|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Minutes for October 15, 2003 A meeting of the University Senate was held at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, 15 October 2003, in Maxwell Auditorium. Present were: Chancellor Shaw; Senators: Alcoff, Apjoh, Armstrong, Behm, Bennett, Bhatia, Biklen (D.), Biklen (S.), Brenner, Brown (H.), Burdick, Byrne, Caine, Caldwell, Cavanagh, Chander, Cihon, Crowston, de Berly, Diaz, Dimon, Dixon, Donovan, Druger, Dudczak, Elin, Floyd, Flusche, Freund, Gilman, Goode, Hamilton, Himley, Hinchman, Hogan, Hollenback, Horwitz, Kinsey, Kosar, Kutcher, Landau, Lantier, Legaspi, Letterman (M.), Lloyd, MacInnes, Maine, Marcoccia, Martin, Massey, McKay, Mercer, Middlemiss, Morris, Morroni, Mosher, Mulconry, Newton, O'Rourke, Panetta, Peck, Pellow, Potter, Robertson, Rosenzweig, Sanford, Schiff, Schwarz, Sen, Sherman, Smith (D.), Spina, Thau, Thomson, Toth, Trento, Tucker, Tussing, Urz, Van Gulick, Vidali, Wadley, Ware (E.), Watson, Weaver, Webber, Wells, Wolf, Yao, Zacharia Presiding Officer: Chancellor Kenneth Shaw The Chancellor called the meeting to order, and proposed that the minutes of the September 10th meeting be approved as distributed. They were approved. He then called Prof. Nahmin Horwitz to present the report of the Agenda Committee. Prof. Horwitz began by asking the body to stand while he read the following statement: The University Senate and the Chancellor and the Trustees of SyracuseUniversity join in paying tribute to the memory of Professor Stephen P. Koff, who served the Syracuse University community for many years as Professor in the Maxwell School and University senator, serving on the Agenda Committee,the Committee on Academic Affairs, Committee on Admissions and Financial Awards, Committee on Budget and Fiscal Affairs, Committee on Instruction, Committee on Honorary Degrees, the Library Task Force, the Committee on the Library, Committee on Research, and the Committee on University Relations, as well as the Senate-mandated Assembly on University Governance, where he chaired the Academic Planning committee.
His death on June 19, 2003 closes a distinguished career as teacher, scholar, administrator and community leader. He will be remembered with fondness and gratitude by his many students, colleagues, and friends at Syracuse University, as well as by the members of his family, to whom we extend our sincere sympathy Professor Horwitz asked for a moment of silence, and then made a motion that the statement be included in the record of the meeting. The motion carried. The report continued with a motion to approve the following changes in Senate committees:
The motion carried. Horwitz continued, bringing the body's attention to the summary of Senate work during 2002-3, announcement of an open forum scheduled for November 5th, and the list of committee chairs in the packet. He then made a motion to appoint the following non-senators to chair Senate committees, and also be recognized and permitted to speak at Senate meetings when reports from their committees were presented:
Prof. Horwitz went over the procedure for discussion of the class scheduling proposal, which had been distributed at the door and explained that the proposal was not a committee report, but rather a matter over which the Chancellor would preside, and that ultimately the Chancellor would decide on the new class schedule paradigm. He said that the Agenda Committee's goal was to have a debate that would give the Chancellor as much input as possible, that the Chancellor would speak first, and that the Chairman of the Agenda Committee would then make a motion adopting the procedure as described in the handout. Horwitz said there would be a 3- to 5-minute statement by the Vice Chancellor, that then Prof. Hemphill would have 10 minutes to describe the proposal for a new paradigm, followed by 10 minutes by Prof. Van Gulick and undergraduate Andrew Thomson, who would speak for 5 minutes each. He said that at 5:45 he would make a motion to postpone the vote to the November meeting. The Chancellor called Prof. Elizabeth Toth to present the report of the Committee on Curricula, which included a motion to approve the new courses and changes in the report (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Information Studies, School of Public Communications). In the discussion, a senator rose to make an amendment to the motion to remove the section of the report describing the changes to the Honors program, so that it might be more fully discussed at a later meeting. The motion was seconded. After some discussion and explanation of the process by which the proposed changes to the Honors