[Approved February 9, 2007]
MINUTES
OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE
December
1, 2006
Sears
Auditorium, 3:00 p. m.
Senators Present: A. Abueida, J. Biddle, D. Biers
(presiding), M. Brill, D. Courte, D. Darrow, G. Doyle, C. Duncan, E. Elam, J.
Farrelly, A. Fist, E. Gustafson, R. Hardie, B. John, P. Johnson, W. Luckett, P.
Meyers,
Senators Excused: L. Brislin, C. Chen, A. Crow,
G. DeMarco, T. Eggemeier, L. Kloppenberg, T. Lasley, C. Letavec, F. Pestello,
J. Saliba, L. Simmons, R. Wells
Guests: J. Carter, P.
Bernal-Olson, M. Patterson, J. Untener, T.
Washington, K. Webb
1. Opening Prayer: Senator Farrelly opened the meeting with a
prayer to
2. Roll Call: Twenty-seven of
thirty-nine Senators were present.
3. Minutes:
October
13, 2006: Moved and seconded, minutes
were approved as written.
4. Announcements: D. Biers announced that the
Calendar Committee has made recommendation, through the Academic Policies
Committee and the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate, to the Provost
Council that the start of the 2007-2008 academic year
will be with Monday only, 4:30 and later classes. All other classes will begin on Tuesday.
5. Election of representative to ECAS from SOEAP: J. Biddle is on sabbatical in the winter term
2007 and will remain on the Academic Senate but not on the Executive Committee
or as chairperson of the Academic Policies Committee. There is a need to elect a representative to
the Executive Committee. D. Biers
announced that G. DeMarco was the only representative from the
6. DOC I -06-12 Faculty Background Checks: C. Phelps, chairperson of the Faculty Affairs
Committee introduced the document which is put forward for consultation under
Art. II. 3. c. of the Constitution of the Academic
Senate. She reviewed the process of
consultation for the background check policy for both full and part-time
faculty. Many changes have been made in
the course of this consultation. It has
been clarified that a third party company will conduct the checks to ensure
confidentiality and that the report will be received in the academic division,
the Provost Office. Decisions and judgments
will be made in the academic areas.
Judgments will be grounded in Catholic and Marianist principles. The process for disputing reports has been
articulated. Funding for these checks
will be the responsibility of Human Resources.
A question regarding the
7. Committee Reports:
·
C. Roecker-Phelps reported for the
Faculty Affairs Committee. In addition
to the Background Check Policy, the Committee is working on the Promotion and
Tenure Policy ad-hoc committee proposal that has been brought forward through
the Provost Council. A subcommittee of
the Faculty Affairs Committee is working on changes in the document based on
input from hearings and reports from the standing committees. The committee has also sent a report to the
Academic Policies committee on Doc 06-09.
·
J. Biddle reported for the Academic Policies Committee. He
submitted the following report: During
this term, the APCAS had 3 primary agenda items: academic calendar,
competencies, and Habits of Inquiry and
Reflection.
1.
The Calendar Committee
has forwarded a proposal for examinations and study days that the APCAS would
review in next term.
2.
The General Education
Committee forwarded the examination of “Competencies” that APCAS requested. The
APCAS will review this report in the next term.
3.
E. Gustafson and J.
Biddle will meet next week to help clarify the roles of the calendar committees
(University and “Select”). This will probably be an agenda item for both ECAS
and APCAS for next term.
4.
APCAS accepted and
supports the report and recommendation from the Subcommittee for Habits of Inquiry and Reflection.
Early in the Fall 2006, ECAS
identified the APCAS as the lead Standing Committee to determine appropriate
actions to take on the Habits of Inquiry
and Reflection. In its work, APCAS
followed these GUIDING PROFESSIONAL PRINCIPLES:
·
Doing the work of the
curriculum is a faculty responsibility.
·
Neither the Provost
nor the Deans have the level of responsibility for the curriculum as does the
faculty.
·
Neither ECAS nor APCAS
has the responsibility for doing the work of curriculum design, revision, or
development as does the faculty.
