university
SENATE
April 18, 2007
SC 202
Meeting convened at 3:40 p.m.
Members present (alphabetical): Jamie Begian, Mark Bourque, Daryle Brown, Cindy Chuang,
Emilio Collar, Abe Echevarria, Gancho Ganchev, Kathleen Hinga, George Kain, Tara Kuther,
Sam Lightwood, Susan Maskel, Allen Morton, Duane Moser, James Munz, John Murphy, Vijay
Nair, Elizabeth Popiel, Imran Qazi, Karen Raftery, Paula Secondo, S. Alba Skar, Lori Wagner,
and Rob Whittemore
Guests present: Pres. J. Schmotter, Provost Rinker, Ellen Durnin, Beth Amyot, Linda VadenGoad, Dan Goble, Victoria Kenausis, Richard Montague, and Chuck Spiridon
I. Announcements
1. Elections for 2007-2008
Pres. Kuther – Ok, we’re ready to begin. Today we’re having two meetings, the first is the
meeting of the next academic years 2007-2008 Senate and we’re meeting for the purpose of
electing officers and also to talk about scheduling issues. That will be followed by the current
academic year 2006-2007 final meeting. So, let’s see 2007-2008 Senate – the revised agenda
should indicate something about the November, 2007 Senate meeting. The third Wednesday
in November happens to be the Thanksgiving Wednesday that we have off, November 21, so
I’d like to propose that we postpone that meeting until the 4th Wednesday, which would be
November 28th. Any objections? I’ll let Terry know to put that on the calendar. The
November 2007 meeting will be the 4th Wednesday, November 28th. Moving on – election
of officers. President, do I have a nomination.
Sen. Popiel – I would like to nominate Tara Kuther.
Pres. Kuther – I reluctantly accept. Other nominees for President? Hearing none, I will
continue next year. Thank you. I appreciate your confidence. Vice President, nominations?
Unidentified – I nominate Sam Lightwood. Maskell/Munz
Pres. Kuther - Further nominations? Hearing none, Sen. Lightwood will continue as Vice
President. Secretary, nominations?
Sen. Ganchev – I nominate Sen. Popiel
Pres. Kuther - Other nominations? Hearing none, Sen. Popiel will continue. Archivist?
Nominations
Sen. Lightwood – I’d like to nominate Susan Maskell.
Pres. Kuther – Sen. Maskell, what do you think? Other nominations? Hearing none, Sen.
Maskell will be Archivist for the 2007-2008 year. Any other business? Moving on to the
2006-2007 meeting, our final meeting.
2. Proposal fall break
Kuther: Under announcements, I distributed a handout. I figured it was easier to go about it
this way, this handout was all the different by laws that have been approved by Pres.
Schmotter. Essentially it is all of them that we have submitted so far. I still have some
resolutions from March that are being submitted this week. The only one I haven’t added on
western connecticut state university . danbury . connecticut 06810
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there is the resolution regarding fall break, if you recall the resolution was 07-02-14 and it
reads the Senate shall endorse the proposal for a fall break with provision that the time off
applies to student and faculty a Tues/Thurs a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. Dr.
Schmotter approved it, however he added in his comments that he supports this academic
calendar change and will continue to advocate for it as we develop future CSU calendars.
Since this determination will include input from other CSU colleagues on the other three
campuses, I can not yet promise. But it was approved and it looks like Dr. Schmotter is just
looking forward to making this a reality.
2. a proposal from the Western International Center under other business there is going to
be a proposal from the Western International Center regarding by law changes and those
are being distributed either right now or when Sen. Whittemore arrives.
3. Annual Reports: We also have under Annual reports, UPBC’s annual report which was
just distributed right now.
II.
Minutes
1.Minutes, February, 2007 these were distributed at our last meeting. Motion to accept.
Munz/Popiel. Discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? Passes with
one abstention. [R 07-05-01]
2. 05-07 March, 2007 minutes were distributed today so we’ll vote on those in
September. April, 2007 are forthcoming. We’ll discuss those in September as well.
III. Unfinished Business
1. CELT by laws.
This is a place holder, we will be discussing these by law changes in September. This is here as
a placemarker; the subgroup we assigned will return with proposed revisions.
2. Deans List for Part Time Students
Provost Rinker has distributed or actually Vijay has distributed a handout describing eligibility
for Dean’s list for part-time undergraduate students and I believe it’s been proposed for the
current Dean’s list.
