Baruch College Faculty Senate Plenary Meeting
Minutes of April 7, 2016
MINUTES
Senators Attending: E. Axelrod (Law), M. Carew (Eco/Fin), A. Croker (S/CIS), B. Ferns (S/CIS), W.
Finke (Mod Lang), K. Frank (ENG), R. Freedman (ZSB), A. Grein (Mkt/Int’lBus), K. Guest (Soc./Anth),
S. Johnson (PSY), D. Jones (PolSci), G. Jurkevich (Mod. Lang.), C. Kulatilleke (NatSci), A. Levitus
(CNSLNG/PSY), T. Main (SPA), B W. McClellan (ENG), J. O'Keefe Bazzoni (COMM), R. Ormsby
(LIB), A. Pearlman (PSY), J. Peifer (Mgt.), G. Petersen (Soc./Anth), L. Rath (LIB), R. Sawant (Mkt.),
M. Seltzer (SPA) M. Stark (SPA), A.Vora (Eco/Fin), S. Wine (S/CIS), R. Yue (S/CIS) .
Senators Absent: C. Bellamy (Soc./Anth), C. Christoforatou (ENG),S. Dishart (COMM), C. Gengler
(Mkt/Int’lBus ), M. Goodman (COMM), C. Hessel (Eco/Fin), D. Howard (Math), R. Jain (S/CIS), S.
Korenman (SPA), T. Martell (Eco/Fin), Murphy (HIS), M. Ozbilgin (ACC), P. Sethi (MGT), J. Weiser
(Law), S. Wong (MTH), J. Ye (ACC) Yin (MGT).
Twenty-eight additional members of the faculty and staff noted their presence. Making a total attendance
of 56.
The meeting was convened at 12:45 p.m. in VC 14-250 by Professor Glenn Peterson, Acting Chair of the
Baruch Faculty Senate.
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II.
III.
IV
Approval of Agenda: The agenda was approved by assent.
Approval of the Minutes: Minutes of Meeting of March 3, 2016 were approved by assent.
Report from the Chair: Acting Chair Professor G. Peterson summarized the agenda noting the
additional speakers. He outlined the schedule for the Baruch Faculty Senate 2016 elections.
Specifically he exhorted the members to participate as leaders, officers and chairs of the Faculty
Senate, particularly in the present precarious position of the university. Further, given the budget
recently enacted the faculty must assert themselves in improving the finances of the College.
Finally, he noted the inability of all faculty to control the use of electronic devices in classrooms.
Professor K. Frank suggested that further exploration should be made to better define the issue.
The P.S.C representative outlined the union’s strategy in response to the budget. Professor W.
Ferns noted that the P.S.C. had considered a “strike” vote, and what was the consequences of their
strategy. Professor Peterson noted that a great deal of confusion is to be expected, and whether the
Faculty Senate should be doing. Professor T. Main responded that all be advised that a strike
would be illegal. Professor Axelrod suggested that any discussion at this juncture would be
premature. Professor Alan Pearlman explained the utility of the “strike” vote. Professor Diane
Jurkevich explained the financial penalties for a strike. Professor Peterson suggested a lack of
further discussion was not generating interest. Several other comments were made as to future
action.
Report of the Provost: Provost Christie reported on the following projects;
BARUCH GRADING PRACTICES
A working group of committees on academic standing chairs and the registrar was convene by
Associate Provost Dennis Slavin to explore our traditional use of the WU grade to signal
excessive absences. They discovered that our local practice violated CUNY grade
definitions. They have determined that it is possible to ‘fail’ a student for excessive absences,
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and confirmed the following guidelines are consistent with CUNY’s grade glossary and
registrar’s regulations.
At some future date the faculty may choose to bring a new policy to the General Faculty for
reauthorization. In the meantime, individual faculty can follow these guidelines:
Members of the faculty may take attendance into account when grading, including awarding F’s
to students who have excessive absences. However, if you choose to do so:
 Your syllabus must clearly define your policies and terms, such as what constitutes excessive
absences.
 You must take attendance regularly, and apply your attendance/grading policies consistently
to all of your students.
 All students should be assigned the grade they have earned based on the grading rubric in the
syllabus (which may take attendance into account). This grade should be assigned at the end
of the semester only.
 You may not assign the grade of WU to a student who takes the final exam; use of WU is
restricted to students who stop attending all class sessions, and may only be awarded at the
end of term. .
Notes:
WU means that a student has stopped attending a class. (i.e., a student who regularly attends
Monday sessions of a Monday/Wednesday class may not be given a WU. He or she may be
awarded a lower grade—or even a failing grade—but only if the syllabus clearly defines the role
of attendance in eliciting those penalties.)
