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March Faculty Senate minutes


MONROE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
FACULTY SENATE

March 27, 2003

PRESENT: J.Avery, I.Benz, W.Brewer, S.Cable, S.Callan, L.Chrzan-Williams, J.Downer, K.Farrell, M.Filozof, T.Gilbert, E.Grissing, M.Harris, K.Humphrey, J.Kaufman, T.Keys, E.Laidlaw, K.Marhatta, A.McIntyre, M.McKinzie, E.Mellas, D.Mohr, B.Robinson, S.Ruckert, L.Sanger, C.Sardone, C.Schwartzott, R.Shea, L.Silvers, H.Wheeler
STUDENT REPRESENATIVES: D.O'Hanlon, A.Navor ABSENT: G.Anderson, P.Bates, D.Brown, T.Cuby, T.DiGiacomo, J.Ekis, K.Fox, R.Kuempel, E.Lewis, J.McCauley, P.Peterson, B.Smith, J.Smith, G.Toth GUESTS: S.Blacklaw, K.Canfield, B.Connolly, C.Cooper, F.Dearing, L.Dyer, H.Murphy, R.Rigoni, C.Rogalski

Meeting called to order: 3:36pm

1. Guest Speakers
a. Deborah Mohr re: LibQual + Library Survey
The Library will be conducting an assessment evaluation the library services at Brighton and DCC via an online survey developed by the Association of Research Libraries. Deadline for completion of the survey is May 10. The survey can be accessed from the Library home page on the MCC web site. Mary Timmons at the DCC library is the coordinator. Handouts concerning the survey were distributed to the Senators.

b. Leah Dyer re: Health and Safety Committee
Dyer stated that the Health and Safety Committee is mandated by the state. According to the mandate, the committee must consist of men and women, faculty and staff, administrators and students. The committee is soliciting support from anyone who wants to serve on the committee as well as support for activities that come out of the committee. The Committee's charge was distributed to the Senators. One accomplishment from this committee is the blue light phones at the Brighton campus. Currently the committee is working on to civility issues and the 3Rs. The committee is open to any ideas on programming that may be developed by the committee. The Faculty Senate and this committee are working together on a new MCC civility statement. A copy of the committee charge will be e-mailed to all senators.

c. Stuart Blacklaw re: Hybrid Pilot Program
Blacklaw gave some definitions that were helpful in the outline of the proposal.
- Online Course - a course in which all instruction is delivered via the internet, i.e.: SLN
- Web Enhanced - this is a traditional course supplemented with materials from the internet which are currently delivered at MCC using CourseSpace.
- Hybrid - parts of a hybrid course is delivered face-to-face and parts is delivered online. This type of course reduces seat time in the traditional classroom. Currently at MCC, the online portions of these courses are delivered using CourseSpace. At MCC, a hybrid course must consist of at least 50% of the instruction online.
Hybrid courses join classroom and online instruction, which can greatly assist students with time and location constraints. MCC will run a two-year pilot hybrid program starting Fall 2003. This pilot is under development now.
For MCC purposes, hybrid is primarily online with limited classroom instruction (usually once a week). The initial participants will come from SLN trained instructors. Non-SLN faculty are welcome to participant in year two of the pilot. Blacklaw requested that interested participants come forward as soon as possible.

Timeline:
Group 1: currently underway - proposals submitted, under review, and all 4 were approved. The courses will launch in the Fall 2003.
Group 2: Proposals due April 25, 2003 for courses begin Spring 2004.
These courses need to be developed ahead of the master scheduling especially due to classroom issues (how much time will the classroom be occupied).
Hybrid proposal forms were given out to the Senators.

Questions
- How will hybrid courses be designated on the master schedule? - Probably with an HY designation, i.e.: ENG 101-HY1. There are concerns about making students aware of what this designation means and getting students into the right type of class for their needs.
- Can a faculty member propose to teach a course even though they don't teach online now? - Yes, in the second year of the pilot.
- With the CourseSpace product, can we plug in video, etc? - Yes, but there are concerns over whether the student's pc can handle it. However, students have access to the ELC which can handle video plug ins.
- Will there be CourseSpace training? - Yes, it will be given by ETS, very similar to SLN. This training would be part of the development process for the course. It was suggested that there that there be an introduction to CourseSpace module that will give faculty members an idea of how it works and allow them to see if they might be interested in using the product.
- Is the purpose of hybrid courses to reduce the amount of class space needed? - This is a potential benefit but not the driving purpose. Hybrid courses grew out of faculty developing some web enhanced courses however a structure was needed. Ultimately, there may be classroom space savings.
- The 50% that must be online is an arbitrary number right now but will that go beyond the pilot program? - Possibly, because we don't want to "swiss cheese" the schedule where we have too many classrooms not used which would also cause a problem.

