Faculty Senate Minutes - February 24, 2003
Western State College Faculty Senate
Official minutes from the February 24 meeting
Senators present: Kevin Alexander, Bob Barrett, Roger Drake, Nancy Gauss, Dave Glascoff, Dan Harrison, Roger Hudson, Kevin Nelson, Dale Orth, Christine Purkiss, Terry Schliesman, Dan Schuster, Don Seastrum, Marta Stone, Allen Stork, Frank Venturo. Guests and ex-officio members: Jeff Keane, Sheryl Hall-Peterson, Scott Lazerus, John Sowell.
3. The Senate meeting was called to order at 4:15 p.m. by A. Stork
2. Motion to approve agenda passed unanimously. Minutes (from 2/10) are to be distributed via email and voted on subsequent to this meeting.
3. Chairs Report: Allen talked about the formation of the budget committee.
4. VPAA’s Report: In legislative action, a 6.7% cut (for Western) passed the House last week. The supplementary bill about changing pay periods is passing through this week. The entire higher-ed budget package is expected to be on the Governer’s desk by this Friday. So, our understanding of this year’s state allocation is looking rather clear. Next year’s budget is a different story. There are a lot of uncertainties at this point. John expects the cuts for next year to be of the same magnitude as this year (and in addition to this year) which equates to $800 mil for overall state budget, with higher education taking a 10-12% cut.
AStork raised a question about the new language of “mission and role” for each institution (in current bills). In short, there’s no mention of graduate studies in Western’s description. John responded by saying the language was drafted from a CCHE statement crafted last June (unbeknownst to Western State College). Frank asked about any intention about the omission of graduate-studies language…and it seems this is CCHE’s response to our question about having graduate studies.
5. Old Business:
· Curriculum Changes: D.Orth moved that the Senate approve curriculum changes proposed by Curriculum Committee last fall. K.Alexander seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
· Vice-Chair of Senate. Senator Kevin Nelson was voted in as Vice Chair by acclamation.
· GE – F.Venturo moved to approve recent GE changes, as proposed by Curriculum Committee. Seconded by D.Harrison.
Discussion on CC proposal: SLazerus explained process of approving the GE changes (from Sowell and Winzlaff). One major concern at the CC meeting was taking out the capstone from GE. Second was putting back in 300-level classes. He then talked about, personally, being uncomfortable accepting some 300-level classes and rejecting others.
At that point, DHarrison moved to accept the below amendment to CC's proposal, seconded by FVenturo:
FIRST PROPOSED AMENDMENT:
The faculty of BASS and CALL propose the following changes to the curriculum committee's report on the GE currently before the Senate.
1. Under Roman Numeral I of the General Education Proposed Revisions (page 1). "Basic Skills" would be changed to "Essential Skills". This would also require changing the term "Basic Skills" to "Essential Skills" throughout the document.
2. Under Area I of the Liberal Arts (page 4). The description of the Social Sciences would read as follows:
Courses in Area I will focus on the following goals.
The first bullet should read as follows:
* gain insight into the methods and reasoning of the social sciences
The second bullet should read as follows:
* understand how historical, political, economic, and social contexts shape the human environment.
The third bullet would remain unchanged.
The fourth bullet would be deleted entirely
Discussion on first amendment: CPurkiss asked does a class, then, have to meet all of the disciplines in bullet #2? There was no clear understanding on that question.
A friendly amendment to the amendment was introduced: to change “and” in the second bullet of Area I description to “or”. 14 votes for approval, one vote opposed.
FVenturo: asked for clarification on what we’re doing with these changes. Isn’t this about changing to fit the state-wide requirements. Lazerus: no we did that last fall. Sowell confirmed. These changes are driven by the NCA concerns. We’re pressed for time because we’d like to have a curriculum season behind us when NCA checks back on the GE program (June, 2004). The other reason to go ahead with these structural changes, per Sowell, was that in five years we’ll have another NCA visit for assessment, and we'll we need some iterations of our GE to make adjustments. For those reasons, it was decided to move ahead and make these changes.
At that point, AStork called to question: in favor: 9, opposed 3, abstention 0
Vote on first amendment to CC proposal: in favor: 8, opposed: 5, abstention: 2
Then a second amendment to the CC proposal was introduced by FVenturo. The amendment is intended to restore certain classes to GE that would help as a transition to a leaner GE program. FVenturo moved to accept the amendment, seconded by DHarrison. The amendment is:
SECOND PROPOSED AMENDMENT:
The faculty of BASS and CALL propose the following changes to the curriculum committee's report on the GE currently before the Senate.
1. In addition to the 300 level courses approved by the curriculum committee we propose adding the following 300 level courses that are currently in our GE:
1. HIST 309 (GERMAN HISTORY)
2. HIST 351 (HISTORY OF RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION)
3. COTH 315 (THEATRE AND CULTURE: DEVELOPMENT OF RENAISSANCE THEATRE)
4. COTH 316 (THEATRE AND CULTURE: RENAISSANCE TO MODERN THEATRE)
5. COTH 318 (THEATRE AND CULTURE: THEATRE IN THE MODERN WORLD)
6. COTH 319 (THEATRE AND CULTURE: PERFORMANCE IN WORLD CULTURE)
2. We also propose the re-inclusion of HIST 260 (Intro to Latin America) as an approved GE course. (It also is currently part of the GE curriculum).
A long discussion then ensued about upper-division classes in our GE program.
In voting for this second amendment to the CC proposal, six (6) senators voted in favor, eight (8) senators opposed the amendment, and there was one (1) abstention.
Finally, a third amendment to the CC Proposal was introduced by Cpurkiss. She moved to accept the amendment, seconded by RHudson. The amendment was:
Amend the proposed revisions to the general education program by removing the following courses from AREA II: PHYS 170. PHYS 200, PHYS 311; and AREA III: ENG 237, ENG 238, Eng 248, ENG 250, ENG 254, ENG 270.
Discussion: Venturo explained that the ENG courses are in there because we don’t have the resources to make the revisions, we’re trying to get our students to do more that just general English. Orth refuted that normally when a student takes a GE physics course, it’s really their first course. The high school physics prerequirement is a rather normal part of a high school experience (a point also supported by D.Schuster).
Vote for TEP amendment to CC proposal: 1 favor; 12 oppose, 2 abstentions
The vote, then, for the CC proposal, with the one approved amendment was tabled until next meeting.
6. Motion to adjourn was made at 5:55 p.m.