1. GOVERNOR CUOMO’S BAN ON STATE-FUNDED TRAVEL TO NORTH
CAROLINA
A CUNY statement outlining the details of this ban is forthcoming. It will cover state tax levy
money, funding administered through the Research Foundation, and money administered given as
gifts to CUNY. In the meantime, faculty and staff should refrain from registering for conferences
or booking travel in North Carolina. Although no public statement has been made at this time,
recent legislation in Mississippi may cause the New York State travel ban to be extended to that
state as well. I do not know what kinds of travel will be deemed ‘essential’, but I have been
advised that exceptions will be rare.
2. TASK FORCE OF RESEARCH
A faculty task force on research organized by Associate Provost Erec Koch has submitted its
report, which will be posted on the provost’s web site. The task force suggested ways that faculty
candidates for promotion can communicate the value, impact and quality of their research to
reviewers of their P&B binders. This report was included in the workshop organized by
Associate Provosts Koch and Slavin for third year faculty preparing for the Dean’s Review this
spring.
3. DIVERSITY LECTURE
Dr. Robbin Chapman, Associate Provost at Wellesley College, will be the speaker at this year’s
diversity lecture and workshop. Dr. Chapman earned her doctorate in electrical engineering at
MIT and master’s degree in MIT’s Artificial Intelligence lab. She was employed by MIT where
she managed diversity recruitment as Assistant Provost for Faculty Equity. Dr. Chapman now
focuses on the development of culturally responsive pedagogy and the impact of teaching and
learning technologies in creating opportunities in math, science and technology by creating
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learning communities of underrepresented students. The workshop "Unconscious Bias:
Understanding, Monitoring, and Minimizing," is scheduled for Monday May 16, 2016 at
12:30pm with a light lunch beginning at 11:45am in Newman Library Building room 750. More
details will be released by Chief Diversity Officer Kieran Morrow of our Office of Diversity,
Compliance, and Equity.
On Tuesday of this week we welcomes Naomi Murakawa, Associate Professor of African
American Studies at Princeton as part of the Ackerman Lecture Series on Social Justice. Dr.
Murakawa’s studies racial inequality and spoke on topics related to her 2014 book, The First
Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (Oxford University Press, 2014)
4.
CLASS SCHEDULING TASK FORCE
We are working with Associate deans and the registrar’s office to improve the process of
developing the class schedule each semester. The first step is to map the current process. Our
goal is to move greater responsibility for making trade-offs on course times and rooms to the
schools. We continue to be fully enrolled, and classroom use is at full capacity. We must make
greater use of our facilities on Fridays, and find a scheduling solution that enables two hybrid
courses to be scheduled in the same room. This has implications for final exams. We also need
to find ways to accommodate ‘fully on-line’ courses that meet face to face for a small number of
sessions.
This issue will become acute with our need to temporarily take some 17 Lex classrooms off-line
during renovations. No funds for this renovation were included in the proposed budget, but we
remain hopeful that they will be included in a series of ‘money bills’ that are often passed soon
after the budget vote. I do not anticipate any activity in 17 Lex until January 2017.
Professor M. Seltzer commended the scheduled “unconscious” bias presentation, but suggested we
should assure in the future that the presentations can be recorded. Professor Warren Gordon
recommended the reestablishment of the WF grade. Professor Axelrod suggested that such would
be problematical Professor Peterson noted the separation of grading among Freshmen-Sophomores
and Juniors - Seniors. Provost Christie noted the forthcoming changes will respond to the
circumstances.
IV.
Reports of the Deans: Assistant Provost Slavin reported noted that changes in the Business 1000
course will operate to provide for skills and ethics that had previously not been emphasized. In so
doing he reported the effort to “reach-out” to our community colleges have been fruitful.
V.
Presentation of the COACHE Report: Professor S. Johnson introduced this report and turned
the presentation over the Professor Micheline Blum. The appended slide presentation represents
the report. She noted that her committee did not have access to the “raw data” and that the analysis
based on the COACHE report and not the underlying data. Further the “peer” colleges were of
limited comparability. She did indicate that her committee had obtained a table of the comparison
with the other CUNY senior colleges. She noted that the context of the report was one in which the
faculty in other colleges were not involved with a lengthy labor contract dispute, and therefore
negative salary circumstances. Professor K. Bawa presented the charts of the survey. Professor
Blum then reported on the survey’s findings within Baruch. Professor Peterson indicated that the
May plenary session of the Faculty Senate will contain an agenda item for the discussion of this
report. Professor Warren Gordon raised the issue of details among departments. Professor Blum
indicated the data was not available. Professor Wine spoke to the several issues of adjuncts in the
elements of the P.S.C contract. Specifically compensation and “sick-time,” were major adjunct
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concerns. Professor Slavin indicated that the Writing Center, which employs adjuncts was actually
pursuing the betterment of the adjunct circumstances.
The Report is located at: COACHE report draft 033016
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Old Business: Professor Peterson again emphasized the importance of old and new senators to
“step forward” for these positions “Nomination of Officers and Committee Chairs”
New Business: None
Announcements: None.
The meeting adjourned at 2:15 pm
Respectfully Submitted
Michael G. Carew,
Baruch Faculty Senate Secretary
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