Present:

Present: J. Murphy, R. Timko, C. Moulton, T. Doerksen, P. Savoye, K. Thorne, J. Philips, D. Siegart, R. Stender, C. Hoy, V. Jenkins, S. Stein, M. Gaballa, D. McKee, T. Murphy, W. Keeth, F. Chua, M. Syrett, P. Junius, I. Newman, S. Brown, J. Mansfield, J. Purk, T. Madigan.

I.

Meeting called to order at 3:35.
Minutes of April 20, 2006 accepted as corrected.
Correction: Under III. Announcements - President's actions for Senate March 7 meeting:
2) New course PHY 4440 Physics Practicum approved as Physics Internship (“approved as internship, not a practicum”). – should read: approved as practicum NOT internship
Motion to accept minutes of April 20 as corrected – APPROVED.
Request made for secretary to include more of discussion material in future recorded minutes.

APPROVED

II.

Treasurer's Report (D. Dietz)

No report.

To Contents

APPROVED

III.

Announcements (J. Murphy)

President’s approval of curriculum actions: President approved both changes made to Math and CIS courses (AAC motions of 4/11 which were acted on in April 20th Senate).

Presidential search - Murphy announced that the Council of Trustees decided to formally forward the third name on the list; it is at the Board of Governors. The board meets May 11, they will decide which one of the three to offer the position to. Murphy expressed concern that someone might drop out at such a late date; there was no concern from board.

To Contents

IV.

Committee and Other Reports

Academic Affairs (T. Doerksen)

No report.

B.

Academic Planning (P. Savoye)

No report.

To Contents

C.

Administrative Affairs & Elections

No report.

D.

Student Affairs & Admissions

No report.

E.

Information Technology (J. Philips)

No report.

F.

Library Advisory (H. Pieper)

No report.

Provost (M. Renner)

No report.

V.

Old Business

Murphy: Campus Announcement Network (CAN) – Goes out at least 10 days before AAC discusses or before it comes to Senate. In those 10 days senators take issue to departments/constituents for discussion, then senator comes with a vote representing the department. In interim senators inform AAC of concerns. It is hard to function if there are surprises at Senate. If and when there are concerns, tell the chair of AAC.
McEvoy: Gen Ed motions did go to CAN; a concern was raised and addressed.

1. Motion from Academic Affairs Committee
“Request from Associate Provost to have a section on the course approval forms to identify and distinguish how dual listed courses separate requirements for graduate vs. undergraduate students. … a written syllabus that differentiates the one course/assessments from the other, so it can be clearly distinguished what grads do above and beyond undergrads.”

Discussion:
This is a change in the wording of the course change form. This is to provide evidence that students are working at the graduate level

Motion PASSED

2. Reconsider (requested by Timko): Revision in the Method of Data Collection for the Assessment of General Education

W. Keeth: Question on parliamentary procedure: request to reconsider may only be made by a member who voted on prevailing side, and on same day. Motion must be made by someone who voted. Timko did not vote.
J. Murphy/R. Timko: Motion to reconsider may be made in the next meeting.
R.Timko: Motion was invalid. There was no clear understanding of what the motion was as it was presented.

RT: Proposal: reconsider method of data collection.
WK: Is this a proposal that is different from the one already brought forward? Or should we move to go back to the committee?

Proposal: R.Timko: to reconsider a different method of data collection for Gen Ed assessment, minus the amendment from the library, that was voted on last time (2nd: M. Syrett).

PASSED

Discussion:

K. Thorne: Did we ever determine how many students owed us portfolios this spring?

They are due by graduating class of 2007. We have to have all of those grads for 2007 have them in by end of fall 06 according to regulations. We have about 10% of what that might be.

How many transfer students have submitted?

WK: objection based on parliamentary procedure - discussion is not related to the matter at hand which is a move to reconsider. We should be debating the validity of reconsidering. Wants a clear definition of what the reconsideration is. If it is a new proposal it should go in the CAN.

RT: Proposal: the current method of students voluntary submitting portfolios for assessment be replaced by proposed, as discussed by AAC, by new method - faculty collection. That is minus the amendment added last time

J. Mansfield: does this new motion need to go through CAN process?

What is being discussed/voted on is what we had last time, minus the amendment. It already went through the CAN process.

