Academic Senate Agenda-December 13, 2011—Attachment C
STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE
MONTHLY REPORT
1. Senate Matters: Composition and Membership
Although the membership of the Academic Senate is stable at this time, the Steering
Committee and the Committee on Committees wishes to take note of
Article VI, section I, item f:
Persons having received notice of non-reappointment shall not have the right to vote for
representatives to the Academic Senate or in the Academic Senate upon immediate receipt of such
notice. Persons who have submitted a resignation shall not have the right to vote for representatives
of the Academic Senate or in the Academic Senate immediately upon receipt of such resignation.
We would like to remind Senators who may be going on leave for the coming spring semester
that they are still eligible to serve in the Academic Senate, should they be remaining in the New
York area, and able to attend meetings. We hope that any Senators who expect to be away for
the spring will take the Academic Senate’s need to preserve a quorum into consideration in any
decisions regarding their status as senators. The Steering Committee also asks that any
department chairs who know of senators who may not be eligible to vote due to reappointment
status please contact the Steering Committee or the chair of our Committee on Committees,
although a diligent review of our by-laws by Parliamentarian Shannon Kincaid would seem to
indicate that ineligibility to vote does not necessarily translate into a mandate that one resign
from the Academic Senate.
At any rate, all communications on this subject will remain confidential.
2. Committee Matters: Composition and Membership
Membership on committees of the Academic Senate is stable at this time, as per our report from
the Chair of the Committee on Committees.
2. Committee Matters: Activities
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Members of the Steering Committee have been in communication with members of the
Faculty Executive Committee concerning the final phase of multi-tiered project to bring
the Bylaws of the Academic Senate, Faculty, and Queensborough’s Governance Plan upto-date. Considerable progress was made in these areas over the month of October, when
the Queensborough Faculty approved changes in the Faculty Bylaws, and the Academic
Senate approved necessary changes in the Bylaws of the Academic Senate. This work
proceeded in November, at the close of which the chair of the Faculty Executive
Committee, Professor Alexandra Tarasko, and the members of the Steering Committee
met with President Call and with Student Governance Leaders. We are hoping to
complete this consultation process by the close of the calendar year in order to organize
the college-wide vote required for any changes in the coming spring semester.
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Academic Senate Agenda-December 13, 2011—Attachment C
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The Steering Committee would also like to invite the comment of the body on an
additional proposed revision of the by-laws of the Academic Senate. In May, the term of
appointment for Queensborough’s “Special Budget Advisory Committee” will draw to a
close. Unfortunately, the fiscal conditions that confront the City University of New York
have not ameliorated to the point where the Steering Committee can imagine brighter
horizons before us. Moreover, the recent events at Baruch College have convinced the
Steering Committee that now, more than ever, it is important for there to be a branch of
governance that allows for transparency and dialogue on the all-important issue of the
budget. The Steering Committee is therefore prepared to propose the step of making the
Special Budget Advisory Committee into a standing committee of the Academic Senate,
as per Article VII, Section II of the By-laws of the Academic Senate:
The Academic Senate may establish such standing and ad hoc committees as it
determines. Each committee shall elect a chairperson, secretary, and such other
officers as may be appropriate.
As of this writing, our amendment to the Bylaws of the Academic Senate to create such a
committee would be inserted as Section 13 of Article VII, “Committees,” with a
renumbering of the remaining committees from 14-27, as follows:
Article VII,
Section 13. The Committee on Budget Advisement [Consultation?]
The Committee on Budget Advisement shall consist of one (1) representative from the
Steering Committee of the Academic Senate; one (1) representative from the
Budget Committee of the College Personnel and Budget Committee/Committee of
Chairs; one (1) representative from the Faculty Executive Committee; and one (1)
representative from Student Government.
The Committee on Budget Advisement [Consultation?] shall:
1. to serve in an advisory capacity to the President on matters of the College budget in
its entirety including the Resource Allocation Process;
2. hold the committee’s discussions and transactions confidential;
3. Report to the College Advisory Planning Committee (CAPC) and the Academic
Senate any general recommendations regarding the budget and/or the budget
allocation process at Queensborough Community College
RATIONALE: Chronic budget shortfalls at the state and municipal level continue to
impose the possibility of drastic cuts upon the CUNY Community Colleges. CUNY
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has urged campuses to work together to face the current
environment of fiscal challenge. The creation of a permanent committee on Budget
Advisement would bring Queensborough in accordance with a “best practices” model of
budget consultation through shared governance that is followed on other CUNY campus,
most notably Baruch and City College of New York.
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Academic Senate Agenda-December 13, 2011—Attachment C
3. University and College Wide Matters with Direct Bearing on the Senate

The Steering Committee has placed an oral report from our Special Committee on
General Education Outcomes on the Agenda of the December Academic Senate. This
will bring our campus up to date on current developments in Queensborough’s response
to the Pathways Initiative. The Steering Committee wants to renew its thanks to the
many members of our faculty who have contributed, substantively and productively, to
the lively discussion over how to meet the challenge of the Core Curriculum the
Pathways Steering Committee and Working Group have proposed as a “solution” to the
problem of transfer between associates- and baccalaureate-granting institutions.
The Steering Committee would also like to acknowledge the members of the Faculty
Executive Committee, with whom we worked closely—literally up to the last minute on
November 15!--to develop a statement of our concerns for the campus response presented
to Dean Michelle Anderson. We would also like to thank Queensborough’s Office of
Academic Affairs, especially Vice-President Steele and Dean Arthur Corradetti, who
were gracious enough to integrate our expressed concerns, seamlessly, into the final
document our campus delivered.
