MEMBERS PRESENT:  Adarkwa, Allender, Apfel, Atmeh, Axelrod, Barone, Bell, Bodnar, Boikess, Borisovets, Boyd, Boylan, Bravo, Brazier, Caprio, Capuano, Chabal, Cohen, Coit, Colaizzi, Cole, Colin, Cotter, Curtis, Darien, DeLuca, E. Dennis, Dent, Diner, Downs, Dutta, Edwards, Elkholy, C. Ellis, N. Ellis, Farrell, Feinberg, Finc, Fincher, Fishbein, Furmanski, Gaunt, Gigliotti, Gillett, Goodman, Gould, Greenhut, Hall, Hallmark, Hart, Heckscher, Hmelo-Silver, Hyndman, Jackson, Johnson, J. Jones, Kalelkar, Kirschner, Klein, Klepac, Kokini, Krenos, LaSala, Lee, Liepmann, Lipman, MacArthur, Maher, Marchetta, Markert, Markowitz, Mayer, McCabe, McCormick, McKay, Melwani, Messer, Meyer, Miller, Mulcahy, Muller, Ng, Niederman, Norville, Obayashi, O’Connell, O’Connor, Oren, Ozbay, Palmon, Potenza, Poyznyer, Puniello, Samuel Rabinowitz, Sidney Rabinowitz, Reed, Rubin, Schaich, Schein, Schock, Schorr, Scott, Shah, P. Simmons, R. Simmons, Smith, St. John, Stroud, Sukhdeo, Tittler, Turpin, Vodak, Volk, Wang, Whitfield, Winterbauer, Wyhopen.

EXCUSED   Alger, Bartosek, DeLisi, Deutsch, Friedrich, Hughes, R. Jones, Kagan, Kirby, Laguna-Diaz, Lashley, Leath, Mandelbaum, Marsh, Mauroff, McKeever, Mohammed, Ocone, Panayotatos, Portilla, Rabiner, Ruiz, C. Simmons, Soren, Van Til, Young, Zaborszky, Zhitkevich

ABSENT:  Aladdin, Ambar, Amirahmadi, Arias, Banerjee, Barbarese, Bellany, Bernstein, Blimling, Boehmer, Breton, Butler, Cannon, Carr, R. Dennis, Deprez, Dhillon, Fleming, Gimbar, Gyenfie, Hankins, Herrera, John, Kanj, Kavanagh, Kennedy, Labib, Leichenko, Livingston, Martin, Nelson, Reynolds, Sherman, Simon, Snyder, Solomon, Spat, Spiegel, Stark, Tuckman, Turner, Whang, Williams

View Senate attendance record for this year

PRESIDING OFFICER:  Martha Cotter, Chairperson

CALL TO ORDER AND DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM:  Tally of Senators signed in having confirmed presence of a quorum, Chairperson Cotter called the meeting to order at 1:18 p.m.  With the Senate's approval, she moved the Administrative Report to the first item of business on the agenda.

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT:  President McCormick thanked the Senate for rearranging the agenda, then made a brief administrative report, which included comments on:

• the status of what he called "extremely satisfying" discussions on the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, including recent completion of the last of five campus forums on the subject, and recent or upcoming discussions and actions by student governing associations, alumni associations, schools and colleges, the New Brunswick Faculty Council, the Board of Trustees, and today's Senate panel discussion; and

•  progress of discussions of a Higher Education Facilities Bond Issue which may appear on the 2006 ballot.

CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT:  Chairperson Cotter's report included comments on the following topics:

• procedures for today's meeting, to consist primarily of panel-format presentations and discussion of Senate standing committees work to date on responses to the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education;

• the expected schedule of the Senate's response to the Task Force on Undergraduate Education's recommendations, as follows:

• the December 2005 meeting, which will begin at 11 a.m. with presentations and discussion of any alternate proposals or input from non-Senate groups or constituencies, and which will also include lunch, after which the Senate will break into standing committees to continue discussion of the Task Force response;
•  the expectation that all standing committees will then submit their final reports on the Task Force response to a steering committee consisting of the Senate Executive Committee and its standing-committee chairs, which will then compile the committees' individual responses into a coherent, non-contradictory report on which the full Senate will act at its February 2006 meeting; and

• changes in the Senate's meeting schedule, including changes of venue for the February and March 2006 meetings, so that the February final action on the Task Force recommendations will take place in New Brunswick, and the Newark Campus Report will be heard in Newark at the March meeting.

Minutes:  On motion and duly seconded, the Minutes of the October 21, 2005 Senate meeting were approved as distributed by the Secretary.

•  May 2, 2005 letter to Senate from President McCormick acknowledging Senate Report on E-mail Privacy
• Changes to Senate Schedule of Meetings:
• December 9, 2005 Senate meeting begins at 11:00 a.m. (Lunch will be provided)
• February 24, 2006 Senate meeting will be held in New Brunswick, at the Labor Education Center, Cook Campus, where the Senate will consider final recommendations on the Task Force on Undergraduate Education Report
•  March 24, 2006 Senate meeting will be held in Newark, where the Newark Campus Report will be presented by Provost Diner

Chairperson Cotter introduced this portion of the meeting, which was to consist of brief presentations by Senate standing-committee chairs on their respective committees' responses to the recommendations and Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education (TFUE), and subsequent panel-format discussion of those committee reports.  Cotter said that the committees' reports had not been distributed because they are working, preliminary documents, but that the comments and input heard on the Senate floor today would be helpful in refining and completing the committee reports.  She added that committee reports would be summarized in groups based on priorities and subject areas (e.g., TFUE recommendations on structure), and would be discussed first in groups, and then all reports could be discussed following the presentations.

Senator Scott moved the Senate to committee of the whole.  The motion was seconded, and carried unanimously.  The Senate now in committee of the whole, Chairperson Cotter, who is also co-chair of the Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions Committee, joined the other committee chairs at the panel table.  Vice Chairperson Rabinowitz assumed the chair.

The Senate then heard summaries of standing-committees' preliminary reports on the TFUE, in the following order:

• Group One:  University Structure and Governance Committee; Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee
• Group Two:  Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions Committee; Instruction, Curricula and Advising Committee
• Group Three:  Student Affairs Committee; Equal Opportunity Committee
• Group Four:  Budget and Finance Committee

Discussion of committee preliminary reports on the TFUE, as well as the TFUE recommendations themselves, continued until 3:36 p.m., at which time, on Senator Scott's motion, the Senate rose from committee of the whole.  Chairperson Cotter resumed the chair.

OLD BUSINESS:  There was no old business.

NEW BUSINESS:  There was no new business.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT:  Vice Chairperson Rabinowitz reported on the November 4, 2005 Senate Executive Committee meeting.  Executive Committee minutes are available on the Senate website.

REPORT OF THE REPRESENTATIVES TO BOARDS OF GOVERNORS AND TRUSTEES:  There had been no Board of Governors meetings since the previous Senate meeting.  Senator Volk, Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Trustees, reported on the October 27, 2005 Board of Trustees meeting.

REPORT OF CAMPUS FACULTY LIAISONS:  John Graham, chair of the Newark Faculty Council (NFC), reported on recent and planned activities of the NFC, including October review and endorsement of a proposal from the Department of Public Administration to create a School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers Newark.  The proposal may come to the Senate in the spring.

ADJOURNMENT:  The meeting adjourned at 3:41 p.m.