Provost Rinker – Hello everyone. I’m really pleased to present to you this proposal that has
come to my attention regarding the part time students. We currently do not have the opportunity
for part-time students to be recognized on Deans’ lists and so before your eyes you have a
proposal with I crafted with the help of the Deans to actually provide for part time students, who
really do excel be considered for Deans list and would require them as you see on lines 2 and 3
to have 12 semester hours of credits satisfactorily completed within one academic year and of
course they would have to have a minimum grade point average of 3.5. I really, really think this
is quite reasonable and certainly a way to help recognize many of our adult learners who are
working full time and coming to school part time. That’s the proposal and I’m more than happy
to answer questions.
Imran Qazi – Does this include an intersession course? Spring break classes?
Provost Rinker - It includes fall and spring semesters.
Sen. Moser – Could you say something about the third sentence – the one that reads “The only
exception is for students whose minimum of 12 credits includes course work (a) that is required
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in a program of study, taken on a pass/fail basis, and (b) that does not count toward graduation?”
So, I guess what you’re saying is they have only 12 credits, so you’re looking for grades.
Provost Rinker – I am.
Sen. Moser – On the same sentence you have an (a) and (b) in here, I see three things and I see
an a and a b, should there be an a,b, c? Are the a and the b needed
Provost Rinker – To address the question, I kept it consistent with our current policies for full
time students; these are the same exceptions that the Senate has had in the past, so I respected
that wish.
Sen. Moser – What does it mean if a course does not count towards graduation? I can imagine
students taking numerous classes, far more than they need when they graduate, but oh, this one
didn’t count, how do we know?
Provost Rinker – It might be in a particular major that you might be taking a course, for
example in the major of social work you might be take a course that’s in business but it’s not a
required of you to have that in your major so that particular course wouldn’t be applicable.
Sen. Moser – It could count toward a free elective in which case it does count towards
graduation
Provost Rinker – It could but it might not be in your major
Sen. Moser – I could never interpret this. I honestly think it’s uh, if this is the way the current
policy is written, the current policy is badly written.
Provost Rinker – It does. We can certainly address that and I’d be happy to do that by simply
taking the sentence out. It was, I believe, a former Senate is how it was crafted so I consistently
kept it that way. We can certainly redraft that, but if you would be willing to consider, however,
the applicability of giving the part time students the opportunity to be considered on the Dean’s
List with the accumulation of 12 semester hours in the fall or spring semesters, that would be
certainly a wonderful opportunity. I would work on this other part. But, that means working on
with the undergraduate catalog that speaks to Dean’s list, that’s in there as well. So, we will
have to address those.
Pres. Kuther – My interpretation of that sentence is that it wouldn’t include pass/fail courses but
also that aren’t required towards graduation which include 098.
Provost Rinker – It could. It could, in fact, include that, these are the exceptions.
Pres. Kuther – Are there other things that (inaudible)
Provost Rinker – We could probably make a list of other exceptions. I’m certainly happy to try
(inaudible) but there are many different disciplines that you might see that happen in.
Sen. Munz – It seems to me that does pertain to MAT 098 and ENG 098. The requirement is
that you have a minimum of 120 credits, but you can take more than that and still get academic
credit.
Provost Rinker – But in MAT 098 it’s not even a pass/fail, it’s no credit.
Sen. Munz – No, it’s no credit except toward full time status.
Provost Rinker – Right, that would be the exception.
Sen. Nair – This applies only to those 12 load credits. So, the 12 credits that are looked at to see
if the student qualifies for this, that’s the 12 credits (inaudible) so if you’re taking more than that
Provost Rinker – So, if you took ten, it would apply.
Pres. Kuther – It also would apply potentially if someone took four classes, 12 credits, and 6 of
them were for 098. (Inaudible)
Provost Rinker – They would take four extra credits, right.
Imran Qazi – I was looking in the catalog and it tells the student which courses are pass/fail.
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Provost Rinker – It does.
Imran Qazi – To me if a student wants to know which classes are pass/fail they should look in
the catalog
Provost Rinker – I think the fact that we’re even having confusion of what exists in the catalog
is worth going back and re-evaluating and certainly having a good discussion. I think we ought
to have that kind of discussion. I’d be more than happy to do it. But I’m asking your help and
consideration today to recognize our part time students. So, with that I will take any more
questions.
Pres. Kuther – Do we have a motion? Motion to accept Nair/Munz As written? Discussion? I
believe this is policy, so we have to wait to vote on this until our September meeting. It will
probably be a good idea so that everyone can bring it to their September department meetings
and talk about it and we’ll return to this in September to vote on this. Further comment?
3. University Policy on Smoking.
Pres. Kuther – University policy on smoking, just to review and in the April, 2006 meeting the
Senate passed the following motion and I’ll read it – it’s motion 06-04-06 and it’s the Senate
request to the University management review its policy regarding smoking on campus.. A study
smoking on campus and policies (inaudible). In response to that I forwarded this to President
Schmotter and the following report, pieced together by a committee headed by Chuck Spiridon
appeared in your packet. Chuck, do you want to speak to this?
