Minutes of the Academic
Senate Meeting
of
| Aaron,
Eunice Bartscher, Patricia Bernstein, Marian Blando, John Boyle, Andrea Carrington, Christopher
Chen, Yu-Charn Cherny, Robert Collier, James Colvin, Caran Consoli, Andres Corrigan, Robert A. Daniels, Robert |
Edwards,
James Fielden, Ned Fung, Robert Garcia, Oswaldo Gemello, John Gerson, Deborah Gonzales, Dan Gregory, Jan Smith, Miriam Houlberg, Rick Jerris, Scott Kassiola, Joel Klironomos, Martha |
Luft, Sandra McKeon, Midori Meredith, David Nichols, Amy Noble, Nancy Pong, Wen
Shen Raggio, Marcia Smith, Miriam Steier, Saul Stowers, Genie Strong, Rob Su, Yuli Terrell, Dawn |
Turitz,
Mitch Vaughn, Pamela Warren, Penelope Williams, Robert Wolfe, Bruce |
| Senate Members Absent: Garcia, Velia (exc); (abs); Brennan, Karen Johnson (abs); Avila, Guadalupe
(exc); Morishita,
Leroy (exc); Newt-Scott, Ronda (abs) |
| Guests: Paul Sherwin, Gail Whitaker,
Jonetta Richards, Yenbo Wu, Marilyn
Verhey, Jan Andreasen, Mark Goodrich, Mike
Klienberg |
Senator Mitch Turitz
Spoke on behalf of faculty candidate George Diehr for PERS Board
Senator Sandra Luft announced educational opportunities for teaching
on the
CHAIR’S REPORT—WELCOME!
Academic
Senate Chair Robert Cherny welcomed all new and returning
senators. He also reminded all senators that to be placed on the speaker’s
list they must raise their nameplates high enough so Vice Chair Penny Warren may see them. He welcomed
all new students representative to the senate. All senators were provided
with a new Academic Senate Hand Book which includes important dates, senate
membership, committee membership, procedural rules, taking action in a senate
meeting, how to propose policy, a copy of the faculty constitution, by-laws,
and summary of Roberts Rules of Order. Each senator was provided with a copy
of the American Association of University Professor (AAUP) booklet on the
three statements on Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the statement
on government of colleges and universities, and the statement on faculty workload.
Senator Mitch Turitz who is also the campus president of the California Faculty Association
(CFA) provided the AAUP booklets to the Senate free of charge. Chair Robert Cherny reminded all senators to remind their colleagues to be sensitivities to
any issues of anxiety that may be associated with the anniversary of September
11th. There are a long list of campus sponsored events taking place on
September 11th and they can be found on the campus website.
Chair Robert Cherny provided to all senators a comprehensive report
of his summer activities. This report was distributed by email prior to the
start of the senate meeting. It is included here as part of the recorded minutes.
Colleagues: Here's an overview of some of my activities as senate chair
since June 1. I'll not repeat this in the senate tomorrow, but please
ask any questions you may have about any of these topics. ACR 73 taskforce Senator
Gregory and I served on this system wide taskforce, formed to respond
to Assembly Concurrent Resolution 73, which specified creation of a tripartite
(senate, CFA, administration) taskforce to prepare a plan to move the ratio
between tt/T and lecturers in the CSU to 75:25.
We plan to have a report to the senate sometime during the fall semester on
this potentially highly important report. Presidential Taskforce on Inter-group
Relations: Initial Focus on the Effect of Middle East Issues on Campus
Life This taskforce, as you are probably aware, was formed in the aftermath
of the campus events of May 7. Senators Vaughn and Warren
also serve on this taskforce. Due to my own travels during the summer,
I was able to attend only two of the four meetings over the summer. The taskforce
presented an initial report at the end of July; you can review it at http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/response/prelimreport.htm
More meetings are planned for this fall. At
some point during the fall semester, I'm expecting that we shall be able to
set aside some senate time for a report by the senators who have taken part,
and perhaps by some other taskforce members. I serve on the subcommittees
on curriculum and hiring. The curriculum subcommittee has met a number
of times and continues to have regular meetings. Asilomar planning Susan
Cullers, Penny Warren, and I began to plan for Asilomar, and we
held an initial meeting of the full planning committee on July 24.
We'll have more to report to you soon on program planning and on the subsidies
available for new faculty members and lecturers. If you are not
eligible for a subsidy, you can register beginning this week. We hope
to have registration forms online through the senate's website http://www.sfsu.edu/~senate/ and we'll
also have paper forms available in the senate office. Executive Committee
Retreat On August 19, the Executive Committee held its annual beginning-of-the-academic-year
retreat. We met at the
AGENDA ITEM #1 - APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR September 10, 2002
m/s/p (Houlberg, Steier) to approve the agenda, passed unanimously
AGENDA ITEM #2 – ACCEPTANCE OF
THE MINUTES FOR THE LAST MEETING OF THE FORMER SENATE on May 14, 2002
m/s/p (Jerris,
Steier) to approve the minutes, passed unanimously
AGENDA ITEM #3 –APPROVAL OF THE
MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW SENATE on
m/s/p (Steier,
Gregory) to approved the minutes, passed
AGENDA ITEM #4 –REPORT FROM VICE
PRESIDENT OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS JOHN GEMELLO
Vice President for Academic Affairs
John Gemello raised 4 issues: First,
Jerry Combs has agreed to be the coordinator for a SFSU series of activities entitled
A Year of Constructive Civil Discourse. Jerry Combs will be putting
together several campus events to emphasize civil discourse within the framework
of free speech. He will be asking department chairs to submit faculty that
would be willing and qualified to serve as campus resource people on the issue
of civil discourse within a framework of free speech. He has recruited Robert
O’Neil, a nationally know authority on freedom of speech and civil discourse
to speak on campus on October 17th.
