Senate Exec Meeting Minutes
April 16th, 2014
Present: Senate Chair Moore, Vice Chair and FPC Chair Caroline Coward, Parliamentarian Matt Jones, EPC Chair Kate Esposito, Statewide Senators Pat Kalayjian and Kate Fawver
Guests by Time Certain: Provost Junn, Laura Robles, Clare Weber, and Janna Bersi
Drop by Guests: Ann Chlebicki and John Davis
Chair Moore report: Quick full agenda.
- I will not be here next week, Caroline is going to Chair the meeting on 4/23.
- Strategic Planning meeting this Friday, April 18th at 8:30 AM on Friday morning. It’s a good process.
- Monday afternoon, April 21sth from 1:30 – 3:00 we have upper division GE Ad Hoc Committee. Hopefully at that time we’ll get some from information from Janna and others about moving courses back between colleges. Pat Kalayjian asked if there was a consideration to invite Cathy Jacobs, or someone from UCC - just to give them an idea of what the process is to get these through. Kalayjian said they were promised an expedited process and while they already know it can’t happen for fall, perhaps to get it going for the spring. Moore agreed this would be a good idea and suggested Kalayjian reach out to Jacobs.
- Moore brought up that Senator Gould pointed out to the Senate at the last meeting that the numbering of the resolutions seemed to be off, he thought they are numbered sequentially. Moore said, at some point as of 14-01, we got off that schedule and started numbering exclusively within category they should have been sequential. Moore said we’re going to renumber and change language in the minutes to reflect that.
- Resolution for Warren Ashley – based largely on the very eloquent piece that Joanne Zitelli sent out and shared this with Joanne and Bernie Clinch and people who worked with them. If you have any suggested changes by Friday – let me know as we want to move this forward. Pat reminded Moore, do not need W*. Announcement for memorial service for Warren at 1:00 pm on Saturday to be held in the College of Extended Ed.
Matt Jones reported that there were various and a sundry elections underway. The regular General Faculty have a ballot for the Senate Chair and the State-wide. The non-full time faculty have a ballot for their rep to the senate and the staff have a ballot for their rep. It went out via survey monkey and will be sending a reminder on April 17th. There are no outstanding calls.
Moore brought up the 2nd reading items coming to the floor of the Senate the following week. The resolution for Establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee Regarding Lower Division General Education. Moore shared he said he was surprised at how little conversation that had provoked on the floor of the Senate. He wondered aloud if next week’s meeting would be different in that regard. Kalayjian suggested where it currently reads “each Faculty Member who chairs learning outcomes committee”, should it not be the Student Learning Outcomes Committee, and asked if it is always a faculty member. She asked if they were hiring someone. Moore said they are hiring a Director of Assessment. He said he believed it to be more inclusive. Kalayjian asked if it were a USLOAC Faculty Rep? Moore offered that it could read member of the student learning outcomes committee. Esposito asked if they wanted to keep the chair of the GE on? Kalayjian felt that yes, as the GE committee would like to see someone on that and that they made a good point that people who serve on the GE committee know a lot about GE in general and would be a valuable resource for the committee. Fawver asked if it had been shared with the GE committee. Kalayjian shared that she and Magruder explained the resolution to the GE Committee, and Kalayjian said she further pointed out to them that it hadn’t been reviewed in about 16 years. Kalayjian said she asked if it was important to them to have a member on the Ad Hoc Committee and they agreed that it would be. Jones asked if there were two students, wouldn’t that make 10 on the committee and wondered if it would have an impact. Kalayjian stated that the resolution seemed to be confined to number of units and did not leave room for other recommendations about additional GE review and wondered if there should be some kind of opening for additional commentary or discoveries. Moore felt that you can do a committee a disservice when you set it up and don’t give it some desired outcomes. Moore said a charge to go in and review GE package is too open ended. Moore felt that some of the issues Kalayjian was eluding to will come out of this and the other, under #2, modifications about how courses are counted towards majoring and/or GE requirements could immediately have exactly the sorts of implications Kalayjian was talking about. Moore said he sees this as being the 2nd step in our changing the direction of the GE shift. Kalayjian asked if we could we leave something in the 4th resolve could have something that left it open and gave them the opportunity to say something further but didn’t require them to. Kalayjian agreed to consider language that could state what she was requesting. Jones suggested that the 3rd resolve should also include reference to EO1065.
