Present:

Present: K.S.Young, B. Holtman, F. Blanco, P. Savoye, F. Craig, J. Benjamin, L. Rashidi, S. Holderby, M. Lane, B. Manavizadeh, B, T. Elsasser, M. Gaballa, B. Ganong, J. Tan, A. Longoria, N. Werner-Burke, T. Murphy, W. Keeth, M. Materese, K. Guenther for J. Bosworth, A. Johnson, D. Dietz, D. Crowder, I. Newman, S. Brown, J. Mansfield, M. Moore.

I.I.

III.

B. Holtman called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. Minutes of September 23, 2004 were approved (B. Ganong/F. Blanco).

APPROVED

IIII.

Treasurer's Report (B. Holtman)

The current account balance is $690. Two years ago at this time, it was $1300. Thanks to those who have given more than $10.

To Contents

APPROVED

IV.

Announcements

1. Athletic Advisory Board needs 2 faculty volunteers. Meet Tuesdays at 1:00
2. R. Keller no longer wants to be chair of the Advising Resource Group. Let Rhonda know if you are interested.
3. Copies of the Password are available at the library desk and Shari Clarke’s office.
4. President Halstead conveyed regrets that he had another meeting.

To Contents

V.

Committee Reports

A.

Academic Affairs (F. Blanco)

No report.

To Contents

B.

Academic Planning (P. Savoye)

Meeting tomorrow about the minor in management/BSE in Bio is delayed until Friday the 15th.

C.

Administrative Affairs & Elections (J. Benjamin)

Election results out. IT—Francis Craig, Election Committee—Amber Johnson. AAC has a run-off between S. Brown and D. Rotella. Waiting to hear from J. Maslar about the election ballot. Committee meeting on Oct. 22nd.

D.

Student Affairs & Admissions (S. Holderby)

No leads on the stolen computers in the library. Remaining small computers are locked down. Opportunity should be gone for additional thefts.

E.

Information Technology (F. Craig)

There were beginning of the semester blackboard problems. Consult T. Bastian for questions about using and Eric Zeglan @ PASSHE about system complaints.
Reminder for everyone to use email carefully to avoid viruses.
Four copyright violations on campus computers during the first week of school.
Reminder not to share passwords with students and student workers. Reminder
that hardware failures are happening—be sure to back up files.
New graphic arts computers are available.
Turnitin.com is still not available but will be. No information about how the plagiarism software handles foreign language.
PDF writing software may be here.

F.

Library Advisory (L. Rashidi)

If anyone has concerns about the library, please let her know.

.

Provost (M. Lane)

• Business and CIS/IS must be accredited or lost. This means a number of new faculty must be hired. However, it makes no sense to lose the programs.
• Three brown bag lunches have been held to talk about the restructuring of the associate provost position. In 1989 we had 2400 students when the first person was appointed to this position. Now we have 3556 students. He has appointed a faculty task force to make 3 recommendations by December for the structure of academic affairs. Scott Davis and Nancy Seidell with 4 chairs and 3 faculty will compose the committee.
• Department restructuring has been discussed since May. If you have a contribution to the task force, please participate in the discussion board.
• Financial impetus for dept. mergers. Chairs get 3 credit hours for summer pay. Two years ago this was $27,000. With the new contract last year it was $136,000.
• Wants logical mergers that will capitalize on synergy. Wants volunteer mergers. Chairs should be talking to their departments.
• Any academic changes must be to F. Blanco by noon on the 23rd of Nov. Graduate catalog is more flexible. It would help the committee if you can hold off on graduate catalog changes. All dates for deadlines are driven by printer deadlines.
• A. Longoria said faculty retiring was supposed to free up resources. Asked about adding new people rather than bringing back programs. M. Lane said we need various positions: 1 in CIS, gen. ed. Positions, Video graphics, 5 people in business, etc.
• W. Keeth asked about another way to control costs for summer besides mergers. M. Lane said there was no way to do this.
• Must add 125 business majors to justify hiring 5 people. M. Lane is working on a plan that will outlay what resources we need for every 25 new students we bring in.
• L. Rashidi asked if we are moving toward more business/vocational programs and away from arts and liberal studies. M. Lane said no, our only choice is accredit or lose the programs. No intent or design to lose the arts.
• M.Lane confirmed that we are going to increase the student body. He stated as long as the PASSHE system grows, we must grow also to keep getting funding.
• M. Lane stated we need to get out of increasing 1st year class each year. Need to focus on retention.
• More talk about business major. M. Lane stated they are in a reasonable balance now. Some concerns voiced over whether increasing business majors will take majors away from other areas. M. Lane assured that we will continue to grow. Our problem is that we lose too much of our freshman class.
• T. Elsasser asked if we are wasting money teaching UNV if we are losing so many first year students. M. Lane reported that UNV has increased retention overall by 1% and this is the first year it has gone down.
• A. Longoria asked how many students we lose because they drop a course (down from 13 credits) and then lose financial aid. M. Lane stated that first semester students have priority registration for spring. They can get 15-17 credits then to make up. He also stated he doesn’t have the capacity to give all first year students 15 credits. Hopes to increase this later.
• M. Lane confirmed there is talk about some major no longer being required to take UNV 1100.
• W. Keeth asked about the possibility of promotional videos for every dept and would there be an equal admissions push for everyone or will some departments get left behind. M. Lane said the videos cost 6K to produce so they only target those areas that will pull in the most and pay off the video.

VI.

Old Business

1. Faculty Assembly is coming up, October 29th 4pm, in the planetarium. J. Murphy is still accepting agenda items. Need a quorum to pass the amendments to the constitution. Please encourage faculty to attend.
2. Convocation changes to make it more scripted and run more smoothly.

VII.

New Business

1. Some complaints about how convocation is scheduled. Looking at alternatives. M. Lane makes decision about what to do on first day of class. Senate decides how to run convocation. Talking about classes on Monday and picnic/convocation on Tuesday. Discussion went in many directions. M.Lane said he would schedule a brown bag to talk about options. Must be decided by December.
2. Drop/Adds will be shifted to electronics. There will be no wait lists because we can’t manage them electronically. Students will add on a first come/first serve basis through webadvisor. Adding people over the cap will still be done on paper. M. Lane confirmed that faculty will not be in control of who gets in the class. T. Elsasser brought up that this will solve the problem of faculty refusing to sign people in. K.S. Young asked about shortening add/drop since this will be done electronically. M. Lane said that would be difficult because they have to wait to confirm no-show students. They are still working to see whether the electronic process will work for spring.
3. A. Longoria announced that there will be a presentation in Alumni Hall, Room 317 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Friday, October 15, 2004. Dave Marra, Apple Senior Systems Engineer, will demonstrate iMac G5, Power Mac G5, eMac, iBook and PowerBook. All computers will be running on an AirPort Extreme wireless network. Marra will also demonstrate an iPod and an iPod mini.

VIII.

Remarks for the Good of the Order

None.

IX.

Meeting adjourned at 4:45 p.m. (J.Benjamin/F. Craig).

Respectfully submitted,
K. Sue Young
Secretary of Senate