Minutes
Faculty Senate Meeting
May 5, 2004
John Douglass called the meeting to order at 1:50 p.m.
Present: Professors Ahrens, Arneson, Bennett, Burke, Cochran, Douglass, Durant, Fagelson,
Fantie, Flug, Forst, Heintze, Jacoby, Jennings, Karch, King, Langbein, Leap, Loesberg,
Richardson, Riley, Rosenbloom, Schaeff, Streitmatter, Vogelsong, Weaver. Provost Kerwin and
Dean of Academic Affairs Broder.
Absent: Professors La Salle, Olmsted, Mardirosian
The minutes of the April 7, 2004 meeting were approved.
John Douglass opened the meeting by welcoming the new senators. He also welcomed President
Ladner and congratulated him on ten years of service at American University.
Campus Update
Benjamin Ladner began by observing that 2004-2005 had been an extraordinary year for the
university. He said that while members of the faculty often follow the same teaching patterns
from year to year, the outcomes this year were especially positive. Evidence for that has shown
up in national rankings, he said, as well as in anecdotal comments about the improved quality of
the student body and about a more favorable ambiance on campus. He said those results were a
tribute to the work and dedication of the faculty, and a tribute to the direction in which the
university is moving.
He then covered a range of topics, noting the emergence of the Faculty Senate as a model for
responsible faculty governance and leadership; the ways in which faculty and students have
achieved recognition nationally and internationally; and the fact that American is competing
successfully with some of the most prestigious schools in the country for the best students.
Among the specifics he reported were the following:
• American University would graduate in 2004 the largest honors class in the history of the
university. Dr. Ladner said this was evidence that the Honors Program had come into its own, in
terms of prominence and quality.
• American this year had a Truman Scholar and also the largest number of Boren scholars in the
country. AU continues to place in the top five of the Presidential Management Scholars.
• The capital campaign had raised more than $70 million toward its goal of $200 million. A new
record was set for cash giving with more than $17 million this year. Alumni giving was
approaching 20 percent, a new high for the university.
• WAMU had successfully completed its fund raising campaign, with just a few thousand dollars
short of the $800,000 goal. David Taylor, acting general manager of the station, continued to
meet with a group of media experts who were advising the university on ways to maximize the
quality of the radio station.
• A number of facilities projects were moving forward, including the relocation of the Student
Health Center into the McCabe Building; the renovation of the Experimental Theater as part of
Kogod; and the turfing of the intramural field.
• American had submitted a proposal to have the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial moved to
campus. Dr. Ladner said such a move would be particularly advantageous, given the university’s
history of dedication to human rights.
• The Middle States Commission had selected American University as a model for how reaccreditation self-studies are to be conducted. The commission would make final
recommendations on the university’s re-accreditation during the summer.
Dr. Ladner then commented on the University College proposal. He said the issues regarding the
design of the college were quite complex, given the centrality and the strength of the General
Education Program. He also said, however, that he remained convinced that American would be
wise to maximize the impact of its students’ experience during the freshman and sophomore
years, since the first two years of a university experience have a tremendous impact on retention,
grade point average, and other quality indicators.
Report of the Provost
Continuing the comments about the Middle States re-accreditation, Neil Kerwin reported that the
site visit team report would be posted on the university’s web page. Dr. Ladner’s response to the
report would also be posted. Dr. Kerwin said the only issue of significance was a
recommendation for AU to conduct perpetual graduate program reviews. He said President
Ladner had declined to carry out that step, given the thoroughness of graduate program reviews
during recent years.
Dr. Kerwin then provided the following update on enrollments for the fall semester.
• Deposits for incoming freshmen were dead even with last year at the same time. The admit rate
for the freshman class was hovering at about 55-56 percent.
• Deposits for transfer students were 2 percent ahead of last year. There was a 21 percent
increase in transfer applications.
• Graduate applications were about 4 percent ahead of last year, but deposits were more than 30
percent ahead.
