CAS Senate Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
January 8, 2016
In attendance: Jean Ippolito (Chair), Kathleen Commendador, Yucheng Qin, Chris Lauer, MazenHamad, Becky Ostertag, Yoshiko Fukushima, Jene Michaud, Matt Platz, Susan Brown
Approval of minutes from 12/11/15 Executive Committee meeting
Minutes approved 6-0-0
Chair’s Report/Old Business(Jean Ippolito):
- Division Elections: UHPA ruled that divisions in CAS are permitted to develop their own Division Chair election procedures. The Humanities Division election will proceed with electing a new Chair according to the procedures developed in Spring 2015.
- Update on the reorganization task force: Faculty Congress delayed voting on appointing representatives to a reorganization task force until the faculty of each college had been consulted. Tracy Wiegner, Kathleen Commendador, Jan Ray and Chris Lauer were asked to poll their respective divisions. Objections are due by Wednesday.
Kathleen Commendador: The Nursing program recommended a different primary representative and wants to be sure that the program’s interests are respected.
Vice Chancellor Platz: The task force’s role will not be to develop a model and push it through. It’s likely that five to six models will be developed. In the end, the power of decision lies in negotiation between the administration and UHPA. Four units that are roughly equal in size and more internally homogeneous in culture might be more efficient and improve first-to-second-year retention.
Chris Lauer: The Humanities Division has been asked for opinions on the proposed representatives, and no one has objected.
Point of order: Does Faculty Congress’s decision to consult colleges before appointing representatives violate policy? Answer (Jean Ippolito): Congress merely postponed a vote until the various Senates were consulted, which is in accord with policy. However, the bylaws will still need to be consulted to determine if the representatives can be changed without starting the process over again.
- Last month’s motion to rename the newly renovated gym has been postponed until the next Faculty Congress meeting.
APC Report (Jene Michaud):
Nothing to report.
CRC Report (Chris Lauer):
Nothing new to report
New Business:
New course proposals and department voting procedures: There has been some confusion over how votes on proposed courses ought to proceed before being submitted to Division Chairs and the Curriculum Review Committee, particularly for cross-listed courses and interdisciplinary programs.
Susan Brown: The new Dean will soon ask all departments and programs for by-laws. Perhaps departments and programs that have had problems with the process can update their voting procedures for new courses.
Yoshiko Fukushima and Jene Michaud: According to the UHPA contract, Lecturers who teach a sufficient number of units are supposed to be represented in all voting decisions, but the contract doesn’t specify a number. This is something that department by-laws should consider.
Yucheng Qin: Since developing new courses is usually better for our students, we should simplify procedures for developing new courses as much as possible.
A motion was suggested but not made to ask the APC and CRC to work together to develop guidelines for voting procedures on new programs and courses.
Associate Dean Search (Susan Brown): The Senate should send out a call for the Associate Dean Position on February 1st and review applications as quickly as possible.
At the Faculty Congress Executive Committee, someone commented that the Senate Executive Committee doesn’t represent CAS, since the Senate is officially comprised of all CAS faculty—which, however, never appear in large enough numbers for a quorum. Perhaps we can adjust our bylaws to match current practice in which the Executive Committee votes on important matters.
Meeting adjourned at 3:07.