Present:

Present: C. Burns, S. Brown, K. Carico, L. Cass, F. Chua, D. Crowder, D. Dietz, J. Floyd, M. Gaballa, A. Gaskievicz, C.Hoy, H. Iseri, V. Jenkins, A. Johnson, B. Keeth, P. Keller, T. Kiessling, J. Murphy, T. Murphy, I. Newman, C. Pérez, P. Savoye, D. Seigart, R. Stanley, R. Stender, S. Stein, K. Thorne, N. Werner-Burke

I.

C. Burns called the meeting to order at 3:34 pm. Minutes for September 22 were approved as corrected (C. Hoy/A. Brown)

APPROVED

II.

Treasurer's Report (D. Dietz)

$352.56

To Contents

APPROVED

III.

Announcements

1. Second call for volunteers for the Hearing Board; only one person has come forward.
2. M. Whitehouse: 1) New show opening in the gallery: “The Family Portrait;” 2) Multicultural arts event on October 27 and 28 for students and faculty. Contact Mardi (mwhiteho@mansfield.edu) for a brochure; please encourage student participation.
   
   

To Contents

IV.

Committee and Other Reports

Academic Affairs (J. Floyd)

Motion 1: Program Change Proposal: Mathematics and CIS.

Change: Reduce physics requirement from two semesters to one to provide flexibility and variety in our program and to bring it more in line with other [PA] SSHE mathematics B.S.E. program. Remove the requirement of PHY 2210 and PHY 2211 and replace it with PHY 1191 or PHY 2210. Total credits required drops from 123 to 121. Motion carried.

B.

Academic Planning (P. Savoye)

Last Friday the committee was briefed on progress toward accreditation. No actions to put forward tomorrow. Next meeting: Friday the 12th at 8:00 am, 5th Floor North Hall. Open for those interested in hearing the accreditation update.

To Contents

C.

Administrative Affairs & Elections (A. Johnson for S. Holderby)

Met this last week. From M. Reid:

• Anticipating balanced budget. Received almost $500,000 more in performance funding. Exceeded in total credits per FTE, instructional faculty, and % of faculty who are minority as compared to our peer institutions, and master’s cost per FTE student
• Construction project update: South Hall - renovation out for bid; Allen Hall - architect contacted and the design phase should begin soon. Key 93 funds are allocated for work around campus; projects include, but are not limited to, the swimming pool and bleachers in Decker and the Planetarium.
• S. Davis and L. Rashidi elected as representatives on Presidential Search Committee.
• Committee nominations closed on the 5th, but S. Holderby has not received enough. Please suggest to faculty the following: Sabbatical Committee - one year and two year replacement; must be tenured and cannot be from the history, languages and literature, psychology, or music. Professional Committee - one year replacement, non-teaching. Student Affairs - two year replacement. Need not be tenure-track. Cannot be from history.
• Smoking on campus needs to be addressed and needs involvement of campus community; therefore, a new task force is being formed to develop a smoking policy. If interested, contact someone on AAEC. Hoping to have representation from several departments. K. Thorne and V. Jenkins volunteered to be on the task force. D. Seigart suggested H. Biblehimer.
• Parking: Cannot build any new parking lots. Serious suggestions to address parking problems should be forwarded to M. Reid.

D.

Student Affairs & Admissions (L. Labuski-Brown)

No report.

E.

Information Technology (A. Gaskievicz)

Met last week and discussed the following:

• Turnitin.com has been reinstalled (our version of Blackboard could not sustain it) and can be now be used. T. Bastion is scheduling training sessions; questions should be directed to her. Next step is to configure it so it can be used outside Blackboard. S. Kasparek will be the contact at that point.
• JSTORE: current proposal is in Harrisburg: PASSHE will decide. A. Johnson heard two days ago that we were funded.
• Wireless is to be completed soon.
• Status of SAP: not a good system. SAP will cost 4 times more than the current systems, not counting ancillary systems which must be created or purchased separately. SAP is not designed for universities, but for business. Does this come out of our budget? P. Keller: We return money to the state system to cover costs. L. Cass: Some schools are interested because they have nothing in place electronically. For us, though, it’s a backwards step.
• Availability of Help Desk on weekends. No budget or personnel for this.
• Computer labs on campus and why some are more locked down than others: FORTRESS system locked down parts; IT is in process of conversion to Centurion Guard.

A. Gaskievicz opened up the floor for questions or comments from group.

• Both in Belknap and Retan: Network copy of Microsoft Office suite vanishing.
• Eudora icons need to be removed; occupying memory. A. Gaskievicz: Call IT to send a tech person to remove it.
• For those using PDA’s: is there a way to connect to wireless that would be PDA accessible? Security system is so steep that wireless connections for PDA seem to be prohibited. A. Gaskievicz will check.

F.

Library Advisory (A. Gaskievicz)

Met last week with S. Dimarco. Concern about lack of staffing in Library; only five full-time librarians and few staff. Projects: Invite a speaker/scholar to come to campus for an all-day workshop in a particular discipline using the library as a resource. Resurrect the film series. D. Seigart: Film series is part of faculty lecture series which she, Matt Syrett, and Adrienne McEvoy are working on.

Provost (P. Keller for M. Renner)

Dr. Renner is ill today. Issues raised:

• New e-advising feature in WebAdvisor that will change how we register students. L. Cass gave a demo this week to chairs and will be alerting other faculty in near future. The previous check-off system for advisors was a locally developed module, and with E-advisor, it is no longer available. Faculty should print out advisees and check off their names when they visit. Advisors should also use the triplicate sheet, sign, and have students sign; copies go to faculty, student, and records office.