·
The goal of the HIR review process is to move the work
to the faculty as soon as possible.
APCAS devised a two
phase process for its work:
PHASE 1: In order to determine if
the HIR captured the ideals of a
university education in the Catholic and Marianist traditions, a subcommittee (C. Duncan and D. Darrow as co-chairs with J. O’Gorman and
R, Penno) was formed to hold open forums during the Fall
term. If they determined there was wide-spread support for the philosophy
section of HIR, then
PHASE 2: The APCAS should take appropriate action to generate a set of recommendations regarding specific programs, infrastructure, faculty development, and resources necessary to realize the educational aims and learning outcomes.
The
subcommittee’s timeline for a report was by November 29, 2006 to enable APCAS
to consider it at its November 30th meeting and present elements of
the report at this meeting. The only glitch was that the subcommittee couldn’t
schedule a meeting with student government leaders until Sunday evening,
December 3. Therefore, the subcommittee will present the results of that
meeting to APCAS on Monday, December 4.
In its meeting on November 30, 2006, the
APCAS voted to accept and support the report.
The subcommittee
presented the HIR review:
· and plan of action to the Academic Senate, with open invitation to other faculty, on Oct 13;
· to two widely-advertised open forums on Oct 31, and Nov 15;
·
to a full faculty meeting of the
· to a meeting of the Library faculty on November 16;
· to a meeting of the College’s chairs and program directors (CCPD) on Nov 8;
· at the fall Humanities Base faculty meeting on November 1 (approximately 20-25 regular faculty were in attendance).
·
The
·
The Dean of the
The
highlights of their findings are:
At the end of each of the open forums and the presentations to the other groups the audience was asked to indicate by a show of hands whether or not it believed that sections I-V of HIR captured the ideals of a university education in the Catholic and Marianist traditions. The membership of the CCPD gave sections I-V near unanimous approval.[1] The SBA faculty also gave sections I-V near unanimous approval.[2] The Library faculty fully supported the document. The results of the Humanities Base presentation discussion were inconclusive.
Most significantly, in each case there were no participants who registered a “no” vote (i.e., did not agree that sections I-V captured the ideals of a university education in the Catholic and Marianist traditions). Each of the events produced a rich conversation about the report and its place in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In general, there was much curiosity about HIR and its role as an extension of the UD mission statement, the Vision of Excellence, Characteristics of Marianist Education, and other key documents. The presentation prompted several inquiries into what was meant by Catholic social teaching. Indeed many of the questions seemed to be as connected to an exploration of what UD is all about as much as to the document itself. The fact that many faculty were eager to move on to a discussion of the recommendations also seemed to indicate that the document has already done much to stimulate thought about current and future curricula.
Concerns about the document expressed at the each of the meetings centered on three issues: scholarship, sacramentality and process.[3] The question on scholarship emerged in the discussions with the SBA, where several faculty members simply wanted to know more precisely what constituted scholarship as defined by the document. The resultant discussion seemed to satisfy their curiosity. Some Humanities Base faculty expressed concern that the document, in their reading, did not say more to promote academic rigor. One department suggested that, although the document was certainly a good Catholic and Marianist document, it was a substantial departure from the direction UD had been heading over the last decade.[4] There were also some concerns and confusion about the process by which the document came to and was being processed by the Senate. The most frequent and pointed concern, however, was over the term sacramentality. For some faculty the term was too Catholic. For others, the way the term is used in the document is not Catholic enough. Some faculty noted that the explanatory paragraph and subsequent discussion provided an adequate explanation of what was meant by “seeks knowledge in a sacramental spirit.” They also indicated that they understood and agreed with the intent of the term. They were concerned, however, that as the phrase would not always be accompanied by the explanatory paragraph that people would come to view “sacramental” in the same context as the Seven Sacraments. Some faculty also expressed the concern that using the term would make UD appear less inclusive to the outside world. At the same time, none of the participants in the discussion was able to provide an alternative term. The subcommittee recognizes these concerns and concludes that, given the fairly even split between those concerned that the use of the term was too Catholic and those who believed that the way the term is used is not Catholic enough, that perhaps the document did, in fact, use the term “just right.”
