SENATE MINUTES

Meeting Date:

11/1/01

Status of Minutes:

APPROVED

Senate Session:

XVIII

Meeting Number:

6

Present:

P. Travis, S.A. Davis, N. Sidell, C. D'Ortona, H. Biblehimer, B. Ganong, M. Syrett, D. Rotella, B. Cunningham, K. Sullins, A. Longoria, S. Thornsley, J. Ulrich, B. Holtman, R. Dodson, M. Matarese, A. Gaskievicz, J. Werner, M-D. Schmid, I.Newman, M. Chester, S. Brown, R, Keller, A. Mabe, J. Floyd, L. Cass, D. Blouch, C. Coleman, N. Cooledge, Teri Doerksen.

I.

P. Travis called the meeting to order at 3:33 p.m.

II.

Minutes of October 18, 2001 were approved as electronically distributed (Schmid/Blouch).

APPROVED

III.

Treasurer's Report (P. Travis for C. D'Ortona)

The account balance is $494, not including dues collected today. The second $500 scholarship installment is due soon. Senate reps were reminded to collect $10 dues from faculty.

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APPROVED

IV.

Announcements

1. J. Halstead approved all Senate actions of 10/4 and 10/18. These included the "I" and "G" checklists, course and program deletions and new course in ANH and SOC, and the AAS degree in Medical Coding and Medical Transcription.
   
   
   
2. M. Lane will be hosting a Brown Bag lunch on "Mission Related Activities on Friday, November 9, 2001 in the Community Room on 6th Floor of North Hall.
   
   
   
3. Faculty were encouraged to vote electronically on the amended constitution.

    

   
   

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V.

Committee Reports

A.

Academic Affairs (H. Biblehimer)


AAC had 2 announcements and one motion:

1. The I / G checklists are accessed most easily by accessing them from mail attachments. H. Biblehimer will send final copies of the forms and an explanation of the procedures to be followed electronically.
   
   
2. L. Cass reports that during her presentation of WebAdvisor and degree audit that some of courses required for some programs are, in effect, increasing some of the group requirement hours. Departments are encouraged to check how their programs have been coded and share their concerns with the Records office.
   
   
   

MOTION ONE: To approve the Distance Education Course Approval For Existing Credit-Bearing Courses.

Rationale: According to the CBA, such courses must be approved by the curriculum committee in 30 days. However, only the delivery is being approved, not the course, so no action is required by Senate. APSCUF developed a form based upon other examples and shared it with AAC. Questions considering whether courses already being taught in this manner would also need approval were deferred to Provost's office. Motion passed.

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B.

Academic Planning (B. Ganong)

No report. 

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C.

Administrative Affairs & Elections (T. Doerksen)

• The new faculty parking lot has opened. Early problems with sunk pavement are being resolved now. The parking lot has 64 new spaces. With other "conversions" of faculty spaces on other parts of campus (31 on Wilson converted to commuter spaces, 4 on Swan converted to commuter spaces, and 6 in front of Alumni converted to visitor spaces) the net gain of faculty spaces is 19 regular, 4 handicapped.
• The new Cedar Crest parking lot will be paved this week. There will be 60+ new student spaces in that lot.
• Final inspection of Memorial Hall took place this week. There is a brief punchlist of items to address, but we expect the Center for Lifelong Learning to move in starting November 12 and Information Technology to move in starting November 19.
• Belknap is on schedule so far. The furniture is the potential holdup &endash; the order has been sent to DGS but DGS has not yet ordered from the vendor (update from Nancy Coolidge: furniture is now scheduled to arrive December 21). If there are delays in opening Belknap, the Retan renovation will be postponed until Belknap is finished. If all goes as scheduled, Retan people will be moving out at the end of this semester, and Belknap people will be moving back in the beginning of January. The priority list for finishing Belknap: classrooms, computer labs, and then offices. (Update from Nancy Coolidge: there may be problems getting all the professors' offices wired on time.)
• Straughn Hall is back in operation, and the play (Help! By Michael Weller) will open there tonight. However, water in the basement is preventing the completion of renovations for the time being.
• Grant Science Center renovations are scheduled for Spring and Summer 2003. The $2.9M budget covers improved ventilation, new windows, air conditioning, roof, and furniture.
• We have opened bids on the Maple renovation, and they came in near $2.9 M, well under the earlier estimates.
• We have received approval from the state system for major repair projects: exterior masonry work to repair tuck pointing and roof replacement for Straughn and Butler.
• The Laurel renovation should be completed by Thanksgiving.
• The "wishlist" of unfunded future projects is: 1) South Hall, 2) Allen Hall, 3) Butler, and 4) Decker.
• The new emergency management plan that has been in the works for many years is now being published. It will be available on line, but hard copies will be available in every office/department.

