CLA Senate Meeting
October 17, 2011
Minutes
Attendance
Senators present:
Bonnie Miller, American Studies, Jose Martinez-Reyes, Anthropology, Corinne Etienne, Applied
Linguistics, Meredith Hoy, Art, Jacqueline Carlon, Classics, Michael Carr, Economics
Department, Stephen Sutherland, English Department, Maria Cisterna Gold, Hispanic Studies,
Elizabeth McCahill, History, Claudia Esposito, Modern Languages, David Pruett, Performing
Arts, Erin O’Brien, Political Science, Celia Moore, Psychology, Philip Kretsedemas, Sociology
Department, Amani El Jack, Women’s Studies, Sandra Howland, Zhang Wu; Ex-officio: Emily
McDermott, Dean, College of Liberal Arts
√ 1. Approved agenda unanimously.
√ 2. Approved minutes of Sept. 19, 2011 unanimously with one correction to the Dean’s
Report.
√ 3. Moderator’s Report
 Victoria Weston of the Art Department has graciously volunteered to serve as
chair of the AAC. Because of the delay in finding a chair for this committee, there
is a slight backlog to course proposals, which we hope to resolve soon.
 The Senate will be taking up in New Business two topics that have been brought
up as areas of concern amongst the faculty: the new AFR and what constitutes a
credit hour. Senators should discuss these subjects with their departments and be
prepared for further discussion.
 The 2:2 course load proposal in CLA has been raised as an ongoing area of
concern and will be discussed later this semester.
√ 4. Dean’s Report
 The Dean provided an update on hiring. CLA has now received approval for 18
faculty searches this year: 10 replacement lines/failed searches and 8 new
searches. There is potentially one more outstanding that has yet to be confirmed.
The Dean expressed her pleasure at this substantial growth despite the difficult
budget situation.
 There hasn’t been much movement on the budget because CLA has not yet
received instructions for the request to propose a spending plan. The Dean’s
Office has loaded 60% of CTF into each department’s budget and the remaining
40% will come later and will be commensurate with department size. If
departments have not yet received this 60%, they should contact the Dean’s
Office right away.
 Education Support Services money (ESS funds) from University College have
been loaded into departments. The Dean urges departments to check to make sure
this money has been received, and if not, to contact Susan Goranson.
 There will be competitions this year for Dean’s travel, research, and discretionary
funds. This announcement will soon go out and the application packets will be
available online. This year the applications will be entirely electronic.

When asked about the RTF allocation, the Dean responded that this is probably
imminent. The Dean also reiterated that carry forwards are safe, even though they
have not yet been loaded into department accounts. They will be coming.
√ 5. The Senate considered the following course changes:
 Approved motion unanimously to change course name and description for Anthropology
230 (Archaeological Myth and Mystery).
 Approved motion unanimously for course title change for Art 297 (Digital Media Arts).
√ 6. The Senate considered the following motions to approve new graduate courses:
 Approved motion unanimously to approve graduate course, Creative Writing 698 Intern
Seminar.
 Approved motion (with one abstention) to approve graduate course, Economics 603
Applied Economics GIS Workshop.
 Approved motion (with one abstention) to approve graduate course, Economics 652
Quantitative Methods II.
 Approved motion unanimously to approve graduate course, Psychology 727 Emotion –
Focused Psychotherapy – with the amendment that the course description be added to the
One Form and shortened, if necessary, to meet the word limit.
To address points that came up in discussion over the use of Xythos, Senators asked that course
files be renamed to reflect the course number and title. The Dean’s Office has volunteered to fix
these file names to facilitate the reading of files on Xythos. A suggestion was also made that
blocks of files can be downloaded together: Senators should click on “Select All” and then right
click on the block. This will create a larger zip file to be downloaded.

Approved motion unanimously for a change in title of graduate course, Psychology 675
Research Methods and Ethics.
√ 7. New Business
 A discussion ensued over the new electronic system for AFRs. Concerns were
raised over the conflicting directives offered to faculty about how to complete
these forms, political concerns over the request for additional information
pertaining to faculty activities outside the university and the potential implications
that information could have, and the larger fairness and uniformity of the
information collected. The Senate approved the creation of an AFR exploratory
committee chaired by Tom Ferguson, in Political Science. Two other Senators,
Jose Martinez-Reyes of Anthropology and Meredith Hoy of Art, have agreed to
serve. This committee is charged with completing a comparative analysis of the
old and new AFR systems to document the differences and to come up with
recommendations about revising the new system. This committee will consult
with David Terkla of the Dean’s Office, who is currently working on this issue.
Senators are urged to discuss this with their departments to see if anyone else is
interested in serving on this committee and to ask colleagues to forward to Tom
Ferguson any concerns they have about the AFR that they would like the
committee to consider.
 The Senate took up the question of what constitutes a credit hour and if a standard
should be set for courses that use film. The Senate discussed the federal definition
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of a credit hour and saw reasons why it might be problematic to adopt. Given the
potential transition at UMass to a 4:4 credit system, the Senate decided it was best
not to fix the language for a credit hour at this time, but there was consensus that
this is an issue that will need to be addressed more fully. Senators requested that a
member of the 4:4 committee come to the Senate to discuss the forthcoming
report. On the question about approving the increase in number of credits of film
courses from 3 to 4, the Senate encourages potential proponents for this change to
provide complete syllabi and descriptions of how the faculty member will use the
additional class time (assignments, classwork, etc.) to assist the Senate in making
the decision.
The Senate approved Victoria Weston to serve as chair of the AAC.
A request was made for the SEC to clarify the policy on medical documentation
from students regarding injury/illness to specify if these documents should only
be provided to Health Services and not to faculty directly.
√ Meeting adjourned at 4:05.
Minutes submitted by Bonnie Miller, American Studies