• The Washington Semester was on track to meet a very aggressive election year enrollment
target. The program may actually exceed an equally aggressive enrollment target for non-credit
international students.
• By all accounts, enrollments for AU Abroad were way up for the fall semester. Vice President
Pastor’s effort to increase the number of sites and to promote the programs appears to have
reaped real benefits.
Dr. Kerwin then distributed comparative data on Summer Session enrollments going back to
2000. He noted that, in general, the university had been running somewhere between 400-500
credit hours below budget for each summer session over the past two years. He said two factors
may be affecting AU’s summer enrollments: (1) Pricing—the high cost of AU’s summer session
tuition; and (2) The fact that a number of the university’s students choose to study at other
institutions during the summer because of pricing and/or convenience. He said the university
either has to drop its sights with regard to enrollment planning or take seriously some of the
ideas about new summer initiatives. The comparative data on Summer Sessions is appended to
the record copy of the minutes.
As a third topic, Dr. Kerwin commented once again on the university’s graduate programs. He
thanked the faculty and the deans for their work to, one, establish goals for the graduate
programs and two, to outline the resources needed to move the programs to the desired levels of
prominence. He said the information about the graduate programs would be presented to the
Board of Trustees in May.
Fourth, Dr. Kerwin commented briefly on the internet disruption that had occurred a week
earlier. Noting the seriousness of the disruption, he acknowledged that the timeliness of the
report presented by the Committee on Information Services in April was impeccable.
Fifth, Dr. Kerwin commented on the recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education about
Princeton University’s proposal to limit the number of A’s its faculty may hand out. He said
Princeton had issued a series of recommendations that would limit the number of A’s to no more
than 35 percent of the grades in undergraduate courses. He also observed that American should
be cognizant of the fact that other Ivy League institutions may follow Princeton’s lead in tackling
concerns about grade inflation.
Finally, Dr. Kerwin noted that there would be a transition in the Senate leadership, from John
Douglass to David Rosenbloom, at the end of the meeting. He thanked Professor Douglass for
decades of service to faculty governance on campus, and he said that over the years, very few
people had done more at the university level to promote the values of faculty governance.
Report of the Chair
John Dougass thanked the Provost for his kind comments. He said he had indeed been a strong
advocate of faculty governance over the years. He then encouraged the faculty to attend the
commencement ceremonies, in support of the handing out degrees to the students. He again
welcomed the new members of the Senate, and he thanked the outgoing members for their
service.
He then called for a vote on candidates to serve on the Honors Advisory Committee, and the
following faculty were elected to serve two-year terms: David Carlini, CAS-Biology; Sarah
Menke-Fish, SOC; Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, SIS; Ira Klein, CAS-History; Larry Medsker,
CAS-Computer Science, Audio Technology, and Physics; and Victor Selman, KSB.
University College
Nanette Levinson, chair of the University College Project Team, distributed a content analysis of
the comments in response to the team’s proposal. She said the project team was appreciative of
the feedback from the community and welcomed additional responses. She also reported that as a
next step, a small group of team members would meet with a group of faculty during the summer
to focus on the academic component of the college. The team hopes to come back to the Senate
with a revised proposal in September.
Cathy Schaeff, chair of the Curriculum Committee, asked whether the senators had additional
comments about the proposed University College design. Wendell Cochran, chair of the
Committee on Student Learning and Academic Engagement, responded, reporting that his
committee had met with representatives from Residential Life, and as a result of that meeting,
concluded that the University College plan as it stands would not result in major changes to
current housing policies and practices and would not create an undue management burden on
residential life staff. A central issue yet to be resolved, he added, is the interaction between the
University College and the General Education Program. The second year of the college, as well
as the second semester of the freshman year, needs to be more well-defined.