Next item: Online Instruction Guidelines and Recommendation draft that the EPC made last year. He asked for suggestions on how the rest of the committee thought they ought to proceed with it. Moore offered that there were many possibilities, such as endorsing the entire document and have a sense of the Senate vote. Also, breaking out certain elements of the report and doing a series of EPC resolutions. Esposito said that’s what her committee thought – to break it out. She highlighted that there was one area that asks, how do you define things. Other questions: do you want to assess? Moore suggested for now to pay attention less to the specifics of the recommendation but how we go and take these recommendations into policy or set of recommendations. Kalayjian offered as a point of information, the statewide is working on a series of definition that no longer match ours. She said there’s a face-to-face and a face-to-face online, that they don’t call things hybrid, they call it blended. She said it’s actually the Chancellors office working with federal definitions and may not be worth it for us to put time and energy into defining things. Kalayjian further explained that they’re trying to make it consistent throughout the system, without impinging on individual campus rights but consistent so that when students move from one campus to another, including creating universal icons, that are going to be attached that students presumably will be able to recognize and know. Fawver said she didn’t see any reason to move on this until the fall. The more people that look at it the more people can weigh in on it. Moore said that he’s not quite sure how to go about it. He gave the examples of: is there a resolution on faculty support rights and responsibilities; is there another on course development; course design; are each of the roman numerals a resolution? Moore said what Fawver said is likely true, that this report would not be read as a first and second item in the two more meetings that we have to this semester. Moore would like to have an idea on how the Exec committee believes we need we should proceed with it so there was a roadmap for future action. And if we can get that resolution from the EPC committee on what changes are really called for at that point. Fawver questioned the term guidelines and recommendations as there are many “musts” throughout the document which are rules, not recommendations. She continued by saying, if they’re rules than they’re policy. And if they’re policy, make them policy. Fawver felt that they’re getting bogged down in the technicalities of how to present. She stated to just write a resolution that says that we, as the Senate, recommend this as a university policy, and to be clear not “guidelines and recommendations”, and instead, call it like it is – a policy. Moore agreed that really the only place “guidelines and recommendations” is stated is in the title and that the rest of it is stated. Fawver recommended renaming it a policy on online instruction. Coward wondered if this was how those who were teaching online would be evaluated. Moore said that this was an evaluation not of instructor performance but of the course itself. Coward said part of any evaluation is peer observation where you go and watch your fellow professor, how does that translate into an online environment? The contract requires 5 day notice – how does that translate online? Kalayjian said one of the ways you can get signed in is to ask the instructor. Moore summed up that rather than break this up into single resolutions, we can have a resolution that endorses these policies. The reason being is that we run the risk if we dropped the ball on one of the components of this and its clearly designed to have something that’s overarching. Esposito referred group to roman number III, 2nd italicized question, should there be a set ratio of support staff per FTE…….Kalayjian felt it would be better handled in more than one blow. Some of things are policies and some of the items are guidelines. Kalayjian went on further to say, the guideline approach was taken so that people could see what the components of an online class are. But as far as the definitions and so on, those really are policy. She said she believed that it could be a challenge to bring such a big document into the Senate. Moore agreed that at first he saw it as such, but now he sees it as a coherent document in which things like the definitions in roman number I are essential for understanding what’s being requested in roman number V. Jones said he’s not convinced either way, but thought it could be approached by splitting it into two where 1 is the policy part and the 2nd is where the recommendation part is. Fawver agreed and then it could be named so that they coordinate with each other. Fawver said she felt that you wouldn’t want to get rid of either part, but that having them together detracts. She went on further to say there are some things within the current document which are very useful for people looking for guidelines and appendix and then looking for the policy. The headings are good and it’s a good way to organize it. Moore asked Esposito to raise some of these issues with in the EPC committee. Esposito said that it depends where you’re coming from, i.e., Business has a lot of things online. So there may be a greater need. Esposito said she will have her committee read it more thoroughly before they meet to discuss. Moore asked Kalayjian gets a version of new set of definitions as they become available.
