MEMBERS PRESENT: Barone, Borisovets, Cotter, DeRosa, Hirsh, Manhoff, Rabinowitz (Vice Chair), Panayotatos (Chair), Scott, Swalagin (Executive Secretary)
EXCUSED: Rijhsinghani
ALSO ATTENDING: Cooper (Student Affairs Committee Co-Chair), Leath (Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee Chair), Redd (Graduate Student BOT Representative), Schiavo (Camden Faculty Liaison), Seneca (Administrative Liaison), Szatrowski (Budget and Finance Committee Co-Chair)
The regular meeting of the University Senate Executive Committee was held on Friday, September 13, 2002 at 1:10 p.m. in the President’s Dining Room, Brower Commons, College Avenue Campus.
1. Chairperson’s Report
Chairperson Panayotatos called the meeting to order, and welcomed everyone to a new Senate year. He said that he intends to continue the momentum which characterized Senator Scott’s tenure as chairperson.
A draft memorandum from Chairperson Panayotatos and former Chairperson Scott to continuing Senators who attended fewer than half of the meetings of their assigned standing committee was reviewed. Senator Scott noted that some may not be aware that they can, and should if necessary, ask to be excused from standing committee meetings, and suggested that everyone be informed of that option. Following discussion, the memorandum was unanimously approved.
2. Secretary's Report
Minutes: The Minutes of the June 7, 2002 Executive Committee meeting were approved as distributed by the Secretary.
Communications: The following communications were presented and acted upon as noted:
3. Administrative Report
University Vice President for Academic Affairs Joseph Seneca presented the administrative report, which included comments on: enrollment university-wide and by campus; 109 new faculty hires, as well as retirements of faculty and others; appointments of Carmen Ambar as Dean of Douglass College, and Adesoji Adelaja as Dean of Cook College; external grants for fiscal year 2002; groundbreakings for Biomedical Engineering and Genetics and Biomaterials facilities on Busch Campus this past summer; progress of the Capital Campaign; awarding of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Chair to Professor Dorothy Strickland; and the state budget.
Senator Seneca said that University Registrar Iuso will have final enrollment numbers at the end of September, and offered to bring those numbers to the Senate Executive Committee’s October 4 meeting, and agreed to Senator Redd’s request that the numbers include a breakdown by graduate and undergraduate for Newark and Camden.
4. Standing Committee Chairs’ Caucus, Charges and Administrative Requests
Standing committee chairs had been invited to the meeting. Chairs Cooper, Leath, Panayotatos, Scott and Szatrowski attended.
The Senate Committee Guide, Standing Charges, and Pending Charges were reviewed. Chairperson Panayotatos emphasized the importance of planning early for committee activities, and urged chairs to make sure their administrative liaisons are present at all meetings. Noting that it is not good practice to bring changes to reports and resolutions to the Senate floor rather than to committee meetings, and therefore turning the Senate into committee of the whole, Chairperson Panayotatos asked that committee chairs use e-mail as much as possible to circulate drafts of reports and receive comments from committee members as well as others.
Pending charge S-9909 to the Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee on the Right-to-Know Issue was dropped. This charge had asked for examination of potential conflicts of interest between faculty whose research involves issues which may be seen as controversial, and the NJ Right-to-Know statute. At the Executive Committee’s direction, Secretary Swalagin will ask Associate Vice President for Administration Leslie Fehrenbach to summarize the provisions of the Open Public Record Act at the September Senate meeting.
Senator Borisovets, chair of the Instruction, Curricula and Advising Committee, asked about the status of a proposed charge to her committee on mid-year course evaluations and review. She will draft that charge for consideration at the October 4 Executive Committee meeting.
Senator Walker-Andrews was selected as co-chair of the Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions Committee. Last year’s co-chair, Roger Cowley, was unable to continue due to departmental chair responsibilities.
