Faculty Senate Minutes

November 30th, 2005

Attended by:  Phil Droke, Glen Avantaggio, Katie Gulliford, Igor Glozman, Gloria Rose Koepping, Dee Skinner, Aaron Warnock, Buzz Wheeler, Rod Fowers, Darryl Brice, Rolita Flores Ezeonu, and  Jeff Wagnitz.  (Also Eric Baer, visitor)

Meeting began at 3:00 p.m. in room 25-411

Old Business

Chair Phil Droke had us revisit the topic of the PR and R committee’s existence by asking for additional feedback.    There was discussion of the relative merits of the PR and R committee, but the only consensus was that if the committee continues, we need to change the procedures. (A handout of PR and R procedures from 15 years ago was unearthed from a Senate member’s old files.  It had no dates of adoption or usage.)  Some of the comments include; “Keep it,”  “If it’s not broke, don’t fix I,” and “I’m appalled that professionals need a regulatory committee.”

It was then suggested we put the Pros and Cons on the blackboard to get a better feel for the issues.

Pro

Place for non-contractual disagreements among Faculty to get addressed.

Cons

Legal Concerns

Has little power, yet creates more work

Clearinghouse for gossip

Should Faculty be addressing other Faculty concerns (Could be a Pro if seen as nurturing.)

Committees work may be redundant

We have no decent rules/procedures

Not part of typical Senate responsibility

It was pointed out that other Four Year Colleges and Universities have a committee similar to ours.  Someone asked what other community colleges do. 

The issue was tabled till January to allow further faculty input.

The Pure and Applied Science Division request for the Senate to alter the Science Distribution Language for the A.A. was revisited.  Eric Baer visited the meeting to expand on their request.

The issues are:

1) Should the lab science requirement be "a class" (current) or "5 credits" (change) (So, will a single 1 credit class count as a lab science or do you need a total of 5 credits of lab sciences?)

2) Can a student take as many classes as they want or do they need to take a single 5 credit class or 5 credit pair of classes?  (So, could a student take 5 1-credit lab-courses to satisfy the requirement?)

3) If they take a 5 credit pair of classes, do they need to pass both parts of the class?  (This is relevant for transfer students only at this point...  for instance should a student who took geology 101 at CWU rand received a 0.0 in the  4 cr. lecture session and a 1.0 in the 1 credit lab be considered having completed the lab science requirement)

4) Should it be required that all lab sciences have a Math 81 prerequisite?  (Note, this despite statements to the contrary in the last senate meeting, has been done by the senate before.  Currently the senate has required Math 97 to be a prerequisite for any course that will be counted as a quantitative skill)

5) Should the language be changed from the lab science class having "a laboratory component" to "having a substantial laboratory component." ? (The group of people that drafted these proposals discussed this at length - we wanted it to be more than a token part of the course but wanted to resist putting in a certain number of hours - this was our compromise).

6) Should the lab have to meet outcomes set by the Pure and Applied Sciences Division?

The Senate discussed which of these items they wanted to endorse.  There was some discussion of the current availability of the CAF approval process (which includes oversight by Dean Wagnitz and Vice President Bermingham) to address some of these concerns already.  Some Senate members felt that using the lowest level of control over these issues was preferable to the Senate changing the distribution requirement in the A.A. degree.

This discussion was also tabled till the January 18^th meeting. 

New Business

None at this time.

Meeting adjourned at 4:08 p.m.

Next meeting is January 18^th, 2006.

Minutes submitted by Gloria Rose Koepping, Faculty Senate Secretary