Moore then brought up FPC 14-04, the Affirmation of the rights of temporary faculty to participate in department chair nominations and said he’s been thinking about it since the Senate meeting, He said that on one hand, there was a small set of actually proposed changes to the language of the resolution and on the other hand, there was a much larger set of objections to the idea in general. He felt that they were two fundamentally different things. He said he was wondering about some of the different components. He pointed out that while we know the vote was to table it and take it off the floor of the senate, that doesn’t mean it’s permanently off the floor, it’s just at that time. He said it would be possible to remove this completely from discussion, get the two grievances that were withdrawn because an agreement had been worked out, faculty affairs and union and then just say to departments that you’ll need to work this out on your own as this is really what arbitration was to do. Moore shared that in his opinion, he thinks that’s an abdication of the kind of responsibilities we have as a senate. Not to take over the task of the departments but if there is a way which we can arrive at a fair and reasonable guideline for departments, which he said he thinks will save time. He shared that he was involved in a grievance process for 6 years from the time he
Affirmation of the rights of temporary faculty to participate in department chair nominations (continued)
filed and the time it was resolved. He shared that he was reading the email exchanges from John Thomlinson from Bio, and he thinks there is this feeling that if you have adjunct faculty who you know are here to teach a couple of courses, do they have the same investment in the University. He said he thinks he understands that. “But”, he said, “I think of all of the issues that have been raised, I think the T.A. issue is the one that is kind of troublesome.” He said he wondered if there’s any room to finesse that part of the problem by getting such a classification instituted into the hiring process. Coward said she too has been thinking about it all week and did get feedback from FPC colleagues about the four main issues that folks had. She said she did try to create resolve clauses that addressed each in turn. The much broader issue, she felt, in going back to the arbitration agreement, while specific to CSU Fresno, the arbitrator pointed out that as long as lecturers are considered faculty in the contract, and while the definition of a department includes faculty and while the department nominates a chair, you must include lecturers in that process. Coward reminded the group that a few people said last week that ANY limitation that you put on that is a violation of the contract, including this joint agreement between CFA and the campus. She said that that puts a limitation on lecturer involvement, between CFA Dominguez Hills and Cal State Dominguez Hills, the thing that was drafted by Renee Castro. Moore said he’s not sure how binding it is. Coward said the agreement between our campus CFA and the faculty affairs folks was the nuts and bolts of this resolution which put limitations on which lecturers can and cannot participate in department nominations. Coward said, “What was said at the Senate meeting was that any kind of campus policy that puts a limitation on lecturer participation, violates the contract. Any kind of presidential memorandum, any kind of campus policy regarding chair nomination as the contract ONLY addresses chair nominations and includes them as the arbitrator pointed out.” As we move forward on this, she asked, do we want to include those limitations as hammered out between our campus union and the administration or do we want to say, we affirm the rights of lecturers to participate in department chair nominations per the current contract which trumps any kind of presidential memorandum or policy or agreement and not even try to mirror the joint recommendation. Kalayjian offered what if a resolution was written that eliminated much of the current language and said in the department chair nomination process, departments may allow participation by all temporary faculty. She further added, “give as the rationale, the agreement that was made, let departments fend for themselves. If a department doesn’t want to let them, that’s their choice.” Moore said that at San Jose state, and not too long ago, all departmental nominations were limited to tenured faculty. Fawver said that her recommendation at the previous senate meeting there be a temporary moratorium, because right now they’re prohibited by the presidential memo from participation. So for the spring semester, have a moratorium on the PM (the prohibition of lecturer involvement) and then not tell the departments what to do. Then the senate would get feedback from the departments to craft something. Because as it is, she felt, it was not a good resolution due to the fact that it was not, in her opinion based on evidence. She said,
“If there’s evidence that says this is the best way to go, let’s include it.” Fawver reminded the group that Provost Junn’s response to the idea was that you couldn’t give people the right and then take it away from them in case the Senate comes back and says no lecturers. Fawver felt that it was different than different policies all over, that it was removing rights that you’ve given them already. Fawver felt Junn’s position from what she took from it was to sit tight. Esposito suggested writing a resolution in support of departments adhering to said clause and pass it and just let it be at that. Kalayjian agreed, yes, it would say, they may be included and departments may want to consider these guidelines. Esposito offered further, the Senate fully support the implementation of this clause and not even say what it is.
Affirmation of the rights of temporary faculty to participate in department chair nominations (continued)