Program had been reviewed, the motion to amend failed. The vote on the main motion carried. The Chancellor called on Prof. Eric Spina to present the report of the Committee on Honorary Degrees, which was a call for nominations for the 2004 Commencement, and a reminder that the deadline for nominations was October 17.The Chancellor then told the Senate that the Agenda Committee had asked him to speak briefly about his view of the class schedule issue. He said he wanted the matter to be resolved by the November Senate meeting so that a paradigm could be implemented before the new chancellor came. He said he thought that the controversy over scheduling had been beneficial to the SU community, reminding senators that the issues were first raised in March 2002, and an ad hoc committee subsequently formed to deal with them, and that that committee's work, and the work of the Senate Committee on Instruction, had culminated in the presentation of the proposal before the Senate. Chancellor Shaw continued, saying that the earlier discussion had been extremely robust and had led to a better understanding of some of the problems (the overlapping of class scheduling, the bunching of courses within day and week), and that he had learned something too, paraphrasing an old Jimmy Durante phrase, that everybody wants to get in the act. Shaw said that regardless of the paradigm used, the University must take back the schedule. He said that while flexibility about specific student and faculty concerns would be listened to, the exceptions needed to be made by the administration. He said the present system was not good enough, that whether it was the old paradigm, some variation of it, or something new, we needed to ensure that we fully untilized our available time and ensured better access to courses for students. The Chancellor called Prof. Horwitz who made the following motion:
In order to use more effectively the full five-day academic schedule, andThe motion was seconded. The Chancellor called Prof. Hemphill, who read from his report, which gave a history of the problem, and showed in detail, schematically, the effect of the current scheduling problems on the schedule and how the proposed new one would work. The Chancellor next called Prof. Van Gulick to present his proposal, which he said was not all that different than the one proposed by SA president Andrew Thomson. He said that both proposals dealt with the problem of bunching and overlap, but that his did not include the "community time" provided for in the New Paradigm for Class Scheduling. He said that he had taken many faculty concerns into consideration when developing his proposal, and that he was afraid that using any other grid (than the MWF, TuTh) would put SU out of sync. with other area colleges. The Chancellor recognized Andrew Thomson who spoke about the proposal he had developed, and how both the old and the proposed New Paradigm would affect students. (All proposals were distributed in the packet, as well as comments on class scheduling from various people in the SU community.) The body applauded all three presenters, and the Chancellor called Vice Chancellor Deborah Freund, who told senators that she had no opinion on any of the proposals, that she intended to listen to what was said and read what was written, and that she would be the one to implement whatever paradigm was chosen. In response to a question about how exceptions to the schedule would be handled, she said that she would ask the department chair to apply in writing to the dean, with a description of the nature of the exception and why it was necessary, and she would then evaluate the request with respect to overlap and bunching. She also said that she would ask deans and departments to allocate popular teaching time slots fairly, e.g., in alternating semesters, a teacher would be able to teach MWF and TuTh, thus every now and then she would get a three-day weekend
In the debate, several persons spoke for and against the proposed New Paradigm, as well as pointing out that "community time" had been tried and dropped at University of Rochester, e.g., and was currently being done at Utica College. The question arose of what percentage of graduate courses were being taught in Registrar's space, and what proportion of graduate courses were overlapping the traditional time slots. One speaker urged senators to adopt any paradigm that worked. At approximately 5:45, Prof. Horwitz rose to make a motion that the debate and vote be postponed to the November 12th meeting. The motion was seconded, and approved. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. Teresa Gilman University Senate Recorder 
|
