Present:

J. Murphy, R. Timko, C. Hoy (for D. Mason), H. Iseri (for L. Iseri), P. Savoye (for C. D’Ortona), D. Erickson, L. Schankman, P. Junius, K. Verno, P. Keller, J. Sheehe (for M. Materese), R. Keller (for P. Richmond), T. Madigan, G. Carson, N. Werner-Burke, L. Rashidi, S. Kasperek, S. Brown, D. Monkiewicz, S. Stein, J. Sim, R. Stanley (for M. Jones), V. Jenkins, K. Thorne, M. Moore, T. Murphy, W. Keeth, N. Rinnert, C. Moulton

J. Murphy called the meeting to order at 4:02.

Approval of University Senate minutes of February 21, 2008:

Corrections to last page of minutes:

Change: MR: The senate job is to act on approve this particular curriculum.

Delete: LS: we’re voting 1st for a “real” course then going on-line later. A   course must be approved as a course through senate.

Approved with corrections (Timko/Rashidi)

JM: Is there a motion to take the Organizational Leadership program proposal off the table from last meeting? (Timko/Brown)

PASSED

Suggests senate address courses first, then program as a whole.

Discussion:

WK: How far does the proposed program go in duplicating the disciplines and courses already existent at MU? For instance, the Organizational Leadership seems to mimic business management, the Organizational Planning and Administration seems to overlap finance and professional writing classes, the Governance and Community Relations seems to overlap political science and marketing classes, and the Leadership Ethics clearly falls within the purview of the Philosophy department (ethics). If housed in Psych dept., is it truly interdisciplinary? Are other disciplines and faculty being invited to teach their graduate level counterpart course? As you recall, most of the interdisciplinary minors on campus, even the Leadership minor, are based on the precedent of uniting faculty from the related fields or inter-disciplines. In the case of the proposed program, this does not seem apparent. No one in my department was consulted.

DM: intent was an interdisciplinary program, decision for prefix is so it is not only under auspices of Psych dept. There is no intent for Psych to have ownership over any course. They did search for options… the program needed a home. Decision was made that Psych would be the place for this to start. It may and can go to other depts.

TM: why isn’t grad level course in ethics (for example) in philosophy dept.?

DM: it is not a pure ethics course. Content is interdisciplinary. There is nothing to prevent any one on campus in any dept. teaching any of these courses.

TM: what does interdisciplinary mean? The courses themselves have a variety of disciplines and the teachers may not have the expertise to teach them.

RT: based on his research… a course like Leadership Ethics is a basic outline. This is not a course in ethical theory, but application of certain principles accepted across disciplines. No real problem here… feels comfortable w/someone teaching outside of Philosophy dept. Feels it is preferable to use the ORL prefix.

SK: Library resources: Scott Demarco will sign off on forms, Fran Garrison is comfortable with proposal and resources.

JS: can’t wait for program to get started. Wants to use for nurse administrators.

RT: courses are interdisciplinary and would not compete with our undergrad courses.

PS: what about 5000 level courses with out pre-req or admissions criteria?

DE: they are very clear, are not written down, but will be in catalogue.

PK: students will take a theory course, it is not scaffolded but is incorporated.

WK: what would guarantee there will always be interdisciplinary communication? Renewing or changing course descriptions would require communication, no guarantee the OL committee would not take charge… sees the importance of faculty sitting in on other depts.’ classes to be up to date on the other disciplines.

DM: any changes made go through AAC, etc. just like any other course. How this will operate is no different. Leadership in and of itself is not independent from other courses but the intent is not to have every dept. at the table for every decision.

NWB: Capstone course internship seems vague – how is site supervisor chosen?

DM: we’ve done things like this before in community, the processes will be in place and the standards and procedures will develop. At the birth of Library Science these questions came up and it was worked out. These issues are important, students will not be mailing in their internship experience. We haven’t hired a director yet. Things have always changed after a program is started, it will evolve.

PK: this is a blueprint for a program. Course syllabi will be shaped to begin operations; it has to go to the council of trustees and the state. We have to approve at the macro level to allow it to take shape, then we get a director that molds the details. This is not out of the ordinary. What is new is the prefix and its home.

PS: what are the requirements applicant will need in order to be admitted?

Answer: catalogue criteria.

DM: many need leadership skills for their organization. Hopes for people already working within their field who want/need to learn how to become effective leaders in their work. Not discriminating what field they are in.

WK: Friendly amendment: Under ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP INTERNSHIP delete “student’s” so it reads: There will be an assigned site supervisor/mentor related to the student’s desired learning outcomes.

PASSED

(1 opposed)

JM: all in favor of motion to approve all the courses in the program…

PASSED

(1 abstain)

Program:

WK: What kind of enrollments are we anticipating for this to be cost effective? How much will this program cost to run? Given the new faculty position and significant reassignments (I estimate conservatively at a Faculty FTE of 3 or approximately $135,000), this program with an enrollment of 5 students would cost $27,000 per student and with an enrollment of 10 students would coast $13,000 per student. Since the program will not serve undergraduate students, it would need to maintain approximately 27 students to break even.

Can we justifiably consider our program “unique”? There are a number of significant FTE Leadership programs already in existence in PA or in the surrounding states. Also, there are a significant number of online programs in Leadership. This does not even include the surprising quantity of Online Educational. Look at MS programs with leadership aspects, others have the same courses we have. Many MBA in Leadership programs stipulate that candidates must have 5-10 years business experience before applying or require a minimal GRE score. Why does the proposed program fail to include any admission prerequisites?

The Leadership program states as one of its 11 primary goals that it seeks to help candidates “communicate and work effectively in global communities”. How can they do this with out offering a language course or being required to have learned a language before entering the program?

How is the program defining diversity? The Leadership Communication course perceives diversity as an “issue” or “problem”, whereas any organizational values are simply communicated and dispersed. The Leadership in a Global Society course seems to perceive diversity as social diversity or “diverse populations” as opposed to linguistic diversity or sexual diversity.

[Both WK and RT researched other institutions that offer Leadership courses.

PK: financial viability: we have no interest in a program that is not viable. The 1^st year would be around 10 students, with more and more each year. Tuition is set at a different rate for grad and on-line programs. It affects what $ we get from state. How do we know we’ll get that many students? We can’t know. It is unique and we won’t know till we run the experiment; we are optimistic for many reasons. Evidence for success is in our Library Science program (several hundred students!). We need this and several others to show how successful we are to the state. This is worth the small risk. Out of state students will pay more. Revenue this generates is quite healthy. Our online programs are great examples of the quality we can apply to this program. We don’t have interest in anything less than high quality and has no doubt of the quality of this program.

VJ: this is more affordable than other programs.

SK: is there a component of project management?

DM: yes, students are expected to do applied activities, research/evaluation/qualitative/quantitative research in an existing organization in community – it is built throughout.

SK: sees an inability in many leaders to see outside the realm of their own work.

DM: yes, this is critical to being successful in a leadership role.

DE: there is a course that addresses this.

RT: googled leadership programs and came up with prestigious institutions. This program will be as good as the people teaching it.

DM: there was no intent to create an MBA lite or an MBA. This is a different group of people.

WK: what makes this unique? Look at MS programs with leadership aspects, others have the same courses we have.

RT: We are public, affordable, accessible

DM: we need to move on this so we can be in the market place and develop our uniqueness. Yes, there are other people doing it.

JM: all in favor of motion to approve the Leadership program…

PASSED

(2 opposed)

Senate will delay discussion of policies and procedures.

Meeting adjourned (Murphy/Moore): 5:01

Minutes respectfully submitted,
Christine Moulton, Senate Secretary