MONROE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY SENATE
May 19, 2005
PRESENT: I. Benz, P. Bishop, C. Boettrich, S. Cable, S. Callan, B. Connell, L. Chrzan-Williams (Vice-President), D. Cox (President), K. Doyle, J. Ekis, S. El Rayess, S. Fess, S. Forsyth, T. Gilbert, E. Grissing, R. Hamell, A. Hughes, K. Humphrey, N. Karolinski, P. Keyes, D. Leach, A. Leopard, M. Marino, J. McCauley, J. McKenna, D. Mueller, M. Murphy, S. Murphy, N. Murage, J. Nelson, P. Peterson, M. Rizzo, S. Ruckert, D. Shaw, J. Smith, B. Smithgall,
E Stewart, J. Thompson M. Timmons, T. Tugel (Secretary), P. Wakem, H. Wheeler, W. Willard
ABSENT: F. Burger, T. Digiacomo, M. Pastorella, V. Toth, H. Wynn-Preische
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE: D. Curtis
GUESTS: K. Affleck, J. Alas, T. Archie, E. Baker, J. Barone, E. Belyablya, M. Boester,
D. Cecero, K. Collins, B. Connolly, C. Cooper, R. Degus, M. Fine, M. Fugate, J. Glocker, P. Kuby, K. Marhatta, A. Perry, S. Perry, J. Rao, A. Ranczuch, S. Salvadore, R. Saxton, L. Silvers, D. Smith, A. Stainton, R. Stewart, A. Striegel, To. Vinci, H. Williams
Meeting called to order: 3:35 pm
2. Guest Speaker:
R. Thomas Flynn, College President - President Flynn thanked Senate President Donna Cox for the invitation to address the faculty and expressed his appreciation to the Faculty Senate for its work this past year. He provided the following updates on key areas within the College.
Despite initial recommendations for state aid, lobbyists were successful in securing an additional one million dollars in state aid for the College. MCC is in good standing with the local legislature and accordingly, they are very supportive and appreciative of our work. The MCC Foundation’s campaign exceeded ten million dollars and included funding for student scholarships, procurement of equipment and professional development. The College is actively involved in securing a major grant to provide the Nursing Department with the nation’s finest teaching facilities. The federal government has dedicated 250 million dollars for community college initiatives with another billion available. MCC has retained a lobbying firm to help in obtaining federal grants, many in partnerships with four-year schools. MCC is in excellent fiscal health for the upcoming three-year budget period.
President Flynn expressed concerns about SUNY maintaining its operating independence when a new governor takes office. President Flynn will be meeting with SUNY’s interim chancellor next month, but believes MCC lost a good friend with Chancellor King’s departure. As term limits in the Monroe County legislature go into effect, President Flynn will begin working with twenty-four new members, educating them on MCC’s programs and contributions to the community.
President Flynn is pleased with the support he has received from both the Faculty Senate and Faculty Association. Many things can be accomplished when working together and he pledges his full support to the Senate. He noted he understands the Senate is interested in reviewing the by-laws of SCAA and indicated the administration may have some suggestions which would be to the advantage of the Senate and administration. Faculty are encouraged to seek partnerships with community businesses. Grants that involve partnerships are highly favorable and he finds businesses will support the education of our students if asked.
We continue to upgrade our facilities. This summer there will be close to one million dollars spent on new athletic fields. Nine million dollars will be spent for the renovation of Building 9 on the Brighton campus with another fifty-four million dollars going toward our new downtown facility at the Renaissance Square. Regardless of this commitment, he assures the Damon Campus facilities will continue to be maintained, if not improved. The Renaissance Square will provide many opportunities for faculty involvement and we should take ownership in this project. To date, most work with the project has been process-oriented. The only decision made on programs that will be housed at the downtown site, is the tentative one identifying those currently located at DCC. V.P. Glocker is actively studying which academic programs, if any, will relocate from other sites. R. Degus will be in charge of the overall plan and will continue to update the faculty on its progress.