The final recommendations of the Pathways Steering Committee to the Chancellor
became available, as of the afternoon of Thursday, December 1, 2011, at
http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/academicnews/files/2011/12/CommonCoreStructureFinalRec.pdf. We urge any members of our
faculty who have not yet done so to review this document.
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It has been noted by some members of our faculty that the series of resolutions censuring
Pathways subsequent to the formation of the Steering Committees and Working groups
have largely been, to date, issued by baccalaureate-granting institutions. It has been
suggested that two- and four-year institutions are in competition for enrollment, and that
the opposition of four-year institutions to Pathways is a resistance to recognizing the
parity of community college courses. This is certainly a problem, and so, in reviewing
campus responses to Pathways (available at: http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/academicnews/2011/11/17/colleges-respond-to-proposed-common-core-structure/),
the Steering Committee paid special attention to the responses of our sister community
colleges. We were, nonetheless, interested to note uniformity of concern over many of
the same issues queried by Queensborough faculty, particularly in the responses of La
Guardia’s faculty and staff (whose response paper, available at
http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/academic-news/files/2011/11/LAGUARDIA.pdf, we continue
to recommend as a thoughtful and interesting document, notwithstanding the final
promulgation of the Pathways Steering Committee Recommendations):
possible compromise of students' persistence to an associate degree;
the possibility that students could avoid foreign language training (a concern our faculty
shared with the faculty of Bronx Community College); and
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Academic Senate Agenda-December 13, 2011—Attachment C
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adequate preparation in the Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Faculty at BMCC and Bronx Community College also shared Queensborough faculty’s
concerns that competencies in oral expression will not be adequately cultivated alongside
English composition proficiency. And just about everyone expressed misgivings about
three-credit science courses, which we note were nevertheless incorporated into the final
recommendations of the Pathways Steering Committee. We were, however, encouraged
to see some modest acknowledgement of faculty concerns, in the provisions the Pathways
Steering Committee included in their final recommendations that a four-credit course
might be used to satisfy the required core science requirement, even if it could not be
required; and that a college could support the incorporation of foreign languages into its
flexible core through the “World Cultures and Global Issues” area.
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While the implications of the Pathways Curriculum for our programs and enrollment
remain unclear, the Steering Committee is in receipt of several communications from the
Committee on Curriculum that we believe could be helpful as we take further steps, as a
college, to determine how best to serve our students. Three areas of concern have been
identified:
Review of individual courses within the AA, AS, and AAS degree programs, to
determine whether all learning outcomes and parameters comply with the requirements of
the Common Required and Flexible Cores;
Review of Queensborough’s degree programs to determine what modifications may be
requried for current requirements to comply with the Common Required and Flexible
Cores;
Review of Queensborough’s dual/joint programs, to determine what modifications may
be requried for current requirements to comply with the Common Required and Flexible
Cores;
The first process will draw upon the initiative and collaboration of faculty within
departments; the second will compel collaboration across departments; and the last will
compel collaboration across CUNY campuses.
The Steering Committee would like to extend a special thanks and recognition to the
members of Queensborough’s Curriculum Committee, chaired by Dr. Philip Pecorino, for
the proactive approach they are taking to this challenge. As of this writing, the members
of the Curriculum Committee are initiating, with the consent of Department Chairs and
faculty, a “pilot” review of one degree program, to determine what sorts of challenges
emerge when faculty from various departments collaborate to scrutinize a curriculum to
which several disciplines contribute. This will help members of our faculty determine
what recommendations are best advanced to the administration regarding an
implementation plan for the Pathways Curriculum at Queensborough—although this, too,
is a “moving target” of sorts, given that the CUNY Central Office of Academic Affairs
will apparently be issuing “guidelines” for implementation the parameters of which
are, as yet, unclear.
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Academic Senate Agenda-December 13, 2011—Attachment C
The Steering Committee would also like to extend its thanks and recognition to the
members of Queensborough’s Special Committee on General Education Learning
Outcomes, chaired by Dr. Joseph Bertorelli, who, as of this writing, will be meeting on
Thursday, December 8, to begin deliberations concerning the recommendations they
would advance to the administration regarding the process of implementation.
As of this writing, the Steering Committee has tended to imagine the design of this
process as modeled upon the current precedent of procedures for program reviews—
but we wish to emphasize that we will defer to the wisdom of Department faculty,
who know best how to elicit learning outcomes in their own disciplines; to our
colleagues on the Special Committee on General Education Learning Outcomes, who
were nominated, specifically, for their experience with coordinating education (in
dual/joint programs and learning academies) for students in their first thirty credits—
and who have already done an admirable job in reaching out to our colleagues at Queens
College; and to the members of the Curriculum Committee, who have already
demonstrated thoughtful prescience, and initiative, in thinking about some of the
mechanics of coordinating our programs with the new structure of the Pathways
Curriculum. We invite an active discussion of any proposals that may emerge, both on
the floor of the Academic Senate, and across the many venues that exist for exchange on
our campus—including Queensborough’s Community Dialogue!

Senators may be interested to know that a bill has been proposed before the New York
State legislature, sponsored by State Senator Joseph F. Robach of the Higher Education
Committee, to create an independent commission to interview and recommend Trustee
appointments to the State University of New York, the City University of New York, and
the Community Colleges. This legislative proposal may be reviewed at:
http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S5321-2011.
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