Special Meeting of the Faculty Senate
Approved Minutes
March 24, 2015
The meeting was called to order at 12:25 p.m.
- A motion was made to approve the minutes from the meetings of December 9, 2014. The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
- Bill FitzGerald introduced the proposed BA in Digital Media Studies and invited James Brown, Director of the Digital Studies Center to go into more detail and field questions from the Senate floor. Jim explained that this new proposed major is interdisciplinary and essentially a dual major. Students must pick a major in A&S to compliment the Digital Media Studies major. Jim also explained that this prevents the program from taking majors from other disciplines and helps to build the program into existing structures. Two of the three core courses are currently being taught, and Computational Thinking is being designed with the help of the Computer Science department. All the core courses are 4 credit courses, as they will be both lecture and lab. Comments and questions from Senators included the definition and requirement of a “1 credit lab”; the need or desire to push this as a major, and not a minor or concentration first. Jim Brown explained that a concentration would need a host department, which would then make it difficult to maintain a true interdisciplinary nature and not take on the host department’s flavor; The question was asked how this major would get approved and what was the timeline for the approval? Allan Woll explained that it would go through several processes, including being sent to New Brunswick, an outside consultant, and the Board of Governors for approval. It is likely that it would not happen before the spring 2016 semester. Discussion on the name of the program ensued and it was ultimately proposed to drop “Media” as it implies Humanities only (and does not include Social Sciences) and change the program name to “Digital Studies”. A motion made to approve the program with the name change. The motion was approved unanimously by voice vote.
- Bill FitzGerald, on behalf of the Academic Policy Committee, presented the following courses for approval. The APC unanimously supports the courses below:
Department |
Course number |
Course Title |
New/ Revision |
Fine Art – Art |
50:080:200 |
Social Media Photography |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:215 |
Instrumentation in Music |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:214 |
American Hip Hop |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:213 |
Robert Johnson and the Blues |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:212 |
Mind Altering Music |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:211 |
Music of the 27s Club |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:302 |
Sound and Image |
New |
Fine Art – Music |
50:700:216 |
Music and Language |
New |
Biology |
50:120:402 |
Mycology |
New |
Biology |
50:120:403 |
Mycology Laboratory |
New |
Childhood Studies |
50:163:351 |
Toy Design |
New |
Childhood Studies |
50:163:388 |
Children’s Geographies |
New |
Childhood Studies |
50:163:172 |
Ethnographies of Childhood |
New |
English |
50:989:315 |
Theory and Practice of Tutoring Writing |
New |
English |
50:989:200 |
Introduction to Professional Writing |
New |
History |
50:512:334 |
African American History since the 1960s |
New |
Mathematics |
50:640:253 |
Advanced Linear Algebra |
New |
Public Policy |
50:975:236 |
Introduction to Global Urbanization |
New |
A motion was made to accept the courses as proposed. All courses were approved unanimously by voice vote.
Jennifer Thiel will contact the Registrar’s Office for a listing of all newly approved courses that will be added to the Master Course List, to also load those courses into Degree Navigator. Department Chairs are encouraged to follow up with the Registrar and Advising to confirm that courses have been added, edited or removed.
- Allan Woll presented information on the proposed joint degree programs with the Rutgers School of Public Health and Thomas Jefferson University, for a Masters in Public Health, which will be presented to the Graduate Program Directors for approval. Both of these programs will be presented simultaneously. These programs will allow students to take graduate level courses in their 3rd or 4th year of undergraduate study and may qualify them for preferred entry to the other degree granting school.
- Emily Corse gave a brief history and introduction to online education at Rutgers and to designing online courses today. Emily, with very little time left in the meeting, introduced the mechanics of online classes and invited the faculty to the eLearning Workshop on April 28 and to contact her or her staff for one-on-one consultation.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:15 p.m.
Present (Senators): Andrew Lees, Eric Klein, Alexander Samokhvalov, Kate Cairns, Osama Hamed, Bill FitzGerald, Margery Amdur, Paul Bernstein, Nick Kapur, Susan Mokhberi, Julie Still, Debashis Kushary, Joseph Gerver, James Genone, Shauna Shames, Joseph Cutuli, Bill Whitlow, Louis Tuthill, Kenneth Elliott, Kenneth Hohing
Present (Invited Guests): James Brown, Robert Emmons, Allan Woll, Emily Corse, Jennifer Thiel
Absent: Laurie Bernstein, Jongmin Nam, Rajiv Gandhi, Keith Green, Aaron Hostetter, Prospero Garcia, Ana Laguna, Will Lee, Grace Brannigan, Tim Knievel, Wayne Chan, Brandi Blessett, Stephen Danley, Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Wayne Glasker, Jean-Louis Hippolyte, Cyril Reade