The area of workforce development is growing so quickly a decision was made to split D. Swanger’s position when he left the College. James Winston has been hired as the Assistant to the President for Workforce Development, an area that has tremendous potential to generate revenue for the College. An announcement regarding the receipt of a seven-figure grant from a major corporation to develop a “Corporate College” is anticipated soon, hopefully matched with federal funding. While the Corporate College is separate from MCC in name only at this time, it could one day have its own identify, in both name and dedicated space. The College is currently in the process of seeking someone to fill the position of Assistant Dean of Technical Education.
The Residence Halls have been an outstanding success and currently have a waiting list of 700 students. The building of another three units due east of the existing halls is proposed to provide 365 additional beds beginning in Fall 2006.
Peter Otero and Chris Belle-Isle are members of a national program developing 2+2 programs with traditional black institutions. MCC is the first college to develop a Homeland Security Management Institute and has become a national model for this. The program is still growing and recently received grants totaling 1.1 million dollars.
In closing, this has been an exciting and busy year. The College is in excellent financial health, has had seven consecutive years of record enrollment and is the recipient of positive feedback from students, faculty, and the media. Nevertheless, President Flynn believes the best is yet to come and there is no limit to what we can accomplish if we agree to work together. He wished the faculty the best as the semester concludes.
3. Student Announcements: Dan Curtis, Vice President, Student Government Association
Elections for the Student Government Association have been conducted and work will begin soon on the SGA budget.
4. Approval of Minutes: Minutes of the April 14, 2005 meeting were approved.
5. Action Items:
The following curriculum proposal was approved with one dissention:
PD 1 Business: Financial Services AAS (one dissention)
The following curriculum proposals were approved unanimously:
PD 2 Community Health Advisement Sequence
PR 2 General Accounting AAS
PR 3 Criminal Justice: Police AAS
PR 4 Criminal Justice: Corrections Administration AAS
PR 5 Criminal Justice AS (advisement sequences: PS06, PS10, PS12, PS13, PS18, PS19, PS23, PS24)
PR 7 Criminal Justice AS (advisement sequences: PS06, PS10, PS12, PS13,
PS18, PS19, PS23, PS24)
PR 6 Criminal Justice: Police AS
PR12 Criminal Justice Corrections Administration AAS
Determination of the previously required computer course in a student’s program will be
handled through advisement (S. Cable). T. Gilbert suggested the department work with
CRT to develop a reliable screening process. (This applies to all Criminal Justice programs with this revision.)
PR 8 Business Administration AAS
PR 9 Small Business Management Certificate
PR10 Child Care Practitioners Advisement Sequence
PR13 Interior Design AAS
Academic Grievance Policy Revisions: A motion was made by the Academic Policies Committee to approve the recommended revisions to the Academic Grievance Policy.
A motion to amend the proposed introductory comments to read as follows was made (Gilbert, Boettrich)
The student shall initiate the informal procedure within ten working days after the student has received written information about a condition on which the grievance is based. For due cause, the V.P. may extend this time requirement. The student shall provide a written statement presenting any matters of mitigation and/or extenuation to the faculty member no later than ten days after receiving written notification of the condition initiating this procedure. After receipt of this written response, the student shall meet with the faculty member to discuss and attempt to resolve the perceived grievance…..
Discussion from the floor expressed concerns the amendment assumes all grievances result from a written action initiated by the faculty member. The grievance process often begins informally and may not proceed beyond this initial step. The proposed revision insures written documentation once the grievance proceeds beyond this step.
The amendment to the proposal was not approved. The Senate voted to approve the revisions as originally proposed.
6. Standing Committee Reports
Academic Policies – B. Connell
The committee will meet immediately following the Senate meeting to discuss a revised Accuplacer Guidlines for Mathematics from the Placement Testing Committee.
