RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
SENATE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
M I N U T E S
June 5, 2015
MEMBERS PRESENT: Boikess,
Borisovets, Cotter, Gould (Chair), Janniger (by phone),
Langer,
Oliver, Puhak, Swalagin
(Executive
Secretary), Thompson, Velan
MEMBERS EXCUSED: Barraco,
Burrell, Joshi, Otto
ALSO
ATTENDING: Ahluwalia (RSPH Dean), Gillett (15-16 Senate Vice
Chair), Lee (Senior
Vice President for Academic Affairs), Rabinowitz
(Faculty Representative to the Board of
Governors), Spiegel (Faculty Representative to the Board of
Trustees), Strom (RBHS Chancellor), Theiss (15-16 Camden Student Member
of the Senate Executive Committee)
The regular meeting of the University Senate Executive Committee was
held on
Friday, June 5, 2015 at 1:10 p.m. in the Executive Board Room of
Administrative Services Building-III, Cook Campus. Next-year's
Executive Committee members and board representatives were also invited.
1. Chairperson’s Report
Senate and Executive Committee Chairperson Ann Gould called the
meeting to order at 1:15 p.m. She welcomed current and incoming members
and board representatives, and thanked everyone for their
participation, particularly those not returning next year.
2. Secretary’s Report - Ken Swalagin,
Executive Secretary of the Senate
- Agenda: The meeting agenda
was approved as distributed by the executive secretary.
- Minutes:
- Communications: The following communication was
presented by the executive secretary, and acted upon as indicated.
- The Senate meeting scheduled for Good Friday has been
rescheduled to April 1 because March 25 is a holiday for RBHS
employees. The meeting will be held in the Rutgers Student Center
Multipurpose Room, but must end by 4:00 p.m. The change was approved.
3.
Administrative Report - Barbara Lee, Senior Vice President for
Academic Affairs
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Barbara Lee presented
a brief administrative report, which
included comments on:
- respective responsibilities of the Senior Vice President for
Academic Affairs, and the New Brunswick Chancellor; and
- reporting and organizational structures of her office, as well as
within the central administration.
4. Standing Committees/Panels
Draft
Standing Committee Rosters
2015-16, and Assignment of Chairs
Swalagin distributed hardcopies of 2015-16 Senate Committee rosters to
date. He said he needed to follow up with Senators who had not
responded to requests for their committee preferences, and would bring
revised rosters to the Executive Committee in September. There was
discussion of potential co-chairs for the Faculty and Personnel Affairs
Committee, and the Student Affairs Committee, as well as a chair for
the Research, and Graduate and Professional Education Committee (RGPEC)
because Jane Otto, current RGPEC chair, has other commitments that
preclude her chairing next year.
Pending Charges:
Discussion of Status of Pending Charges:
Charges with March 2015 or earlier deadlines, issued
before this
year, were reviewed, evaluated, and either renewed/reissued with a
new deadline, or withdrawn.
5. Continued
Discussion of, and Decision on, the Proposal
to Reorganize the School of Public Health (RSPH), submitted by
Jasjit Ahluwalia, RSPH Dean Designate and Brian Strom, RBHS Chancellor:
At 2:15 p.m., RSPH Dean Designate Jasjit Ahluwalia, and RBHS Chancellor
Brian Strom, joined the meeting to discuss the proposal to reorganize
Rutgers School of Public Health. The Executive Committee had previously
agreed to decide on whether to approve the
proposal at this meeting. The original proposal included the following:
"The proposed reorganization and
expansion will expand the breadth and depth of SPH research programs by
increasing its number of faculty and encouraging collaborations; unify
faculty across RBHS with a public health focus; and enhance SPH
educational, research, and service programs. This will be
achieved with full approval and endorsement of affected faculty and
without loss of any faculty positions. This is the first step of many
that will be planned in the upcoming years as we strive to compete with
the strongest schools of public health in the country."