Chuck Spiridon – The committee was composed of myself, Jeff Schlicht, Marsha Butland,
Luigi Marconi and Judith Weindling, Roger Connor and student representative Eli Reid. Looked
at the university’s current policy about smoking which quite frankly was out dated. The current
policy read the campus at Western CT State University is a State of CT owned property therefore
there is a non-smoking policy in all areas of campus. That was not the case, there was no
smoking within the buildings and other designated areas, but it was not a no smoking campus.
The committee considered whether we should or we shouldn’t create a non-smoking campus.
Our thought was that would be extremely difficult to do on the mid-town campus since the
sidewalks that essentially surround the campus are city owned property, we’d just be driving
everyone to the sidewalks, which would not necessarily curb smoking and which would not
necessarily create a good looking university. Therefore, what we then considered was whether to
create smoking booths, if you will, with shelter and so forth and after some debate on that subject
we didn’t feel like we should be doing anything that would continue to promote smoking on
campus. The third issue that we dealt with was how some people who do smoke congregate near
the entrances and exits of the buildings. We did recognize that that’s a problem for non-smokers
who are entering or leaving the building and often they have to walk through some smoke so
what we essentially recommend is that smoking not be permitted within 15 feet of an
entranceway or windows to reduce the chances of people being exposed to second hand smoke.
We recommended the following policy wording “Western CT State University is a public
university authorized by the State of Connecticut statutes and (inaudible) current statutes
applicable to building and/or operated by the State of Connecticut and residence halls in public
institutions of higher education, smoking is prohibited inside all buildings. In addition, the
university established a policy that smoking is prohibited within a 15 foot distance of all building
entrances and exits and open windows in order to reduce the infiltration of second hand smoke
into occupied spaces”.. That’s our report, any questions?
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Sen. Nair – That sentence that says “in addition the university established a policy” do you think
it’s a policy because you don’t need to say all those words, you could say “in addition smoking is
prohibited” and so forth.
Chuck Spiridon – That’s a fine amendment, I don’t think we have a problem with that.
Sen. Nair – Second question, the 15 feet is that (inaudible)
Chuck Spiridon – It was our intent to push the smokers as far back from any entrances, so yea,
quite frankly it would consider that, quite frankly I didn’t think of that at one point we were
talking about prohibiting it within 15 feet of all buildings but there are certain buildings that,
given their proximity, people could not walk between them. The Student Center and Old Main
on the Midtown campus, for example, that’s why we said 15 feet within the entrances.
Unidentified – Will our police officers now be issued tape measures?
Chuck Spiridon – I think they’ll use their good judgment. I think what they’ll probably do is as
Roger Connor expressed on the committee that he just encourages people to move away and
they’ll only enforce it if people are not abiding by the request to move.
Sen. Maskel – This isn’t of major importance but at least on some buildings, I don’t know if it’s
on all of them, there are ashtrays attached to the buildings, so people can sit out there with a
cigarette. Will they be removed?
Chuck Spiridon – I think they would have to or we’d be encouraging people to smoke right next
to the building.
Sen. Whittemore – There’s a space on campus that is neither in doors or out doors, I’m sure you
thought about it and that’s the stairwell that connects the parking garage which has become a
smoking den. I park on the top floor of the White St. garage and walk over to my class, even
when it has just been cleaned out, which happens maybe once every two-three weeks, a plethora
of butts inside that well, it’s obviously for smoking, it’s a hit because you’re inside that space
which is relatively confined. There’s a No Smoking sign posted and clearly nobody is paying
attention to it. And I just wondered if somehow that should be.. It is outdoors, I mean it’s not.
Are you seeing that as a building?
Chuck Spiridon – I don’t know the answer to the question whether that’s considered. You
know, statute prohibits smoking inside a state owned facility. I don’t know the answer to the
question if that is considered an indoor facility. Given that there’s a no smoking sign there, I
suspect it is, but I can’t stay for certain but I understand your point. We did not discuss that issue
at our committee, no one brought that up, it didn’t come to our attention. I think I can speak
safely for the committee, since it’s our desire was to reduce the chances of second hand smoke
that we’d be talking about not having that permitted in the area you’re referring to.
Sen. Whittemore – I just think that who ever is responsible for that space, I don’t know who it is
on the Grounds Committee, if you’re coming here for a concert or something, you walk through
what looks like the bottom of the 6th Avenue subway, you know it’s really incredible and also
apparently people when they just can’t be bothered to go back to the dorm are also urinating in
that space.
Chuck Spiridon – We didn’t deal with urination, that wasn’t the charge of the committee.
Sen. Whittemore – What I’m asking is the committee is finished how do we deal with
something like that? I mean, people have commented about it as they pass by. We ought to be
thinking about that.
