Rutgers University Senate Minutes, March 28, 2008

RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
UNIVERSITY SENATE

MINUTES                                Regular Meeting of the University Senate

DATE                                        March 28, 2008

TIME AND PLACE                1:10 p.m., Multipurpose Room, Rutgers Student Center, 126 College Avenue, College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick

MEMBERS PRESENT: Adam, Allender, Ashraf, Baker, Barone, Barrett, Becker, Bhuyan, Bodnar, Boikess, Borisovets, Boylan, Buckley, Bumby, Busia, Bynes, Caprio, Cohick, Coit, Cooke, Cotter, Covey, Cowen, Creese, Diner, Dutta, Edwards, Finegold, L. Fishbein, Foley, Friedrich, Furmanski, Galili, Gaunt, Gillett, Gould, Greaux, Greenfeld, Greenhut, Halim, Hall, Heckscher, Holcomb, Hughes, Janes, Johnson-Scott, Kalelkar, Kapoor, Kemeny, Kenfield, Kerkhof, Kind, Kociol, Leath, Lemieux, Leonard, Li, Lomiguen, Maddison, Markert, Markowitz, D. Marsh, McCormick, McKeever, Messer, J. Meyer, W. Meyer, Minsky, Mistry, Molloy, Mulcahy, Mulvey, Ng, Niederman, Nolfi, Norville, Oren, Palmon, Prekopa, F. Puniello, O. Puniello, Rabinowitz, Rankin, J. Robinson, Rockland, Rodgers, Sangiamo, Schantz, Schein, R. Simmons, Slavin, Smith, Spiegel, Stein, Stone, Szatrowski, K. Thompson, Tittler, Tomassone, Toney-Boss, Traxler, Vitello, Vodak, M. Wagner, R. Wagner, Weinstock-Gallagher, Wild, Winterbauer

EXCUSED: Alger, Bubb, Cizewski, Cooper, DeLisi, Ellis, Gimenez, Gonzalez-Palmer, Goodman, Gugig, Gunderson, Guo, Kanj, Keating, Kern, Kowler, Laguna-Diaz, Marchetta, M. Marsh, McCoy-Carter, Muse, Nangle, Palis, Panayotatos, Pottick, Sass, Sharp, Shivers, P. Simmons, Sofer, Tony, Wyhopen

ABSENT:  Atzbi, Barbarese, Blimling, Butter, Chann, Ciklamini, Coppolo, Cruzan, DeLisi, Diamond, M. Fishbein, Fowler, Gliserman, Goldman, Graycar, Grant, Greene, Gutierrez, Habib, Holzer, Jackson, Khan, Klein, Koza, Lashley, Lehne, Livingston, Lopez, McCall, Nakhaie, Patel, Pedersen, M. Robinson, Schock, Shmulenson, Solomon, Sosa, Stauffer, Swisher, R. Thompson, Van Til, Wang, Williams, Yares, Yeagle

ATTENDANCE      Faculty:  Of 86 total: 56 present (65%), 17 excused (20%), 13 absent (15%)
SUMMARY            Students:  Of 53 total: 27 present (51%), 5 excused (9%), 21 absent (40%)
                                 Administrators:  Of 30 total: 13 present (44%), 7 excused (23%), 10 absent (33%)
                                 Alumni:  Of 6 total: 4 present (67%), 2 excused (33%), 0 absent
                     Staff:  Of 10 total: 7 present (70%), 2 excused (20%), 1 absent (10%)

View Senate Attendance Record for this year

PRESIDING OFFICER:   Samuel Rabinowitz, Chairperson

CALL TO ORDER, DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM, AND CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT - Samuel Rabinowitz, Chairperson

Chairperson Rabinowitz called the meeting to order at 1:28 p.m. He thanked everyone for coming together as a community to deal with the Middle States reaccreditation process, noting that the results were very positive throughout. He said that the next large community issue would be the upcoming budget discussions.

SECRETARY'S REPORT - Kenneth Swalagin, Executive Secretary

Agenda: The meeting's agenda, including time limits, was approved as distributed by the executive secretary.
Minutes: The Minutes of the January 25, 2008 Senate meeting were approved as distributed by the executive secretary.
Communications - The following communications were presented to the Senate:

Schedule of 2008-2009 Senate and Senate Executive Committee Meetings. Secretary Swalagin asked everyone to mark their calendars.
Call for Nominations for 2008-2009 Senate Officers and Executive Committee Members, and Representatives to the Boards of Governors and Trustees. Senators were asked to send nominations to the Senate Secretary, who noted that, while unit elections for next year are pending, continuing Senators or those who are likely to be elected to the Senate may be nominated.

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT - President Richard L. McCormick

President McCormick presented an administrative report which included comments on the following topics:

thanks to everyone who participated in the Middle States reaccreditation process, in which the Rutgers community came together and “presented an extraordinarily engaged, positive view of Rutgers”;
a summary of the preliminary results of the reaccreditation site visit;
the state budget;
capital facilities, including intentions to proceed with the stadium expansion;
progress and continued planning for relandscaping six blocks of the College Avenue Campus;
other, mainly academic, facilities construction projects;
students’ successful launching of the Rutgers University Student Assembly in New Brunswick; and
the prominence of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team.

McCormick then introduced Jeannine LaRue, Vice President for Public Affairs, who spoke to the Senate about her background, experience, contacts, responsibilities at Rutgers, and her plans for public affairs at Rutgers. LaRue and McCormick both responded to questions from the Senate on their comments and other issues.

NEWARK CAMPUS REPORT - Newark Provost Steven J. Diner

Newark Provost Steven J. Diner presented the Newark Campus Report. Follow this link to view the text of Provost Diner's Annual Address.

[At 3:15 p.m., Senator Jonathan Becker questioned the presence of a quorum. Chairperson Rabinowitz, Parliamentarian Cooke, and Secretary Swalagin counted Senators in the room, and confirmed that a quorum was present.]

COMMITTEE REPORTS

University Structure and Governance Committee (USGC) Report on Charge S-0701, Part-Time and Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Role in Shared Governance - Tricia Nolfi and Jonathan Tittler, USGC Co-Chairs.
USGC Chair Tricia Nolfi summarized her committee's report on Charge S-0701, Part-Time and Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Role in Shared Governance. In accordance with established parliamentary procedure, this report was introduced and discussed at the January 2008 Senate meeting, and the Senate was asked to adopt the bylaws change at this meeting. With one minor amendment to the last paragraph, the report and its recommendations were adopted by the Senate.

OLD BUSINESS: There was no old business.

NEW BUSINESS: There was no new business.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT: Vice Chairperson Paul Leath reported on the February 8, 2008 and March 7, 2008 Senate Executive Committee meetings.

REPORTS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES TO BOARDS OF GOVERNORS AND TRUSTEES: Senator Cotter, Faculty Representative to the Board of Governors, with the Senate's permission, deferred the February 28 Board of Governors meeting report until the May Senate meeting. Senator Vodak, Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees, reported that there had been no Board of Trustees meetings since the last Senate meeting.

CAMPUS FACULTY LIAISON REPORTS: Senator Stan Hall reported on the recent activities and plans of the Newark Faculty Council.

ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 3:24 p.m.

Kenneth Swalagin
Executive Secretary of the University Senate