To
Ken
Swalagin, Secretary, University Senate
From:
Ted
H. Szatrowski, Professor, MSIS, RBS and University Senator and new ICA
member
Date:
September 29,
2006
Subject:
Request to revisit Senate 3/26/2004 action restricting
faculty to teaching only one course in WinterSession
Cc:
Natalie
Borisovets, Chair, ICA
I would request that this issue be revisited. The
ICA did
not consult with either of the faculty teaching two courses during
Wintersession (1 in New Brunswick, 1
in Newark)
to gather information
about the pros and cons on this issue. It
is my understanding that the New Brunswick Wintersession Offices has
been unwilling
to grant exceptions to this rule, because of the rule, not because of
the
merits of having certain individual faculty members teaching more than
one
course. On the other hand, before this
rule was put in place, the Wintersession office in New Brunswick was cognizant of the
record of
the faculty member teaching two courses, and reviewed this situation on
an
annual basis to insure that quality instruction was not being
compromised. I
ask
that the committee propose rescinding this rule with action taken by
the Senate
at an early Fall, 2006 meeting. It has
adverse impact on students and faculty, and may indeed restrict their
access to
quality instruction. Note that
rescinding this rule would not remove the discretion that the
Wintersession
office has to make decisions based on a case by case basis as to
whether to let
a faculty member teach more than one course.
I was the faculty member in New
Brunswick who taught two courses in
Wintersession, 01:960:285 Introductory Statistics for Business and
33:623:385 Statistical
Methods in Business. I am willing to
share my experience in teaching two courses, the advantage to the
students and
the sharp contrast between reality and the last sentence in the report
excerpt
below. Although I have no doubt the
intention in the ICA
report was good, I believe the action has had an unintended negative
educational impact.
Background on Senate Action on this Matter:
1) Following brief discussion, the report was approved
unanimously by the Senate on card vote, as presented by the committee.
(excerpt
from Senate Minutes
for 3/26/2004
meeting.) [The report was 9 pages long.]
2) Excerpt from: Rutgers
University Senate, Instruction, Curricula and Advising
Committee,
Report in Response to Charge S-0303, Winter Session Review,
January
2004, Revised February 2004, http://senate.rutgers.edu/wintersessionreview.html
Winter Session Faculty
The 2000 Senate report focused primarily on issues relating to the
courses
being offered during Winter Session, no recommendations were offered
relating
to the faculty teaching those courses.
In
looking at this year’s offerings, the Committee
noted that both Newark and New Brunswick
had at least one faculty
member teaching two different courses during Winter Session. Teaching
university-level courses 7 or 8 hours a day, combined with the
necessary
preparation and other student-contact times, would seem to be
equivalent to,
and potentially as counterproductive as, a student taking more than one
Winter
Session course during a single session.