Chuck Spiridon – Sounds like an enforcement issue to me.
Sen. Whittemore – yea, well.. they’ve also been setting fires in there and that’s not proper
either.
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Sen. Collar – There are doors on either side that close, so my argument is that’s indoors. So that
falls under the
Imran Qazi – I’m not a smoker but how many members on this committee were smokers?
Chuck Spiridon – Well, we had several individuals were ex-smokers, when we were putting
together the committee, we actually requested from Dr. Cramer to identify a student who was a
smoker to have a balance. Quite frankly no one stepped forward. I’m gonna light a cigar after
this is all over.
Sen. Murphy – Chuck how does this policy cover our outdoor facility? The stadium, the ball
fields, where there’s no posted No Smoking signs, an announcement is made at the beginning of
each contest, however people arrive after the beginning of each contest, and I’ve witnessed on
many occasions that people walk right outside the gate of the stadium.
Chuck Spiridon – That would be considered an exit, so they’d have to be back 15 feet so they
could allow people. We consciously did not get into trying to establish individual policies for
buildings, there are other facilities, the stadium, something else where it needs to have a different
enforcement provision, I mean we would be open to that. It wasn’t the intent of the committee to
try and identify every location on campus where smokers could create problems. We just, quite
frankly, we were guided more by the fact that we didn’t think we could prohibit smoking,
especially on the Midtown campus, the entire campus without, quite frankly, creating a chain of
smokers surrounding the campus. It didn’t seem that that’s what we wanted to portray and it
wasn’t going to serve any useful purpose at the end of the day. That was probably the thing that
influenced us the most.
Unidentified – Who is going to enforce the policy? If we see students, is there any repercussion
if they’re within the 15 feet?
Chuck Spiridon – it’s like any other policy in terms of enforcement, people can ask that they,
you know any individual can ask that a person abide by the policy and ultimately, if the people
refuse they could ask the police to get involved and you know, it wasn’t our hope that that’s what
this would evolve into, we hoped that people would just abide by what the university established
policy is.
Sen. Begian – I would just be afraid that in lieu of some kind of teeth in an enforcement thing
that there would be these equally unsightly painted lines 15 feet around
Chuck Spiridon – We’re not proposing any type of foul line that you cross.. Thank you.
Pres. Kuther – Would the Senate like to act on this?
Imran Qazi – I just have a question, besides the committee has this been discussed at any of the
student meetings, did it go to CUCAS?
Pres. Kuther – As far as I know it hasn’t been discussed. This is a report that came to us
because we asked them to study these policies. The response was a revision, a recommendation
to revise the smoking policy as indicated by (inaudible)
Sen. Nair – It says that a committee is recommending and this is in response to a resolution, so I
make a motion to accept the recommendation. After the two words
Pres. Kuther – So, there’s a motion to provide the smoking policy as indicated by the
Committee.
Sen. Nair – Actually the motion is to accept the recommendation. Nair/Munz
Sen. Begian – How sure are you if you ban smoking on the campus that people wouldn’t go.
How sure are you if you ban smoking on the campus that people will actually go to White St and
smoke? I mean, obviously that would look ridiculous.. Are the smokers so motivated that they’ll
go that far to smoke??
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Chuck Spiridon – We’ve discussed it in the committee that we felt pretty strongly that people,
you know, would go to the sidewalk, it’s not that much further, quite frankly. Unfortunately the
addiction to the nicotine would force them to go out there.
Sen. Begian – It just seems that there’s such a micro managing, I understand all the implications,
but it’s such a micro managed situation with 15 feet vertical, horizontal, all these kind of things
and if maybe it’s worth a try, just to say ok, no smoking on the campus and then see what
happens. Go for the home run. I’m a smoker, sorry.
Imran Qazi – I have another question, do you know of any other universities that are
implementing anything like this, or have anything in place where there’s a no smoking policy?
Chuck Spiridon – We essentially saw three (inaudible) no smoking in buildings without,
currently what we do, you know people congregate outside the entrances. Some type of set
back,, which is what we’re proposing and then no smoking on the campus all together.
Pres. Kuther – further discussion. As this is policy we can’t vote on it until September. You
may want to discuss this with your colleagues as well. Moving onto New Business.
A.
Distance Education annual report 2006-2007 and recommendations. These were distributed
today. Questions? Now, as I understand it we’re going to review the annual reports today and
then the recommendations, the appendix on Distance Education; we’re going to review in detail
with Josie Hamer and a committee in September. Comments on the annual report? Hearing
none, we’ll move on. Please note that the report and recommendations, that second packet from
the Distance Ed. Committee will be on the agenda for September. If you recall we’ve talked
about Distance Education for the last few years here at Senate so this is a very comprehensive
report that compares our offerings to other schools that are very similar to us. So, I’m going to
ask that you share this with your department and gather some input and we’ll have it for
discussion in September. This will also appear on the website.
