RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
UNIVERSITY SENATE MINUTES

Regular Meeting of the University Senate

DATE:  May 3, 2002

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

MEMBERS PRESENT:  Antwi, Baldi, Barone, Bell, Berz, Bittner, Blakeman, Blasi, Boikess, Bossard, Boylan, Bronzan, Cicma, Colaizzi, A. Cooper, T. Cooper, Cotter, Cowley, Darien, Davidson, DeCarlo, DeRosa, Deutsch, Dimond, Diner, Domb, Duncan, Esser, Evans, Falk, Forman, Friedrich, Gaunt, Hall, Haugerud, Hawkesworth, Hillman, Hirsh, Hornichter, Hyndman, Jessen, Jones, Karel, Kauffman, Kennedy, Kenney, Kirschner, Kressel, Lawrence, Leath, Lee, Manhoff, Maradonna, Martinez-Fernandez, Maudlin, Maw, McKay, J. Miller, Naus, Nordstrom, O’Connor, Oren, Panayotatos, Pancholy, Pellegrine, Penfield, Perr, Pottick, Rabinowitz, Ramsay, Rijhsinghani, Rohr, Roth, Rountree, Samuels, Saniefard, Scott, Seneca, Silver, P. Simmons, R. Simmons, Sims, Slawsky, D. Snyder, P. Snyder, Solomon, Spencer, Stamato, Stauffer, Szatrowski, Tallau, Tripolitis, Varma, Vershon, Walker-Andrews, Wasserman, Webb, Wilkinson, Winterbauer, Wozniak, Zaborszky

EXCUSED:  Adelson, Bathory, Bhandari, Borisovets, Bry, Cronk, E. Dennis, R. Dennis, Elovitz, Flanagan, Gary, Griffith, Habib, Jesse, Keoskey, Laguna-Diaz, Markowitz, Marsh, McKeever, Messer, G. Miller, Mills, Plummer, Puniello, Quinn, Roselli, Smith, Stein, Swenson, Tuckman, Vodak, Wadia, Wyly

ABSENT:  Albers, Boucher, Breton, Bushnell, Butwinski, Caprio, Chopra, Cizewski, Cohen, Daniels, Darkenwald, E. Diamond, Driscoll, Felson, Gillis, Gross, Hamm, Hara, Hughes, Jackson, Keating, Kenfield, Klein, Kokini, Krueckeberg, Lang, LaPadula, Lehman, Leontiades, Li, Matsuda, Millican, Morrow, Nagarajan, Paris, Perlman, Pieczenik, Ros, Saidel, Schlegel, Strom, Toledo, Wallenstein, Zaveri, Zylstra

ATTENDANCE SUMMARY:  Faculty: Of 87 total: 46 present (53%), 18 excused (21%) 23 absent (26%);  Students: Of 47 total: 26 present (55%), 6 excused (13%), 15 absent (32%); Administrators: Of 39 total: 25 present (64%), 8 excused (21%), 6 absent (15%); Alumni: Of 6 total: 4 present (66%), 1 excused (17%), 1 absent (17%)
View Senate attendance record for this year

NON-VOTING MEMBER PRESENT:  RedD

NON-VOTING MEMBERS ABSENT:  Sambolin, Wright

PRESIDING OFFICER :  Kathleen Scott, Chairperson

Chairperson Scott called the meeting to order, declared that there was a quorum, and welcomed everyone to the last meeting of the 2001-2002 Senate.  She commented on the Senate’s continuing move forward, highlighted some of its accomplishments over the past year, including successful experiments with open-forum discussions, then expressed her hope for continued success for the Senate.  She announced that the process by which part-time lecturers will be elected to the Senate is underway, and that the Enrollment Committee, to which the administration had recently named its members, is forming and will be charged in June.  She thanked the standing-committee chairs, and all committee members who participated in their respective committees.  She also thanked Secretary Swalagin and Linda Mickelsen of the Senate office, President Lawrence and Vice President Seneca for their willingness to listen to the advice and concerns of the Senate, Senators Saniefard and Tallau for their service as parliamentarians, and the student Senators for their invaluable viewpoints.  She concluded by thanking everyone for their participation, thoughts and comments.

SECRETARY’S REPORT:  Agenda:  The agenda was approved as distributed.  Minutes:  The Minutes of April 5, 2002 were approved as distributed by the Secretary.