Discussion: Concerns and questions centered on the following:

• Students will not come to see advisors once they hear that advisors do not have to check off names before advisees can register. What if a student never visits the advisor, and we don’t have the triplicate course planning sheet? Do we contact records or check individual schedules? Are there any consequences? Response from P. Keller: The University expectation is that all advisors will use the triplicate sheet. If students do not make an appointment, contact the student by e-mail. If that doesn’t work, it is still up to the advisor to contact student. The Registrar’s Office no longer has the capacity to lock out a student. The consequences when students do not respond depend on the culture. Planning tools in E-advising are superb. If advisors use them, students will have a better picture of the curriculum in which they are enrolled. L. Cass will give workshops for faculty.
• Is the step forward is worth the step backward? All the planning tools are useless unless the students have to come in to see the advisors.
• Faculty workload is also a concern.
• Very difficult for those who have 60+ advisees
• Can students sign up for more than 18 hours? Response from P. Keller: No.
• Can students sign up for courses that conflict? P. Keller: No. All the regular checks are there and shouldn’t happen.
• Some students have been enrolling in a 101 and the subsequent 102 in the same semester. Becoming common. P. Keller: We can’t have a prerequisite because students who waive the 100 level couldn’t get in the 200 level course.
• Has anyone revisited the issue of having it programmed so if they haven’t taken 090, they can’t take a W, or if they haven’t taken 090 math they can’t take a regular math? This new system will make that worse. P. Keller: Though we’re not thrilled, there is no software solution.
• Will we be working through “My Advisees?”
• Could we do micromanaging student by student? P. Keller: No.
• Is there a connection between Outlook Express and this? Would it be possible that when a student registers, the advisor will be notified? L. Cass: When you go into the plan, you can check the box that you have reviewed the plan.
• From a student’s perspective, if the courses were offered more often in the semesters, it would be possible to do as agreed upon. Also, in order for students to get registered in the Communications Department, we have to have certain tasks done: portfolio, video, etc. Maybe that could work for other departments. Response from P. Keller: Each department has its own set of expectations around advising.
• Is the issue of incomplete portfolios addressed? P. Keller: We are collecting portfolios and the General Education committee is looking at the assessment process.
• What about going back to the PIN? L. Cass: When we went to online registration, the first thing she heard is faculty were losing control. Then we had so many advisees that we didn’t want control. Only in last few semesters have we had the check-off system. We could still randomize the PIN. Problem is faculty members who forget their PINs can’t reset them themselves.
• If we don’t get the undeclared students in, the students may lose ground by taking courses they don’t need because they listened to friends.
• Are the triplicate forms in? P. Keller: They will be delivered to secretaries. And whatever the system, we must all emphasize the essential nature of completing the triplicate form. We will continue discussion, but we’re closing in very fast on registration.
• Another issue from P. Keller: We are in planning process for summer school, looking at various scheduling options, e.g. 3-3-5; 6-5, 11, the major change being an 11-week total program. We are still exploring the idea of offering free room and maybe 2 meals per day for those who take a full summer load and live on campus during that time. We need to ramp up summer school both on campus and online. Have made gains online. No guarantees, but serious discussion.

Discussion:

• What is a full load? P. Keller: 3 in 3 weeks; 6 in longer session; 12 across the summer.
• What is the benefit in terms of the institution v. academic program integrity? With some courses, the more you condense the less effective they are. P. Keller: We could offer courses across more than one session. There are academic issues when compressing courses into 3 weeks. We do not want students to take 9 credits in three weeks, nor have faculty teach that many. The question now is “What is reasonable for students to take and faculty to teach?”
• Faculty and students like to be out of the last summer session as early in August as possible. P. Keller: Looking at other models with successful 5-week sessions. Not settled; discussions related to languages and sciences. May have a variable configuration. Used to have 6 and 6. First 6 weeks graduate students in education are teaching. Some want to do compacted courses. We do need at least a week to get things cleaned up e.g. hearing board, residence hall.
• A lot of students want to go during the first 3 and then work the rest of the summer. After that first 6 weeks, they want to go home and work. That’s why online courses are so effective.
• The housing idea will diminish the negatives of housing costs. Tremendous costs prevent students from taking classes.
• Will work study be available? Can students leave their things in their rooms? P. Keller: Should try and design it so that can be done. Come all summer; use your room all summer. First 120 would be using Pinecrest. After that, would have to use a different floor.
• In the summer, it is our opportunity to be creative and inventive. We could think about 6-week immersion program in Spanish; could increase FTEs for the year, which would help the university for funding.
• This could also mean the professors would be paid less than if they were teaching regularly. P. Keller: We are working on a sliding scale based on enrollment. We’re not close to agreement; there is interest on part of APSCUF and management. Want to cancel as few as possible. FTE means as much in the summer as in the regular year. Summer school is not a huge cash cow.
• Are we marketing this to everyone? We could be recruiting those from Bloomsburg, CCC, anywhere.

Other issues from P. Keller:

• Mid-term grades are coming up; finalizing schedules.
• Mid-term reports are an expectation of the institution. The Dean will be following up with faculty who do not do them.

V.

Old Business

1. Honorary degree—Council of Trustees to meet on October 14 at 2:00 pm to consider our recommendation

VI.

New Business

1. The room (AHUB 301) is more conducive to group discussion and the climate is better. If this room is available, we’ll let you know.
2. Discussion on difficulty a faculty member experienced connecting with a person in the Admissions Office; the answering machine message seems to be the only response. P. Keller will inquire.
3. A concern was raised about an incident when campus police were not considered professional in their response to a faculty member. P. Keller: There are 10 police officers on campus. Any problems concerning campus police should be discussed with C. Shegan.
   
   

VII.

Adjournment at 4:45 pm (S. Brown/J. Floyd)

Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Carico
Interim Senate Secretary