4. Westside Nature Preserve Annual Report 2006-2007
This was in your packets.
Sen. Whittemore – I noted that in the second paragraph it says on the top of the second
Westpage. “Mini-essays on what is happening on the Westside nature Preserve are less frequent
than they have been, as we are no longer permitted to send them out as emails for general
faculty/staff distribution.”. Whoever made that decision, do we know?
Pres. Kuther – No, I don’t
Sen. Whittemore – I mean I may have been peculiar, but I loved reading what was going on in
the WS Nature Preserve. It was the one email I could always count on that I would open.
Pres. Kuther – I’ll look into it, my guess is I know there were some changes in regards to what
materials is permitted for mass distribution. It might be related to the whole Westconnduit
announcement page, that’s just my guess. I’ll look into it.
Sen. Whittemore – It may be a decision that this should be something that’s on Westconnduit as
opposed to an email distribution list, that may be what it’s about but, that would seem to me that
the committee report suggests there is no convenient outlet which Westconnduit is supposed to
provide us. That was one thing that I wondered if Frank contended.
Pres. Kuther – Further comments? Hearing none, we’ll move on. I will get back to you
regarding those questions regarding emails.
5. Promotion and Tenure Committee Report
This is also in your packet.
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Sen. Whittemore – Under recommendations for Pres. Schmotter, it says one action was not
taken due to procedural violations. Is there any need for us to understand what that signifies or
maybe it’s confidential for the committee?
Pres. Kuther – My guess would be it’s confidential but Mary Nelson she wanted to come but
she (inaudible). My guess would be given that the nature of it, it’s confidential, but I’ll check.
Sen. Whittemore – Thank you.
Sen. Echevarria – Just a point of reminder to me is this following the recommendations, what
we agreed on? One says unanimously highly recommended; 2 were highly recommended; 3
recommended; 6 not recommended; was that the process that we agreed on here?
Pres. Kuther – At present it is. We have had recommendations and discussions back and forth
with P & T about changing it to recommended vs. (inaudible)
Sen. Nair – What happened is that the Senate had made a suggestion to the P & T to change
those recommendations to recommended marginally or not recommended but the P & T has
never acted on that and revised the proposal to the by laws to come back to the Senate so that just
remains as a communication from the Senate to the P & T but no further action was taken.
Sen. Echevarria – how do we follow up? Should some action be taken?
Sen. Nair – I got news for you, it will be followed up on this year.
Pres. Kuther – This coming year, we’ll hear more about this, I’m sure. Further comments?
6.Mediation Committee Annual Report for 2006-2007
also in your packets.
Sen. Whittemore – I have a question about Mediation Committee’s, maybe someone can help me
with this. Is the Mediation Committee automatically contacted when there is any pending action
with regard to Personnel, where there is some ethical or interpersonal conflict?
Chuck Spiridon – No.
Sen. Whittemore – So, in other words this committee does not get contacted for such a
situation. What’s your understanding of that? Some of the members of my department wanted
to know.
Chuck Spiridon – I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.
Sen. Whittemore – My question is this Mediation Committee talks about how it’s a relatively
rare activity, the committee gets called to service relatively rarely and so my question was in a
situation where there’s an ethical transgression or there is an interpersonal conflict that your
office has to get involved in, if automatically the Mediation Committee is contacted?
Chuck Spiridon – I don’t think we could automatically contact them; we’d have to either at the
suggestion of the two individuals that are having the conflict.
Sen. Whittemore – So, when somebody is going to be meeting with you, do they receive a
communication that says there is a Mediation committee available should you choose to ask for
their assistance?
Chuck Spiridon – No.
Sen. Whittemore – There isn’t?
Chuck Spiridon – A letter or notice or something?
Sen. Nair – Did you all look at the by laws of the Mediation Committee?
Sen. Whittemore – I didn’t see that, I wanted to be sure it wasn’t just an oversight.
Sen. Nair – The by laws tells you what that committee is supposed to do.
Imran Qazi – I have a question the committee members – there are two members from each
school but I don’t see anyone from Visual and Performing Arts.
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Pres. Kuther – I believe it’s because it was formed in this last academic year and the new
election will include VPA. If you look at the second page the new by laws will include VPA
Unidentified – Marjorie Callahan would be from the School of Visual and Performing Arts.
Pres. Kuther – If you remember correctly as of this academic year
Sen. Popiel – VPA – We just got the results from our current election about 2 weeks ago. I’m
sure it hasn’t caught up to the committees yet.