Summer Initiatives
Janice Flug, chair of the Committee on Instructional Budget and Benefits, and Bob Karch, chair
of the Committee on Faculty Development, re-distributed a list of questions for the senators to
contemplate regarding summer initiatives. They said they welcomed comments about possible
new initiatives and were also willing to begin an electronic exchange of information during the
summer, based on the summer enrollment comparative data distributed by the Provost. A more
complete discussion about summer initiatives will be resumed in the fall.
Responding, the senators noted that the following points were worthy of further consideration:
• The possibility of deferential tuition for summer sessions.
• The need for more aggressive marketing and advertising tactics.
• The need to increase the amount of the summer instructional budget.
It was also noted that the idea of moving to a trimester system should be deferred to the
academic units. The units should continue to have flexibility in making that decision with regard
to specific programs.
NCAA Update
Wendell Cochran, chair of the Student Learning Committee, presented an update on academic
support for student athletes. He noted that the committee had been charged by the Senate and by
the Provost to provide principal oversight on academic issues relating to student athletes. The
committee will therefore periodically report to the Senate on those issues. A copy of the
document distributed to the Senate is appended to the record copy of the minutes.
Professor Cochran indicated that the committee had met during the year with Joni Comstock, the
new Athletics Director, and with other members of the Athletics Department. He said the
university is in good hands in terms of management supervision of the department. He also
confirmed that President Ladner had been appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of
NCAA. He said Dr. Ladner will have a very influential voice on the policy-making board from
that position.
Bob Karch, the university’s Faculty Athletic Representative, also spoke about a new level of
quality and stability in the Athletics Department as a result of Dr. Comstock’s arrival at AU. He
called the student athletes “fantastic representatives” of the university, and he urged his
colleagues to get to know those students.
Motion to create an ad hoc committee
to produce a plan to reduce the teaching load
David Fagelson, School of Public Affairs, introduced a resolution, co-sponsored by Jonathan
Loesberg, Department of Literature. The resolution called for the Senate to appoint an ad hoc
committee to
make a sustained effort toward creating a plan for changing the faculty load to a four-course
load. The motion they asked the Senate to approve was as follows:
We move that a special ad hoc committee of tenure line faculty be set up by the incoming and
outgoing Chairs of the Senate at the earliest opportunity, and in no case, later than the first
meeting of the Senate during AY 04-05. The mandate of this committee shall be to develop by the
end of that academic year, a viable plan to move this faculty to a four course load.
Nothing in this measure shall preclude the possibility of variable loads as envisioned in the
Strategic Plan.
The debate on the motion centered on the question of appointing an ad hoc committee versus
allowing the issue to be addressed by one or more of the standing committees. John Douglass
argued, for instance, that a number of issues feed into the question of a four-course load,
including whether it is to be a four-course load absolute, which would require a revision of the
faculty manual. He said the ramifications of such a change would be substantial, and as a result:
• The Curriculum Committee will want to weigh in on the number of adjuncts that is appropriate
for the campus.
• The Budget Committee will need to consider budget implications, including the adjunct plan,
and to determine how a move to a four-course load will weigh out in terms of other budget
priorities.
• The Committee on Student Learning will need to look at optimal class size, since a four-course
load would change the size of classes.
Action: Following further discussion, the Senate voted 11-8 in favor of creating an ad hoc
committee to develop by the end of the year a viable plan to move the faculty to a four-course
load.
For the Good of the Order
John Douglass expressed appreciation for the support he received during the year from Deanna
Cunningham, the senate’s staff assistant. He once again acknowledged Jill Olmsted, the past
chair, for her help during the year, and he thanked Provost Kerwin and Dean Broder for their
support. He then turned the gavel over to the incoming chair, David Rosenbloom, and asked for
the floor as a member.
Professor Douglass nominated Tony Ahrens, Department of Psychology, as vice chair of the
Senate during 2004-2005. The Senate voted unanimously to elect Professor Ahrens to that
position.
Professor Rosenbloom acknowledged Professor Douglass for his tremendous leadership and
presented him with two gifts, in appreciation of his service.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:35 p.m.