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT:  President Lawrence’s Administrative Report began with thanks to the Senate for its members’ time, efforts and dedication, and thanks and praise to Chairperson Scott for her past three years as Senate Chair.  The Administrative Report also included comments on grants, awards, donations, as well as the recent "Rutgers on Broadway" performance.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Senator Cowley summarized his committee’s Report on Charge S-0108, Review of the Add/Drop Period.  He pointed out that the report contained a transposition, and corrected the last sentence of the report to read:  "We therefore suggest that the university confirm the seven-day drop, eight-day add for all courses…" where it had appeared as "eight-day drop, seven-day add."  He also explained that the events of September 11 resulted in an extension of the add/drop period for the Fall 2002 semester.  He asked that the Senate approve the report as corrected.   The request was moved and seconded.  Senator Hall asked if the report on the grades of those students who added at the end of the add period, which the original Senate action on add/drop had requested that the registrar perform, had been done.  Noting that it had not, Chairperson Scott volunteered to look into accessing the data.  Senator Boylan asked that the report be amended to drop the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph of the report be amended to read, "We recommend that the seven-calendar-day drop period and eight-calendar-day add period should be adopted," dropping the last clause, "…as long as no adverse effects are reported in the future." Senator Cowley accepted the amendment.  Senator Snyder moved to send the report back to committee to reconsider the graduate add/drop period.  The motion was seconded and discussed.  Following discussion, Senator Boylan called the question.  The call was seconded, and carried on vote.  The motion to send the report back to committee subsequently failed. Senator Boylan again called the question.  The call was seconded, and carried on vote.  Voting by show of cards, the Senate approved the report, as corrected and amended. Senator Oren summarized his committee’s Status Report, which was presented for information only rather than Senate action, on Charge S-0106, Addition of Plus/Minus Grades to the University’s Default Grading System.  The report recommends further examination of the issue by the Senate and the University administration. Senator Leath summarized his committee’s Report containing Revised Recommendation #7 on Charge S-0109, Best Practices in Assessment of Teaching.  The original report was approved by the Senate in March 2002, with the exception of Recommendation #7, which was returned to committee for revision.  Following discussion, Senator Walker-Andrews called the question.  On voice vote, the resubmitted Recommendation #7 was approved, as follows: 7. The University should report to each department the distribution of raw scores for each course and instructor, as well as the mean scores, as now reported.

Since student-evaluation scores are most useful only when comparisons are made with similar types of courses, a best practice would be for each department to divide its courses into appropriate categories of comparable courses, for teaching evaluation, or comparison purposes.  These divisions could include, for example, large lecture courses, laboratory courses, studio courses, seminar courses, honors courses, required courses, graduate courses, and research courses.  Each department, from the distributions of raw scores provided by the University, would calculate the departmental means for each category of courses appropriate to that department.  It would normalize the student course evaluation scores for each course and instructor against the appropriate departmental mean, i.e., divide the raw scores by the appropriate departmental mean scores.  The department would then use and report these normalized scores in its personnel decisions and recommendations, as well as the raw scores for each instructor.  In addition, each department might also wish to compute, use, and report the full score distributions and/or any other statistical quantities, such as grouped median, or standard deviation.

 OLD BUSINESS:  Senator McKay reported that the add/drop system will be available on Saturdays and Sundays during add/drop periods for the same hours as weekdays.

NEW BUSINESS:  On motion and duly seconded, the Senate approved by acclamation the following resolution presented by Vice Chairperson Rabinowitz:

Whereas, Kathleen Scott is completing her third of three consecutive terms as Chair of the Rutgers University Senate; and

Whereas, during her time as Chair the Senate parsed issues of significant importance to Rutgers University, resulting in over 30 reports and resolutions sent to the Administration as the advice of the Senate; and

Whereas, during her tenure the Senate upheld a spirit of collegiality as the University-wide deliberative body; and

Whereas, she has displayed tact and dignity in moving issues through the Senate; and

Whereas, her service also as chair of the Senate’s University Structure and Governance Committee has been invaluable to the University and to the Senate itself; and

Whereas, she has represented us ably before the Board of Governors; and

Whereas, she has exercised leadership with dedication, determination and good will;

Therefore, Be It Resolved that the University Senate expresses its appreciation and gratitude to Senator Scott for her service as its Chairperson, and that it anticipates with gratitude her continued service as Immediate Past Chairperson and in other senatorial roles she will undertake in the future.

 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT:  Vice Chair Rabinowitz reported on the April 19, 2002 Executive Committee meeting.  At that meeting, the Executive Committee had declined to charge a committee on Senator DeRosa’s suggestion that a specific honors program be examined. Following Vice Chair Rabinowitz’s report, Senator DeRosa suggested that the Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions Committee be charged with looking at best practices in general honors programs.

REPORT OF THE REPRESENTATIVES TO BOARDS OF GOVERNORS AND TRUSTEES:  Senator Jason Miller reported on the April 12 Board of Governors meeting.  Senator Rohr reported on the April 18 Board of Trustees meeting.

REPORT OF CAMPUS FACULTY LIAISONS:  Senator Cotter, chair of the New Brunswick Faculty Council, reported on that group’s recent activities.

ADJOURNMENT:  There being no further business before the University Senate, Chairperson Scott declared the meeting adjourned at 3:17 p.m.

Kenneth Swalagin
Secretary of the University Senate