Summary
Hybrid courses may be an answer to some of the faculty concerns about online courses, allowing them to have face-to-face and online time. This may be much more of the future direction rather than the full online course. The whole basis is to make it more convenient for students schedules and still allow them time to be off campus. Multiple learning styles can also be addressed with the use of all the different delivery methods.
Blacklaw will report to the Senate after the assessment of the fall semester courses.

d. Chet Rogalski and Renee Rigoni re: New Gen. Ed. Plan Proposal
Dean Rogalski stated that this committee has been working for the last year on this proposal. Next month the Faculty Senate will vote to receive the recommendations of this committee. There were two handouts, which included a summary of the history, the charge of the committee, and the actual proposal.
There are currently three general education plans at MCC:
Liberal Arts distribution requirements - not many knew about it; not assessed; what is liberal arts; required by state education
Infusion system - check items at the end of the course proposals; not assessed; a student can take 2 courses outside of liberal arts and get by
SUNY General Education - only about 40-50% of students transfer to a SUNY institution

The proposed plan should be for all of the students who graduate from MCC.
Gold book policy 2.0 charges the Curriculum Committee to review the general education requirements. This proposal is to replace MCC's current general education plan. This plan has the support of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Curriculum Committee.

The Proposed MCC General Education Plan is collaborative and pragmatic. Every program must have some credits outside its core area. There are six areas (totaling 17 credits): Basic communication, Humanities, Social science, Mathematics, Natural science, and PE/Health. These requirements fit within most degree programs, which distributes the credits among various areas.

A chart was displayed listing all MCC programs with the six categories showing which programs would not comply with this proposal. The committee recommends that the non-compliant programs be grandfathered into the proposal and reviewed through the curriculum process. It was pointed out that most of these programs would just require some reworking.
This proposal doesn't conflict with any current SUNY requirements and the new plan can be assessed.
The new proposal requirements would be imbedded in the degree programs so you should never have to review with a student whether they met the MCC requirements. As long as they are following their degree program requirements, the general education requirements would be fulfilled.
- The only general education requirement that would need to be audited would be for SUNY transfer students.
- The Curriculum Committee discussed this at length. Grandfathering should not be allowed without any changes. Committee would assist departments in the program review process to help make changes. The departments would have to present rationale as to why it should not comply.

Senators are asked to take this proposal back to their constituents for review.

2. Announcements
Dan O'Hanlon, the Student Representative, stated that there would be a Red Cross Blood Drive April 11. Appointments are recommended and can be made by e-mailing or phoning the Student Government Office.

3. Approval of Minutes from February Senate Meeting
Approved as written

4. Action Items
Program Review (PR3): Nursing - Approved

5. Standing Committee Reports

Academic Policies (C.Marhatta)
- Marhatta reported that the placement testing policy revisions would not be presented today since the testing and placement committee has not been able to meet to give final approval. The policy changes will be presented at the April Senate meeting.
- Marhatta reported that the committee is receiving feedback from the college community on the course waiver/substitution policy.
- Marhatta reported that there is an open hearing Friday, April 11 at 12:00 in Room 5-100 on the Student Opinions of Course and Faculty. The proposed questionnaire was sent to all Senators. There are currently 24 questions however, after a factor analysis the questions will be narrowed down to 16.

Curriculum (E.Mellas)
- Mellas reported that the Curriculum Committee participated in workshops designed to obtain feedback on the curriculum proposal database. Phase II of implementation of the database will take place in the fall. The interface will be changed and improvements made. The Committee will continue to receive input from those who have used the database. Mellas requested users of the database forward comments to the Curriculum Committee or the Curriculum Office.

NEG (S.Cable)
- Cable reported that Donna Cox is a candidate for the Faculty Senate President. There will be an open hearing and election scheduled in April.
- Cable reported that there would be a call for nominations for Senators sent out to departments next week.
- Cable reported that there would be a call for nominations for the Teaching Representative to MCC Association Board.

Planning (L.Chrzan-Williams)
- Chrzan-Williams reported that the Vice Presidents gave a presentation earlier in March on their divisions support of the strategic plan, which was well attended.
- Chrzan-Williams reminded the Senators of the Time in Reflections scheduled for Thursday, April 10 at 2:30. The topic will be how the residence halls and campus center could enhance academics. The committee is also looking for people to serve on a sub-committee addressing this topic.

Professional Development (W.Brewer)
- Brewer reported that the committee is reviewing the requests for Professional Leaves for the Benefit of the College.
- Brewer reported that the Hanson Award deadline is April 9
- Brewer reported that there would be a June Professional Development Workshop on Friday, June 6 at Mario's Via Abruzzi. Breakfast will be served at beginning at 8:00 am, the program will be held from 8:30-11:00 on the topic of: Respect and Civility in the College Community.

SCAA (M. Harris)
- Harris reported that two members of SCAA served on the search committee for the director of CUES. James W. Maddison was hired.
- Harris reported that the DCC Executive Dean search ongoing
- Harris reported that the chair appointments are ongoing. Harris stated that Vice President Glocker is working with Deans to possibly stagger the chair elections since there is disproportionate number of chair elections this year in several divisions.

6. Old Business
There was no old business.

7. New Business
There was no new business.

Meeting adjourned at 5:04pm

Respectfully submitted,
Raymond Shea
President

Barbara Robinson
Secretary

Minutes approved at the April 24, 2003 Faculty Senate meeting.





Faculty Senate
Faculty Senate Office
05/01/2003