M. Syrett (Library): Proposed amendment on section dealing with Information Literacy test, library can’t promise in future that they will give a SAILS test, but they can talk about what they have done…

Revision proposed: Used standardized assessments of student’s literacy skills, SAILS, literacy skills has been administered to classroom samples of University seniors by library faculty. Results are tabulated by SAILS administrater, GES assessment committee and library faculty interpreted the results in terms of relevance to Gen Ed program goals. (2nd, Timko)

Discussion:

WK: what is different than last time?

MS: Change is all in the past tense, it already happened and may not happen again.

T. Murphy: would like to speak against the amendment

WK: Objection - this is splitting hairs, and may prove damaging to the Senate process in the long run if this kind of precedent is set.

T. Murphy: Isn’t it normal when a motion fails that it goes back to the committee and they present a new motion?

JM: yes

TM: Why hasn’t that happened?

JM: Felt like maybe mistakes were made in the last meeting and wanted to allow more discussion.

RT: There has been precedent for bringing actions back to floor; it happened under Information Literacy proposals in Gen Ed several years ago and in several other occasions when at the next meeting a motion that had passed was brought back to the floor under the same kinds of conditions; the vote actually changed. There are members of this body who I believe will concur.

Question of whether to vote on amendment: PASSED

TM: things were very clear last meeting and the meeting was run according to parliamentary procedure there was a variety of discussion, and the resolution failed.

WK: Roberts Rules: “No member may speak twice on the same occasion at the same meeting as long as no other member has had their first opportunity to speak. Unless the rules are suspended a member who has spoken twice on a particular question on the same day has exhausted his or her right to debate.” J. Murphy was more generous than the rules.

RT: Speaking in favor of adoption of this change in data collection… We are not debating that we have to have Gen Ed assessment, this has already been accepted by the body, only the method of collection. This has been proposed because we will fail to meet our own criteria if we don’t do so. When we look at the amount of data that we must collect by the December 2006 date and the response we’ve had so far, there is a very clear probability that we will not meet our goals when it comes time to submit evidence for Mid-States accreditation procedures. As the rules of this collection are concerned it only immediately affects, for 2007, 2 departments and 2 programs, most other depts. won’t be affected until 2008/9 and 10… giving them ample opportunity.

TM: Speaking against motion – this represents a fundamental shift in the way we are assessing; this crisis came up because we were afraid of not having sufficient data. We are defining assessment to narrowly. We have put together a plan that has coherence, the basis is assessing student performance based on what students do. Part of that is including student’s choice and participation. If we shift from student input to faculty input and eliminate student choice and student decision then we have eliminated part of the assessment process. If we define assessment by counting little things rather than looking at the process …If we act to correct those problems by engaging students and faculty in the process of building portfolios more actively and aggressively, integrating the idea of building portfolios and more of us can invest in this process that becomes a way of the assessment as a feedback process. If Middle States comes in and sees that we are engaged in that process of trying to improve our assessment, it seems that will indicate a good faith effort on our part. If faculty and students invest in the process together, we have a feedback process. We ought to give it a bigger shot; it takes more time than we have given it.

WK: Speaking against motion. The main goal of Middle States according to the document which they gave called “ Characteristics of Excellence” is institutional AND student assessment, with the end outcome evidence. Outcome evidence: if you take standard 13, the institutional assessment, the institution can be assessed by identifying whether or not the students who are not prepared to be at the university are being identified and are getting help, whether you are creating a check list of basic skills for courses, and whether there is an analysis of student support services for those that cannot manage at that level. Institutional assessment, as an alternative means, can make use of placement testing or a review of programs such as UNV 100. If we review UNV 100, we would have outcome evidence for the institutional side of assessment. If we look at student assessment as proposed by Middle States, there is a process where you list the outcome goals (which we have), have a course designed to meet the outcomes (which we’re trying to do) and assessment of achievement, divided in 2 ways: goals clearly listed and explained in the syllabi and whether or not the students are actually achieving them, which is the final portfolio collection. The final step is improving the teaching on campus and the students understanding the benefits of doing the portfolio. Are the goals public? Is the institution’s resources being organized to better them? Have we organized our resources here to promote the portfolio? Institutional resources are not being devoted adequately to this aim. In this process the results become meaningful to the students and their learning. If we take away the responsibility of collecting articles away from students, what are they learning? We are disconnecting them from the process and what we are collecting is institutional assessment not student assessment.