7. Graduate Council Annual Report
Sen. Whittemore – I didn’t understand the strategic enrollment management – what does that
mean? Is there some difference between enrollment management, which is used in some of the
other committee as opposed to strategic? Does anybody know? It sounds very serious.
Dean Durnin – A sub committee of Graduate council and I believe they took their names off the
Strategic Enrollment Management Action Committee that had been operating the year before and
the idea is (inaudible)
Provost Rinker – I think it also refers to addition to the information Ellen is sharing that
enrollment and decisions are part of the Strategic Plan and Vision.
Sen. Whittemore - So, Strategic Plan Enrollment is sort of should be reading? Thank you.
Pres. Kuther – Further questions? Hearing none we’ll move on
8. Enrollment Management Committee Annual Report for 2006-2007.
Sen. Whittemore – Number 1. 2% admission progressive growth rate for each of the following
twenty years? I doubt its twenty years.. Is that a final answer? They also mention an exhibit “a’,
a copy of the letter is attached. Did I miss that or? This is the letter that was addressed
Unidentified – I think this is all we have. It’s not titled exhibit a, but we have are these three
pages.
Pres. Kuther – I’ll seek an update about the 2% growth for however years it is as well as a copy
of the letter exhibit “a”. Other comments?
Pres. Kuther – The first question, that’s out for five years. Ok, so that said I will request a copy
of the letter.
G. Weather Center Annual Report 2006-2007 Sen. Whittemore – Sorry, I’m doing it again.. Under assessment it says curricular changes were
made this year in order to the Center into a possible venue for internships, which were previously
taken at off campus sites. Do we know anything about the off campus sites drying up on us? Do
we know anything about that?
Dean Vaden-Goad – No, they’re not drying up on us, necessarily, although we do have a lot of
students, a lot of nice forecasting equipment, and clients and so forth in the Weather Center and
it gives students the opportunity to work in there, as well. So that’s all.
Pres. Kuther – Further Comments? Hearing none, we’ll move on
9. Research and Development Committee Annual Report 2006-2007
– Comments? Hearing none, we’ll move on.
10. Media Services Annual Report
Comments?
Sen. Whittemore – This is currently before the committee, I was interested in this comment
about because Library use at extended hours was negligently being used, and there would be a
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shift away from having the library available. I recognize that there are some issues with costs of
running it when there are only a few students there, but I wonder if that’s a good idea to be
somehow, the question I guess I’m asking is – because only a few students are there is that a
reason to not make it available?
Pres. Kuther – Sen. Nair is on this committee.
Sen. Nair – The simple answer is yes, but let me explain. This is the situation – what happened
is that the computer lab is much more heavily used in the very late hours – midnight to 2 Am or
what have you. But there were almost no students using the Haas Library itself. It’s a five story
building and it is expensive to keep open and it requires staffing and we don’t have enough staff
so it’s a real hardship to match the hours of the computer lab. That’s what the real issue is. One
could argue but the library should be open 24 hours, but it’s a practical matter of what can you
do with the funds available for staffing or what have you. Since this report was written, this
semester, starting last week, when the hours were extended. The Library hours were extended
the library were extended to midnight from 11`PM and the computer lab hours are until 2 AM.
We fixed this issue in that the library closes at 12 and the cyber café, the computer lab part is
closed off, because there’s a roll down door and isolated from the rest of the library. So, it’s
working just fine.
Pres. Kuther – And the library is open an extra hour?
Sen. Whittemore – Vijay, in the next paragraph, you’re talking about subscription data bases
including alumni using them and apparently the explanation is the additional subscription cost to
do that couldn’t be absorbed by the library?
Sen. Nair – That’s right.
Sen. Whittemore – Do other libraries have for non-current staff/students?
Pres. Kuther – I looked into that, it’s one of the things that I’ve looked into given all the writing
that I do. Every library I’ve contacted in NYC, I graduated from Fordham and they would not
allow me to, I donated to NYU and somehow I think it went on campus. As I understand it this
is something that virtually all academic libraries, but Vijay might have a better perspective.
Sen. Nair - That’s the answer, anybody can come in and use the databases, but the contracts we
rave with the vendors are either it says you can only make it available to your current students,
faculty and staff. Well, it says what it says.
Sen. Whittemore – Is there any way this could be a money raiser for the college? We would
sell subscriptions for the college, that is we would sell subscriptions to Alumni who wanted to
have the privilege.
Sen. Nair - We can’t there’s no way to make that somehow that stick.. It’s not practical as a fund
raiser.
Sen. Whittemore – Who would we speak to if we wanted to store it as a fund raiser? It seems to
me there could be passwords that Alumni could buy which would give them access to the
databases and they would pay sufficiently to pay for the additional costs.
