RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
UNIVERSITY SENATE
 
 
MINUTES:    Regular Meeting of the University Senate
 
DATE:    February 24, 2006
 
TIME AND PLACE:   11:10 a.m., Labor Education Center Auditorium, Cook Campus, New Brunswick
                                                   
MEMBERS PRESENT:  Adarkwa, Alger, Allender, Ambar, Atmeh, Axelrod, Barone, Bell, Bernstein, Blimling, Bodnar, Boikess, Borisovets, Boylan, Bravo, Breton, Cannon, Caprio, Capuano, Carr, Chabal, Cohen, Coit, Cole, Colin, Cooke, Cotter, Curtis, Darien, DeLisi, Deluca, E. Dennis, Dhillon, Dutta, Edwards, C. Ellis, N. Ellis, Farrell, Finc, Fincher, Fishbein, Forero, Furmanski, Gaunt, Gigliotti, Gillett, Goodman, Gould, Greenhut, Guo, Hall, Hallmark, Heckscher, Herrera, Hmelo-Silver, Hughes, Jackson, Jones, Kagan, Kalelkar, Kanj, Kavanagh, Kennedy, Kind, Klepac, Kokini, Krenos, Laguna-Diaz, LaSala, Lashley, Leath, Lee, Liepmann, MacArthur, Mandelbaum, Marchetta, Markowitz, Marsh, Martin, Mauroff, McCormick, McKay, McKeever, Melwani, Messer, Miller, Mulcahy, Muller, Ng, Norville, Obayashi, O’Connell, O’Connor, Palmon, Panayotatos, Popper, Potenza, Puniello, Samuel Rabinowitz, Sidney Rabinowitz, Rankin, Reed, Rennie, Rubin, Schaich, Schorr, Scott, R. Simmons, Smith, Spero, Spiegel, St. John, Stroud, Tittler, Turpin, Van Til, Vera, Vodak, Volk, Whang, Whitfield, Williams, Winterbauer, Wyhopen, Young
 
EXCUSED:  Apfel, Banerjee, Bellany, Colaizzi, Diner, Downs, Elkholy, Feinberg, Friedrich, Johnson, Kirby, Kirschner, Klein, Koza, Markert, McCabe, Meyer, Ocone, Oren, Ozbay, Rabiner, Schein, Schock, P. Simmons, Simon, Sukhdeo, Zaborszky
 
ABSENT:  Aladdin, Barbarese, Bartosek, Boehmer, Brazier, Butler, R. Dennis, Dent, Deutsch, Gimbar, Gyenfie, Hankins, Hart, Hyndman, John, Labib, Lipman, Livingston, Maher, Mohammed, Nelson, Niederman, Pittman, Poyznyer, Sherman, C. Simmons, Snyder, Solomon, Spat, Stauffer, Tuckman, Turner, Wang
 
ATTENDANCE                        Faculty:  Of 88 total:  62 present (71%), 16 excused (18%), 10 absent (11%)
SUMMARY                               Students:  Of 54 total:  34 present (63%), 3 excused (6%), 17 absent (31%)
                                                    Administrators:  Of 37 total:  23 present (62%), 8 excused (22%), 6 absent (16%)
                                                    Alumni:  Of 6 total:  6 present (100%), 0 excused, 0 absent
 
View Senate attendance record for this year

PRESIDING OFFICERS
:   Martha Cotter, Chairperson; Samuel Rabinowitz, Vice Chairperson
 
CALL TO ORDER, DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM, AND CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT:  Tally of Senators signed in having confirmed presence of a quorum, Chairperson Cotter called the meeting to order at 11:25 a.m.  She explained that the primary item of business on the day’s agenda would be the Senate’s response to the recommendations contained in the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
 
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY:  Agenda:  The agenda was approved as distributed by the Secretary.
 
Minutes:  On motion and duly seconded, the Minutes of the January 20, 2006 Senate meeting were approved.
 
SENATE FINAL RESPONSE AND RECOMMENDATIONS RELATIVE TO THE REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
 
With Vice Chairperson Rabinowitz acting as chair, Martha Cotter, as chair of the steering committee which organized the report on the floor, moved the report.  She explained that the steering committee had consisted of the members of the Senate Executive Committee, as well as most of the Senate’s standing-committee chairs. Cotter emphasized the need for the Senate to complete by the end of the meeting the finalization of its advice to President McCormick on the Task Force on Undergraduate Education (TFUE) recommendations. Asking the Senate to remember that these are not new issues, she specified the time limits as they would apply to the individual sections of the Senate’s report, as well as those applicable to individual speakers. She asked that the Senate entrust revision of the prose supporting the individual Senate recommendations (assuming that amendments to those recommendations would be adopted during the meeting) to reflect amendments to Secretary Swalagin and herself. She thanked all those who participated in the process of reviewing and advising on the TFUE. Chairperson Cotter then gave the chair to Vice Chair Rabinowitz, and began the Senate’s final action on its response to the TFUE.
 
Discussion of the Senate’s response to the TFUE continued until 3:15 p.m. During that time, numerous amendments were adopted, time limits for action on individual sections of the report were extended in many instances, and the Senate recessed briefly for lunch.
 
[NOTE from the Executive Secretary of the University Senate: I apologize for the following, drastic abbreviation of the Senate minutes. The series of motions which were ably and appropriately made by the Senators was impressive in its volume, and I have not included the detail in these minutes. Instead I ask your permission to present only the final result of the discussion, and to preserve the detail in my notes only. If the Senate does not accept the minutes in this form, I will write the full record of motions, to the best of my ability, for publication. Thank you.]
 
Senate discussion and action resulted in the final recommendations contained in the document attached to the master copy of these minutes, and which has been posted online at http://senate.rutgers.edu/senatetfueresponseadoptedfinal.pdf.
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT:  President McCormick thanked the Senate for its work on this important issue. He said that he would bring forth his recommendations soon, and that they would be public, noting that, although he could not promise that all of the Senate’s recommendations would be accepted, none of his recommendations would be surprising, as they will come from within the Rutgers community dialogs. He added that the participatory and consultative nature of the process would continue.
 
ADJOURNMENT:  Secretary Swalagin told the Senate that he would post online later that day the Senate’s final recommendations to the TFUE, minus the supporting prose, which will take additional time to revise. The meeting then adjourned at 3:24 p.m.
 
 
Kenneth Swalagin
Secretary of the University Senate