Each GenEd course should provide one outcome. Are we failing there? Have we given them enough knowledge of what they should put in their portfolios and are we providing them with the opportunity to reflect on those artifacts. Is there a clear definition of student expectations? Is there a clear link between course content and GenEd goals? Information Literacy skills should be built into the course. Perhaps turning in a portfolio electronically would fulfill technological competency requirement.
Cross curriculum collaboration is another MidStates recommendation – we must work together, encourage thinking skills used in one area to be used in other areas. Syllabi should have outcomes listed.

K. Thorne: Not convinced there is a problem yet. Students tend to wait until the absolute deadline to turn things in. Could we wait until this is broken until we decide to fix it?

D. Siegart: Am not a voting member of senate anymore, but will probably be the one in charge of collecting the 600-700 portfolios. Am not opposed to the idea of a student portfolio, but is opposed to collecting 600 to 700 of them. How is she going to collect these without chasing the students down?

V. Jenkins: whichever proposal we decide to do – we should all understand what we are supposed to do, how it’s supposed to be done and that everyone buys into it. It should be clear to both faculty and students what is supposed to be done. There has been a lack of understanding with both students and faculty what the process is.

M. Syrett: the goals are good but it involves a lot of voluntary work on the part of faculty, you have to put things in the syllabus, work with the students... No one likes to be assessed. We looked at syllabi last year from Gen Ed course and no one had any of the stuff in there so a student wouldn’t know what they are supposed to do. Only one syllabus sampled was built in a way that it was supposed to be. It hasn’t worked. Faculty is responsible, we are the ones who passed this, it comes down to us, not the students.

F. Chua: speaking against motion - in our department there has been improvement, an increase in the collection of artifacts, students are following thru. He is speaking FOR the old system, student driven portfolios.

T. Doerksen: speaking against motion – syllabi sampled earlier may not show evidence of portfolio requirements. Did not have information in syllabus, however she addressed the portfolio requirement in class quite clearly. Addressed portfolios for 2 days in class, used Blackboard, showed examples, etc. The requirement is NOW in her syllabus and was added after the note from P Keller said it was a requirement. Thinks other faculty may have done the same. She is speaking in favor of maintaining student participation in the process, showing Middle States according to their own assessment criteria that students understand how their courses interconnect.

Bill: learning curve has been very steep. He teaches mostly Gen Ed classes. Signatures on cover sheets has increases exponentially.

A. McEvoy: Speaking in favor of motion: this is NOT a change of assessment, just the process. We are still assessing the same thing. What they have is Un- assessable. The process is not random, students are turning in best work, they are supposed to turn in just work (poor as well as great), this should be random collection. We are assessing the program as a whole not the student’s capacity to do great work. If we can’t assess the assessment, what we have is useless, maybe damaging. If Middle States came right now, all we have is a handful of portfolios. Faculty are not doing what they were asked to do, goals have not been communicated. We are not assessing students, we are assessing programs, it has to come from a Gen Ed program level.

RT: we are not debating philosophy of assessment, but method of collecting data – there is no evidence that if the process were faculty driven that it would not involve students, students are still making the artifacts.

JM: no minds have been changed. Welcomes an objection; calls for a vote.

WK: Objection

JM: Show of hands: How many want to call the question? 14

Who does not want to call the question? 1

JM: We’ll call the vote.

Voting on the change of method of data collection from old method student of submission of portfolios to a new Faculty driven method. Aye is for the change.
R Timko: Yea
T Doerksen: Nay
P Savoye: No
J Phillips: Yea
R Stender: Yea
C Hoy: Nay
V Jenkins: Yea
S Stein: Nay
M Gaballa: Yes
T Murphy: No
W Keeth: No
K Thorne: No
F Chua: No
M Syrett (for Amber):Yes
I Newman: Yes
S Brown: Yes
J Purk: Yes

9 Yes
8 No
(Some members left earlier)

Do we have a quorum? Yes, more than 50 percent

Motion PASSES

Other Old Business:

A. McEvoy: UNV 1100 – was it approved?

J. Murphy: Yes, the First Year Experience subcommittee is now an official Senate Subcommitte.

VI.

New Business

None.

VII.

T Murphy: move to adjourn
Meeting adjourned: 4:41 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Moulton
Secretary of Senate