Pres. Kuther – If we were to go that route, we’d probably want to find a university that does
that. As far as I could see there are some universities (inaudible) trust me,. If there were, I’d be
doing that.
Sen. Nair – See, Rob, the thing of it is the way the vendors work is that when you subscribe to a
database the pricing is based on the number of the universe of users, if you will. Once you have
that contract then you know you identify another class of people and then you somehow find a
way to charge them for the use or something like that. It’s not an easy thing to do and I’m not
sure if it would be a really eventually turn into a fundraising enterprise.
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Imran Qazi – When you graduate and join the Alumni Assoc., that’s one of the things that they
tell you that you have access to, if you use it as a fundraiser then one of my questions would be
you’re taking away benefits from joining the Alumni Assoc.
Pres. Kuther – That access to the library, as I understand it, is different than access to the
database, if you’re at the library you can get it, but if you’re off campus, you don’t.
Sen. Whittemore – I was talking about off-campus.
Imran Qazi – Yea, if you’re off campus and you pay the $25.00 a year Alumni fee, you can
have off campus access.
Sen. Nair – Not to the database.
Imran Qazi – Oh, ok. That’s not how I understood it.
Sen. Nair – $25.00 would never cover it.
Pres. Kuther – It’s a frustrating process, personally I would spend a great deal of money for
that.
11. Committee on General Education Annual Report
. This was in your packet. Hearing no comments, we’ll move on to
12. Faculty Recognition Committee Report –
Sen. Whittemore – I just want to commend the committee for reconsidering how to do faculty
recognition and I know the Provost has been involved in this and I think it’s long overdue that
we look at that again, and really decide what that’s about and what we really want if anything
from that. I like to see that we’re thinking ahead.
Pres. Kuther – Ok, we’ll move on.
13.Institute for Holistic Health Studies report 2006-2007.
Comments? [none]
14.Physical Working Conditions Report 2006-2007
Comments? [none]
15.UPBC Report for 2006-2007–
Kuther: which was distributed today
Comments? [none]
16. Western International Center By Laws
Sen. Whittemore – The International Center Committee has been working on this for several
months now. Part of this has to do with we were waiting for a quorum, which we all know on
committees that’s a fun thing sometimes, but aside from that we wanted to update with the fourth
school and we also realized that in our initial by laws it does talk about interested parties who
want to attend the meeting. We’ve always welcomed interested parties, but we decided we
wanted to formalize their identity on the committee and call them attending members. For
example, Fredrica Halligan from the Counseling Center is a regular attendee and is very
interested in our work and has been very helpful. In the past we’ve had other members of the
Counseling Center who have been members, Peter Marks, you may remember. So, we’re trying
to make that a formal part of what we’re doing. Also the Provost and vice president was
working on constituting a full time position Director of International Services position which it
looks at this point will begin in the fall. This is an individual that would be the sort of the central
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point for anybody who is organizing or who needs logistical support or information about
formulating overseas study, or overseas travel, whatever. This would be an administrative
logistical position, different from the coordinator of the international program which is the
position that oversees the academic side, of, for example, student exchanges, development of
overseas curricular. We wanted to see how that person would fit in, so that’s another change.
The third major change is that we decided, and by the way on this new document all caps is new
language, and all parenthesis is the deleted language. We also were trying to think about
membership. Up to this point, membership has been 2 representatives from each of the schools,
the committee felt that in terms of drawing more interest to the committee, on some parties in the
university, maybe it made more sense to have four, one from each of the schools plus four at
large representatives so that the voting would be more open to people who really wanted to be
there doing the work and participating in the committee. So, that is the third major change. The
fourth major change the probability that or at least the option for the Center Coordinator to speak
to a committee member who doesn’t attend for three consecutive meetings to decide whether that
person really wants to stay with the committee and has just been facing some short term
inconveniences or whether it really is a longer term. The terms are two years and it has been a
problem where people have come to the committee and then not come to the meetings, even
though they’ve been reminded. I respect peoples’ schedules, it’s not that there’s any shame
involved here it’s just that the committee needs to be able to do its work and if people aren’t
coming then perhaps another person might be interested. So, that’s the fourth major change.
There is also some language change here and there but those are the four most, perhaps, obvious
shifts for the committee. Any questions? Since this is a change I suppose we’ll just have these
until the September meeting, is that correct?
Pres. Kuther – Yes, it’s a by law change. We can’t vote on it today, we’ll need a motion to
discuss it. Munz/Lightwood
Sen. Nair – One question, Rob. The at large membership, as you are aware one of my
colleagues, was interested in attending this meeting since she didn’t attend for some time, I was
wondering for the at large membership if you should allow the LLC group to be eligible for the
at large group.
Sen. Whittemore - Sure.
