Present:

Present: J. Murphy, R. Timko, C. Moulton, D. Dietz, T. Doerksen, L. Labuski-Brown, P. Savoye, K. Thorne, H. Pieper, J. Philips, M. Renner, P. Keller, D. Siegart, R. Stender B. Alderfer, L. Bruce C. Hoy, V. Jenkins, C. Geroux, S. Hensley, A. Ghods, B. Ganong, D. McKee, A. Longoria, N. Werner-Burke, B. Barton, W. Keeth, K. Thorne, M. Materese, F. Chua, S. Kasperek, L. Iseri, N, Rinnert, I. Newman, S. Brown, J. Fenn, R. Keller, A. Molla, M. Moore

I.

Meeting called to order at 3:34.
Approval of University Senate minutes of May 4, 2006:
Corrections: adjournment time was 4:41, not 3:41.
Correction of spelling of McEvoy (under Other Old Business).
Change in voting roster from J. Mansfield to J. Phillips.
Minutes of May 4, 2006 accepted as corrected (McKee/Ghods).

TD: Was our last vote on the change in data collection for the GenEd portfolio a change in curricular action? Are students allowed to vote in that process?
JM: The motion not to allow students to vote in that process was never passed.

APPROVED

II.

Treasurer's Report (D. Dietz)

No report, Senate dues $10. Make check to “Faculty Assembly Dues.”
Account has $103.

To Contents

APPROVED

III.

Announcements (J. Murphy)

Carmen Bianco looking for faculty volunteers for student hearing board for student violations, or any type of hearings. Please contact Carmen Bianco.

October 5 Senate meeting will not meet here (because of PACT conference), will meet in 107 Memorial (tiered technology room).

Starting in spring semester, because of class schedule change, senate will meet at 4 pm, not 3:30.

President’s approval of curriculum actions:
President did approve the 2 actions (changing the form to identify how a graduate course is different from an undergraduate course, and the revision of collection of data for Gen Ed portfolios)

To Contents

IV.

Committee and Other Reports

Academic Planning (P. Savoye)

No report.

B.

Administrative Affairs & Elections (K. Thorne)

There is a runoff for election for place on Administrative Affairs Committee – email will be sent. Please vote.

To Contents

C.

Student Affairs & Admissions (L. Labuski-Brown)

Attended staff meeting of restructured Student Affairs. Working with Jim Harrington and the committee on what role this committee will take in restructuring. They discussed about how the SA committee’s role will be assessed according to the spring Success Task Report.

JM: The function of our committees is a 2 way function– to get info from aspects of University to pass along to the senate, and to bring concerns of the senate to those aspects of the University through the representatives. Recommends getting Jim Harrington and/or Carmen Bianco on the SA committee..

D.

Information Technology (J. Philips)

Connie Beckman is out of town. Invited Alan Johnson, John Maslar and Bill Phillips to present info and address questions:

A. Johnson: Blackboard is updated; there are challenges - scripting is finishing but services are not getting started at 4 am like they should be. MU is one of the first universities to call Sytec about this problem. Problems include things like addition of new students. “Forte” is not up, has not processed normally; sporadic problems with slowness (mostly other schools on the system). They have implemented another server so that our webpage will have login 1 and 2 that should handle additional load.

J. Maslar: all students now have an account through Microsoft hotmail, 40-50 freshman don’t have an inbox yet, they have not activated or created their account yet; IT is attempting to contact those students. Question of the difference between @mounties.mansfield or just mansfield.edu – an email to any student with just @mansfield.edu should get through to their mounties account. mnsfld.edu will only work for older students not freshman, IT is phasing that out. Mail will come here to Manfield’s IT first then to hotmail. The most trouble has been online students in the summer. There is a website for students with info for anyone who is having a problem with email.

Maslar came in and restarted the server, addressing the problem with emails through Blackboard over Labor Day weekend.

B. Keeth: student complaints – if you lose password, if there is not a prior account, there is nowhere for the password to be sent and they can’t get in. Some don’t have an alternate email address. Maslar: they must provide an alternate email account. Instructions are provided for students to reset their password. There is a video on line to guide students through the process step by step. Students may also go to “my account” that has all the directions to set up account or reset password.

B. Phillips: telecommunications and infrastructure problems over the summer have been resolved

Maslar: webadvisor email - in about 2 weeks all emails will go to the mounties account and mansfield account will be phased out. Any students without a password send to HELP desk. All mansfield.edu, including recent graduates, will eventually go to hotmail (mounties address).
Returning student emails go to old mansfield account and mounties account; at end of month no new mail will go to mansfield, all will go to mounties account. All blackboard emails will continue to work and go to mounties account.

E.

Library Advisory (H. Pieper)

No report.

F.

Provost (M. Renner)

New class schedule effective spring 2007 - Tues./Thurs. schedule: 1st session starts 8:30-9:45, 2nd session is 10:00-11:15, 3rd is: 11:30-12:45, afternoon session 2:30-3:45. The meeting time allowed is 12:45-2:30.
This adds one class session to the T/Th schedule and should ease congestion.
There is a 15 minute allowance between sessions. 12:45 meeting times don’t have to start right on time, as that whole period between classes is for meetings.
Because of significant congestion with the current schedule there appeared to be no compelling reason to wait to implement this change.

Search process to replace dean of faculty and interim associate provost has begun. Asking Senate to elect two members for each committee.

Enrollment: a year ago changes were made in record keeping of student enrollment. It took awhile to identify students who weren’t here but were still on the books; last year the number’s leading up to the freeze date had some inflation. It is now up to date; the records have been fixed; students who were in system are now out. No numbers will be final this year until freeze date.

Academic Affairs (T. Doerksen)

Old Business:

Earlier proposal for students applying for minors: In no case may a student apply for more than 6 credit hours overlap between an academic major and an academic minor…

The key objection in AAC is that most of the courses are 4 credit courses, so the 6 credit limit limits the sciences to a single course and most of the humanities and social sciences to 2 courses.

The revision is 8 credits:

A minor consists of no less than 15 and no more than 24 related credit hours in an approved program of study. The minor is a clearly defined area of study that is sufficiently distinct from a student’s academic major to qualify for recognition on the transcript. Students may apply up to 8 credits from the core discipline of their major to an academic minor. Students must attain a minimum 2.0 cumulative quality point average (QPA) in all courses required. (Bold indicates changed wording.)

K. Thorne: discipline is base on course prefix?
TD: it is up to dean if there is a question for interdisciplinary major – if there is a degree of flux. In most cases prefix is a good way to look at it.

Discussion: QPA is now GPA

Creative writing has a different prefix and is outside of core discipline (does not count for ENG). Depts. know which count as core discipline.

Students must complete at least 50% of required minor coursework at Mansfield University.

All in favor of motion: PASSED.

V.

Old Business

None.

VI.

New Business

None.

VII.

Adjournment: meeting adjourned 4:40 (Ghods/Hoy).

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Moulton
Secretary of Senate