed requirement (such as Heritages and Civilizations, or Quantitative Reasoning) to articulate the learning goals and objectives of that requirement, and vet courses proposed by the various departments to satisfy it. He said that we were nearing the deadline for the one-year advance notice to community colleges of what courses (both ours and theirs) would satisfy the new requirements. The following year, he explained, would be more mechanical, such as updating Degree Navigator, and he hoped that we could roll this out within two years.
A motion was made to approve the proposal. The motion was approved by voice vote with one vote to abstain and the remainder all in favor.
6. Final remarks: Dean Lindenmeyer thanked the faculty for their efforts in submitting warning grades. Our rate of success increased to 60% campus-wide this semester. She said we should continue to stress to our colleagues that warning notices assist our students and are especially helpful to students in their first year on campus.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:05pm.
Present: Margery Amdur, Laurie Bernstein, Paul Bernstein, Kate Epstein, William Fitzgerald, Prospero Garcia, Joseph Gerver, Wayne Glasker, Osama Hamed, Tyler Hoffman, Jean-Louis Hippolyte, Aaron Hostetter, Howard Jacobowitz, Haisheng Li, Charlotte Markey, Beth Rabinowitz, Cyril Reade, Ira Roseman, Alexander Samokhvolov, Carol Singley, Julie Still, Lorrin Thomas, Melissa Yates, Kriste Lindenmeyer
Absent: Alsia Belanger, Courtney Cavanaugh, Kenneth Elliott, Michael Fortner, Siqi Fu, Rajiv Gandhi, Carla Giaudrone, Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Kenneth Hohing, Simeon Kotchoni, Sean O’Malley, Bill Saidel, Robin Stevens, Louis Tuthill