APCAS’s RESPONSE
The APCAS
would have been bitterly disappointed if faculty members hadn’t challenged and
debated elements of HIR. We fully
expected substantive questions; our plan was and is that these issues need to
be openly placed on the table and thoroughly discussed by the appropriate WGs during Phase 2 which begins in January 2007.
The recommendation, slightly modified by
APCAS, is:
After the many campus conversations, the subcommittee concludes that
the preponderance of the university community believes that HIR captured the ideals of a
university education in the Catholic and Marianist traditions. As such, the subcommittee recommends that the
APC endorse sections I-V of the document as having captured the ideals of a
university education in the Catholic and Marianist traditions, communicate this
to the Senate, and proceed with an examination and discussion of the
recommendations in the concluding sections of the document.
PHASE 2 Plan
Although the APCAS has designed a two-phase process regarding HIR, the goal is to engage in an integrative and holistic study. The Catholic and Marianist Tradition provides UD not only the ground for these recommendations, but also the generative culture for ongoing exploration. As the report states on p. 9:
As well as reflecting the discussions initiated by the Working Group,
these recommendations draw upon other work on the curriculum being done by the
First Year Team, the Humanities Base Committee, the Cluster Coordinating
Committee, the Committee on General Education and Competencies, and faculty
involved in various academic excellence initiatives funded by the provost.
These recommendations are also designed to advance the seven strategic goals
set out in A Vision of Excellence.
CHARGES FOR THE WORKING GROUPS
· NOTE—although the specific charge for each WG is drawn from the HIR recommendation section, the following are charges common to all WGs.
· Determine appropriate working relationships with existing UD teams/committees/working groups.
· Determine an efficient and effective size and structure for the WG.
· Determine appropriate membership beyond the core established by APCAS.
· Identify critical connections/overlaps with other WGs and/or recommendations. These interrelationships should be forwarded to the HIR Steering Committee on a regular basis.
· Identify educational infrastructure issues to be forwarded to the HIR Steering Committee on a regular basis.
MEMBERSHIP
· Each WG will be chaired by a member of APCAS. The core membership of each WG will be determined by the APCAS.
· Other Senators can volunteer for the WG or their choice.
· Other Senators can nominate non-Senate members (nominations to be sent to WG chair).
· Each WG should invite members from key stakeholder groups.
TIMELINE
An Interim Report is due from each WG by May 1, 2007. The HIR Steering Committee’s report will include any changes in the charges for the WGs as well as more specific guidelines for the final report due in December 2007.
OVERSIGHT
The HIR Strategic Task Force Steering Committee, led by APCAS members
with representatives from Student Development and Campus Ministry, will monitor
the necessary steps to encourage holistic and integrated work across the
Working Groups; it will also monitor the “infrastructure and implication”
issues identified by the Working Groups. Finally, this committee will make any
revisions to HIR pp. 1-8 required as
a result of the recommendations of the WGs; the goal,
once again, is an integrated and holistic presentation of the philosophy and
programmatic recommendations of HIR.
Questions were raised concerning the inclusion of global issues related to economics, energy, and politics in any considerations of curricular revision.. A number of senators indicated that concerns about internationalization and global issues need to be included in considerations of curricular change.
·
D. Courte and W. Luckett reported for the Student Academic
Policies committee of the Academic Senate.
The Committee continues to work on the Honor Code, statement of
purposes, and the proposal for an Honor’s Board. They forwarded comments to the other standing
committees on Doc I-06-09 and DOC -06-10
8. Adjournment: Moved and seconded, the meeting adjourned at 3:30
PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia A. Johnson
[1] The president of the Academic Senate believed that registering a vote at the CCPD meeting would be inappropriate given his Senate position and abstained.
[2] Two faculty members answered, “We don’t know,” which can be interpreted as abstention.
[3] Three units, HST, PHL and SAPAS, submitted individual comments.
[4] See the attached response from the Department of History.