Sen. Secondo – What’s the difference between the Center Coordinator and the Director of
International Services?
Sen. Whittemore – The Director of International Services is a new position that will be – right
now there’s a person serving half time in that position and she’s essentially the International
Student Advisor for any international student who comes to campus who is not an exchange
student. What we found was that as our interest in exchange has grown, there’s a tremendous
amount of clerical time that I’ve been doing, that really is an inefficient use of my time in terms
of, and so this person would also have secretarial support ½ time so that some of that clerical
work can be done there but also what we’re finding out is that as faculty have been more
involved in arranging overseas Puerto Rican, Spanish tours, that there needs to be a central place
where all questions can be answered And follow up can be managed because at this point some
5-6 years ago I did a report on how international programs were working on campus for the
president and it turned out it was basically an ad hoc here and there and people that were
interested, there was no central place and the new VP and Provost recognizes this is really an
essential change if there’s going to be much more of an international horizon on campus. This
person is a logistical, Clerical, administrative coordinator for all international issues. But the
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academic side will stay with the coordinator of the international center. So the interviewing of
students who want to go and exchange, for example would be done by the coordinator. Or the
talking with faculty about curriculum that will be taught overseas, that will go to the coordinator.
The Director of International Services is a service
position.
Sen. Lightwood – Having had the opportunity to serve on Nominations and Elections recently,
each time these changes come up there’s a struggle for us to know exactly how we’re supposed
to elect the people in the new categories and I wanted to give some thought to that just sort of as
a temporary addendum to give the nominations and elections about who, on the current
committee will be regarded as continuing as at large and who will be regarded as regular.
Sen. Whittemore – See Article 4 # 4, you may have seen that, we do pair the two schools for the
at large representation
Sen. Lightwood – I don’t have the by laws, nor do I have of who was on that at this point, but it
may be difficult to know who is supposed to be
Pres. Kuther – We’ll vote on it in September
Sen. Secondo – I have another question, on number 6, it says if a member has 2 absences, they
will be dropped. How does that affect the committee? Do we not just have a full committee for
the rest of the year if someone has been asked to leave or would you appointment
Sen. Whittemore – Well, the pattern that has been in the past, that for example someone has
been elected and then they can’t do it, you go to the person who had the next highest number of
votes. So, we would turn to the Elections Committee for that.
Pres. Kuther – At tat point it goes back to elections and then if I recall, we had this suggestion
just recently in the Senate whereby (inaudible)
Sen. Lightwood – There was some interest in having that done, but the time is (inaudible)
Sen. Whittemore - by the way I don’t want this to sound like removal., it will be a conversation
at the Coordinators’ discretion. It’s not a mandate we need to figure out what’s going on.
Sen. Nair - I have two comments.. One is that if the Senate accepts this revision and
subsequently I would suggest you put this in effect, you’d be willing to wait till the next cycle of
elections. That’ll be the end of next year actually when the thing is actually gonna happen.
Because I’m not a member of the nominations and elections committee, but it’s difficult to just
run an election for this one thing and let somebody else, that’s ok to do. The second question is
Paula’s question. The way it works is that if you have a vacancy you would go to the
nominations and elections committee to see who had the highest vote in that particular
constituency. If that is the case that nobody else ran in the election then what happens is that you
inform the Senate President and the Senate President becomes in to conversation with the
Provost, we’ll appoint somebody for the remainder of that term. That’s how it works.
Sen. Whittemore – Thanks.
Imran Qazi – Once they appoint it doe the Senate still have to vote on that, though?
Sen. Whittemore – There are two other things that I didn’t mention. One is that we’re trying to
get a regular student representative on this committee and so when you read it.. an ultimate
meeting that would be the April meeting. There would be a nomination of a student to fill that
spot for the next academic year and then the committee will vote at the meeting. We’re hoping
to get a more regular student rep. We really felt that that’s what we’re missing. The second item
that I didn’t mention is that up to this point the international center first was under the Schools of
Professional Studies budget and then it moved to arts and sciences, it’s now going to be moved
to the Provost and Vice President’s office. So, it’s now, although it’s still in Academic
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committee. The committee members are left with faculty, the provost will be reporting to the
Provost, rather then to a Dean.
committee. The committee members are left with faculty, the provost will be reporting to the
Provost, rather then to a Dean.
Pres. Kuther – Further comments
VI.Motion to adjourn
Motion to adjourn 4:50 PM [Munz/Nair]
Respectfully submitted,
Elizabeth Popiel – Senate Secretary
Linda D’Aurio – Recording Secretary
SENATE RESOLUTIONS
[R 07-05-01]
MOTION TO ACCEPT MARCH MINUTES 2007 [MUNZ/POPIEL] PASSED WITH ONE
ABSTENTION