The second issue is placing a high
priority on faculty development with the established of a task force. The
Vice President will be working closely with the Senate Chair Bob Cherny in the constitution of the members of this task force. The third issue
was a reminder for Senator of the changing nature of our faculty. There were
79 new tenure-track faculty hired this year and we
have established 91 new searches for faculty this year. The bulk
(71) of the new hires are at the Assistant Professor level. Vice President
Gemello emphasized how impressed he was
with all the new hire’s credentials and are making a very positive contribution
to the university now and will continue to do so in the future. The fourth
issue is the 7% salary increase for AY chairs that was approved in the collective
bargaining agreement. All of SFSU department chairs serve for the entire academic
year; however, they do not qualify for the 7% raise because of the strict
interpretation of the contract. Vice President Gemello announced that President Corrigan has authorized that all
SFSU AY department chairs the 7% increase effective September 1. Senator Stowers asked if the increase applied to program directors?
Vice President Gemello indicated that is only applied
to department chairs.
AGENDA
ITEM #5 —REPORT FROM THE UNIVERSITY COUNSEL—PATRICIA BARTSCHER –ON THE SETTLEMENT
with PARINE CONSTRUCTION over the RESIDENCE APARTMENT BUILDING
Senator Bartscher spoke to the Senate in her role as SFSU University Council and not as a
member of the Academic Senate. She announce that
a record breaking settlement on the high rise residence apartment building
was concluded this August after more than 10 years of litigation. The high-rise
residence apartment building was constructed by Parine
in the early1990s and subsequently developed significant water leaks. Upon
further invistigaton toxic mold was found in the
outside walls and the building structure did not meet earthquake standards.
Parine made an attempt to fix the leaks in 1994 however by
1998 it was clear that the problems continued. After some investigation toxic
mold was found in the exterior wall but it was not found in any interior walls
or rooms. The building was closed in 1998.
The University decided to move to a litigation phase and in March of
2002 the trail began. The jury was selected in June and the case for the University
was presented. At the beginning of August a settlement was reached which covered
all university expense and the University will be provided with a dorm that
is safe, free of leaks and mold. Parine will have
to tear down the building exterior and entire wall to fix the problems. Senator
Wolfe asked when would the demolition of the building begin? Bartscher indicated that they would take down the exterior and interior walls to
the main structure. They will then strengthen the building to meet earthquake
standards and then rebuild the internal and outside walls. Senator Wolfe asked what affect would the demolition have on campus life?
Bartscher indicated that we should expect that the service road
between the building and
AGENDA ITEM #6 – REPORT FROM SENATOR
PAMELA VAUGHN ON THE COMMISSION ON UNIVERSITY STRATEGIC PLANNING (CUSP) II
Senator Pamela Vaughn reported that since being jointly
appointed by the Senate and Administration in early 2002, the CUSP-II commissioners
spent the spring semester reviewing documents pertinent to the university’s
mission – including the WASC recommendations, CUSP-I recommendations and actions,
the environmental scan (budget and facilities on this campus), the infamous
CSU Cornerstones report, and the report form the ASCSU, The California State
University at the Beginning of the 21st Century (recommendations
to the joint committee to develop a K-16 Master Plan for California). In addition
to looking at these documents about where we are and where we should- or could
– be as a university, the commissions has also undertaken to gather information
about perceptions of SFSU from various groups. Realizing that staff has been
under-represented in all of our campus surveys, the commission (working with
staff focus groups during summer) has developed a survey that will be distributed
to all staff on this campus; future surveys are planned. Finally, others in
the commission have been reviewing current theories of strategic planning
to bring up-to-date research on university structure and long-range planning
to add to the information base of the commission. We have been planning for
planning! A summer steering committee was charged with reviewing all the materials
and suggestions to date, including the “defining questions” developed at the
commission’s January retreat (i.e. primary considerations s we enter this
phase of strategic planning). What has been done to this point is not actual
planning, but developing a framework so that planning can proceed over (we
think) the next four semesters. That same summer committee has now brought
to the commission a proposal for (1) establishing specific planning groups;
(2) involving the entire campus community in the actual planning process –
including established university and senate committees, departments, colleges,
and other units on campus; (3) setting a timeline and a structured approach
to start the actual planning process, and carry it through to a set of implement
able recommendations (with clearly established goals, strategies, and priorities).
At this Thursday’s commission meeting, it is expected that approval of the
recommendations – with or without modifications from the whole commission
– will be finalized, and we will then open the floodgates to broad based,
university-wide strategic planning – a focused planning that works with full
knowledge of the WASC and CUSP-I recommendations, as well as with an awareness
of the expectations place upon us by our state, university system, community,
or students, or staff and our faculty.
AGENDA ITEM #7 – REPORT FROM SECRETARY
JAMES EDWARDS ON THE COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES FINAL REPORT
James Edwards presented the
final Committee on Committees report for Senate approval.
m/s/p (Edwards, Steier) to approved
the reports, passed unanimously
Robert Cherny
noted that SFSU is one of the few CSU campuses that have a committee on committees
report as oversight on the many campus committees.
m/s/p (Steier, Houlberg) to adjourn, passed unanimously
AGENDA ITEM #8– ADJOURNMENT
Senate
adjourned to Orientation for Senators at:
Respectfully submitted,
James Edwards
Secretary to the Faculty