Ann Gould and Martha Cotter had met with Dean Designate Ahluwalia and
Chancellor Strom to discuss this matter. Questions arising in Senate
committees during discussions of the proposal were compiled and
forwarded to Ahluwalia and Strom, whose responses
are online here. The Executive Committee asked additional
questions, and discussed the proposal with Ahluwalia and Strom, who
left the meeting at 2:56 p.m. After their departure, the Executive
Committee, on Martha Cotter's motion, duly seconded, voted to approve
the proposal, with one opposed.
4.B. Standing
Committees/Panels (Continued)
Issues/Proposed
Charges:
Proposed Charge on Modifying the
Academic Calendar and Exam Times for Online Courses -
submitted
by James Massachaele, Executive Vice Dean of SAS-NB via email.
This matter was discussed at the February and April 2015 Executive
Committee meetings. Instruction, Curricula and Advising Committee
(ICAC) Chair Natalie Borisovets had drafted the
following charge to be issued to the ICAC on related work they are
already
doing:
Testing Facilities at Rutgers: Examine
the state of testing facilities at Rutgers. Are there issues relating
to facilities for both traditional and computer-assisted testing? Is
there a need for a separate testing facility/facilities? Can existing
space be better utilized? What is the availability and process for
instructors in online courses to reserve physical spaces for their
exams?
The charge was issued with an October
2015 deadline.
"We ask that the University Senate
provide guidance, in collaboration with relevant units, to develop a
systematic approach to complying with attendance requirements.
The DoE's guidance on this issue suggests institutions have a
broad latitude in its approach to capture the necessary information.
Collaboration in developing a clearly defined protocol will
assure an efficient and optimal way that best suits the academic
practices at Rutgers."
ICAC Chair Natalie Borisovets had
drafted a charge on this matter, which was issued as follows, with a
February 2016 deadline:
Determination
of Student Attendance: Develop guidelines that
would allow units and individual instructors to comply with U.S.
Department of
Education requirements that Rutgers keep records for students receiving
federal
financial aid that substantiate a student’s participatory
attendance in the
classes for which they are registered.
Report
Reviews:
Senate
Report on Academic Reappointment Promotion Form 1-A Review: This
report included a recommendation that it be reviewed. [See also
President
Barchi's response.] This recommended review was discussed, and
Swalagin was asked to draft language for a follow-up charge to be
issued to the Faculty and Personnel Affairs Committee to review the
original report and the status of Form 1-A. The charge will be issued
with a "B" suffix appended to the original charge number (S-1007), and
a reporting deadline of December 2015.
6. Old Business
Peter Gillett noted that there is no response to the Senate Response
to Charge S-1307 on Senate and Executive Committee Eligibility, and
requested follow-up. Swalagin will contact the president's office to
ask about this response, as well as other Senate reports without
administrative responses. There was discussion about administrative
responses to Senate reports, and how those responses, as well as
implementation of Senate recommendations accepted by the
administration, could be tracked. Gould suggested this may be the
Senate vice chair's role. Gillett suggested it could also be done by
the Senate's representatives to the Board of Governors.
7. New
Business
2016
Shared Governance Symposium Committee Discussion - Ann Gould
said she and Martha Cotter had spoken with Barbara Lee about the
proposed 2016 shared governance symposium, which they had suggested
would include a keynote followed by panel discussion. Barbara Lee said
that President Barchi wants to do one spring and one fall symposium.
"The Research University in the Modern Age" would be a broad-subject
symposium that would include a keynote and panel discussion on shared
governance. Another symposium would be on the role of the humanities
and their importance in a modern research university. Lee said that Kim
Manning has been asked to coordinate all of the 250th anniversary
activities, and that Jorge Schement has formed a committee to address
the symposia. Gould said that she has asked Cotter to chair the
Senate's committee on the anniversary activities, and that Cotter has
agreed to do that, and would be in contact with Lee.
8. Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 3:40 p.m.
Minutes written and submitted by,
Ken Swalagin
Executive Secretary of the University Senate