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D.

Student Affairs & Admissions (D. Rotella)

No report.

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E.

Information Technology (B. Holtman)

• Instructional Technology requests approved by the Provost have been delivered to all areas. This includes the implementation of 10 new technology-enhanced classrooms and a move of the Retan G-2 distance-education classroom to Doane Center.
• We are more than half way through delivery of the desktop replacements scheduled for the current fiscal year. The criteria for replacement in this round were desktops of 300mhz or less.
• At the request of the Provost's Office, I.T. has supplied information to Purchasing for the acquisition of computers and classroom technology for Belknap and Retan.
• Administrative Computing Team has made all of the changes we can anticipate for the first full web registration that begins this week. The technical issues have been far less problematic than the policy and procedural issues encountered.
• The Operations Group has automated backup and daily report processing for user offices and tested the processing changes in September.
• BlackBoard services through Shippensburg and SSHE resources have been a constant problem. Users do not see a differentiation between local and remote services any longer, but the resolution of problems are increasingly more complex as the service delivery is decentralized and the integration of services is made available by portal delivery.
• The SSHE network is now fully connected to the Internet2 backbone for research and high bandwidth applications.
• WebTrends reporting is showing an average of 42000 hits a day on our home page with about half of those hits in daytime hours and the other half in the evenings, 7 days a week. Less than 2% of those hits originate on campus. We are most frequently accessed through AOL services, accounting for about 1/4 of our traffic. Issues related to the need for accurate statistics on hits to web pages were discussed when C. Beckman reported on WebTrends results for campus site. Reports from WebTrends are evidently not suitable for general distribution.
• The Web development team has been working on 2 major projects this month. The first is a database application for education majors who are doing off-campus teaching assignments and the second is a student payroll timesheet project for the accounting division.
• The My.Mansfield delivery portal was introduced with course forms and campus email services in September. My.Mansfield is the portal for secured services from the Mansfield web. Look for continued development in this area.
• The Graduate Catalog is now available online.
• Technical Services has been working on testing a new product for lab delivery called Clean Slate. This product is not a replacement for Fortres, but may give us some new flexibility for shared computer use delivery.
• As a group, the I.T. Division is working with the Physical Plant and Construction Office to prepare for the relocation of Belknap and Retan personnel and classrooms, as well as our own move with CLL to Memorial Hall. The Data Center will also move in late December. We look forward to our new home. IT welcomes visits from campus during University Days, when it will be showing off the new facility in Memorial. The logistics of moving into this building as well as in and out of others involved in renovations were discussed; moves are expected to being shortly after exams in December. Minimal disruption of service is planned when servers are moved. Faculty members may sign up for use of Memorial classrooms as need arises.
• The SSHE shared administrative system is still in the information gathering stage with local campuses. Focus is currently on the Financial Services portions of the system.
• Issues relevant to proposed testing lab were discussed. W. Yacovissi will work on draft of needs assessment questionnaire to be sent out to faculty.
• C. Beckman advised that there was currently no adequate filter to convert MS Works files into MS Word or Excel. Instructors who require submission of work on disk need to be sure students understand how to save documents in a readable format if the students use Works.
  
  

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F.

Library Advisory (M. Syrett)

Focus groups to assess library service will be interviewed next week.

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G.

Provost (N. Cooledge for M. Lane)

Reminder to all advisors that prior to Fall 2000, upper division courses were numbered at 300 or above, that for Fall 2000 &endash; Summer 2001 upper division courses included courses numbered 251 and above and that beginning Fall 2001, all courses 260 and above are considered upper division.

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VI.

Old Business

None.

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VII.

New Business

None.

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VIII.

Meeting adjourned at 4:46 p.m. (Chester/Keller).

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Respectfully Submitted,

Scott A. Davis
Vice President of Senate
Secretary of the Day