Senator Habib was identified as a possible co-chair for Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee. Last year’s co-chair, Barbara Lee, was unable to continue this year. Also, co-chair Paul Leath will be on sabbatical in the spring, and unable to serve. Chairperson Panayotatos will also serve as co-chair to Faculty Affairs and Personnel during the spring semester.
Secretary Swalagin was instructed to research whether the issue of pre-Labor Day academic year start dates is to be reviewed by the Senate, or if the default multi-year calendar already approved was intended to be permanent.
A draft charge to the Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions (ASRA) Committee on Add/Drop Period Review was considered. Secretary Swalagin conveyed ASRA Chair Oren’s view that further consideration of add/drop was not warranted at this time. Senator Scott said that, as Senate chair, she had offered to send the graduate/undergraduate component of the add/drop issue back to committee, and noted that complaints had been received regarding constraining graduate add/drop unnecessarily. Following discussion, the Executive Committee decided that review of the add/drop period, and consideration of a different graduate add/drop period, were separate issues and should be charged separately. Senator Scott said that the review basically involved looking at the numbers for the first two semesters of actual implementation (the fall 2001 add/drop period being extended due to the attacks of 9/11), and also offered to ask Registrar Iuso if data is available on grades of those students who added late (per request made at the May 2002 Senate meeting). Charges were issued to the Academic Standards, Regulations and Admissions Committee as follows:
Charge S-0210: Relating to the Senate’s April 2001 resolution on Charge S-0101 which modified the Add/Drop Period, review and report on the results of those changes after the first two semesters of implementation (the fall 2001 add/drop period having been extended due to the events of 9/11). Report to Executive Committee by January 2003.A draft charge to the Student Affairs Committee (SAC), submitted by Senator DeRosa, was considered. Senator Cooper, Co-chair of the SAC, was present at the meeting, and supported the charge. Following discussion, the charge was issued to the Student Affairs Committee as follows:Charge S-0211: Investigate and report on issues relating to current graduate student add/drop periods. Advise on whether a permanent, formalized, and separate graduate add/drop period should be instituted. Report to Executive Committee by November 2002.
Charge S-0212: Review and provide recommendations on policies regarding the use of athletic facilities as rain sites or venues for non-athletic events (such as use of the Louis Brown Athletic Center (the RAC) as a rain site for RutgersFest and other similar University-wide events). What athletic facilities are usually made available for non-athletic events? How do these facilities tend to meet (or fail to meet) the needs of these events? How do peer institutions with similar facilities share their resources? Provide advice as to how these facilities can be best utilized by the University community at large. This charge should be coordinated with Dean Pamela Johnston of the Office of Student Involvement and Ghada Endick, Director of Rutgers College Programs in the Office of Student leadership, Involvement and Programs, who have collected information on the use of athletic facilities at peer institutions. Report to Senate Executive Committee by November 2002.A second draft charge to the Student Affairs and/or Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committees, also submitted by Senator DeRosa, was considered. Following discussion, a shortened form of the charge was issued to the Student Affairs Committee as follows:
Charge S-0213: Examine the issue of faculty placement of textbook orders and its effect on book buyback prices. Provide recommendations on methods of encouraging more advanced placement of textbook orders. Report to Senate Executive Committee by January 2003.5. Senate Meeting Agenda
The following items were docketed for the September 27, 2002 meeting agenda:
Enrollment Committee: Senator Arlene Walker-Andrews was selected by the Executive Committee as faculty co-chair of the Enrollment Committee. Senator Walker-Andrews will co-chair with Senator Seneca, who serves as administrative co-chair. The September 27 Student Caucus of the Senate will elect a Camden student to serve on the Enrollment Committee.
Senator Szatrowski, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, noted that charge S-0205 on examination of enrollment trends, duplicates some of the work of the Enrollment Committee, and asked that it be dropped. The Executive Committee agreed, and dropped charge S-0205.
7. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 3:02 p.m. by Chairperson Panayotatos.
Kenneth Swalagin
Executive Secretary of the Senate