Curriculum: H. Wheeler
The Curriculum Committee has given final approval to proposals for the program revisions and deactivations presented as action items for today’s meeting as well as the following:
Course Revisions:
COM 112 Desktop Publishing I
COM 205 Desktop Publishing II
HED 108 Health, Family and Society
ACC 230 Accounting Systems and Applications
HED 110 Disease Prevention and Healthy Lifestyles
New Courses:
FPT 142 Firefighter Core Competencies Update and Refresher II (was Special Studies)
FPT 143 Firefighter Core Competencies Update and Refresher III (was Special Studies)
FPT 144 Firefighter Core Competencies Update and Refresher IV (was Special Studies)
ENG 108 Literature of the Holocaust
SPA 110 Accelerated Elementary Spanish
CPT 111 Problem Solving I – Analysis
CPT 112 Problem Solving II – Design
CPT 113 Problem Solving III – Implementation
CPT 216 Advanced Networking Concepts
HBR 102 Elementary Modern Hebrew II
ARA 102 Elementary Arabic II
Course Deactivations
ECO105, ECO106, ECO107, ECO201, ECO203, ECO204, and ECO205
There are proposals for six course revisions, three course deactivations and four new courses posted for faculty review.
NEG – S. Cable
A revote on the proposed amendments to the Faculty Senate by-laws is underway. Ballots returned without the required name of the respondent on the return envelope cannot be counted. Voting members who know they did not sign the return envelope can request another ballot from S. Cable. All ballots must be received by NEG no later than May 31.
Planning: D. Mueller
No report
Professional Development: A. Hughes
Faculty are reminded to register for the June 14 professional development workshop.
SCAA - J. McCauley:
SCAA is currently involved with four searches, each progressing according to its timeline. In the three searches for director positions (Grants, Institutional Research and Campus Center), SCAA representation is through membership on the administrative search team. SCAA has its own committee in the search for the Dean for Technical Education. The initial search for this position did not result in any candidates invited for interviews, so has been reopened.
7. Old Business
Louis Silvers FCCC update
The Faculty Council of Community Colleges met on April 30 in Cooperstown, where Professor Tom Cooper received the SUNY Chancellor Award for Distinguished Faculty.
The FCCC discussed the Student Academic Bill of Rights, which SUNY Trustee, Candice DeRussi, is advocating for adoption within the SUNY system. The proposal is viewed as a threat to academic freedom and the freedom of speech and an ad hoc committee of the MCC has recommended it not be supported. The FCCC passed a resolution encouraging SUNY Board of Trustees to reject the bill if it should come to a vote. Copies of the resolution have been given to D. Cox and J. Glocker. Faculty can request a copy from L. Silvers.
Provost Salin instituted an "enhanced campus-based assessment" by which the areas of math, critical thinking and creative writing should be assessed using "enhanced" measuring tools in every campus. Initially, one of the options proposed would use an externally-created test, which raised a good deal of opposition due to the fact it would open the door to unfair comparisons among the SUNY campuses. A panel has been put together to look into this and to come up with a set of rubrics that will be used when assessing those areas. The FCCC does not support the use of external assessment tools, and has issued a resolution in that regard.
Review of Faculty Senate Work (D. Cox)
The Executive Committee has forwarded recommendations of the Ad Hoc Promotion Committee to those areas in the College most appropriate to deal with them. These include the Faculty Senate, Academic Departments and the Faculty Association. Copies of the recommendations may be requested from S. Wynne.
The Faculty Senate dealt with six of the concerns raised during the 2004 All College Faculty meeting:
Mandatory orientation: An ad hoc committee rconcluded mandatory orientation is not feasible but recommended changes to improve it.
Civility: The senate provided representation to a civility committee, formed through the offices of Vice Presidents Glocker and Salvadore. Academic Honesty was not addressed by the committee and remains a concern of high priority for the Senate.
Late registration: Changes in the time period for registration are not supported by the administration
Promotion of Senate Activities: A Faculty Senate website has been established by the Senate’s Professional Development Committee
Final Exam Schedule: Proposed changes were studied by the Academic Policies Committee without reaching a consensus. However, requests to have the exam schedule published earlier in the semester did occur.
Open Forum on Reading: Open hearings were held and the course has been approved.
Academic Bill of Rights: An ad hoc committee found MCC has a process in place protecting student rights and recommended the proposed bill of rights not be supported.
New Business
The Senate was requested to address the following issues next year:
Text-book buy back. The current process enables students to sell books prior to the end of the semester and slow lines encourage students to skip classes rather than lose their place in line.
Academic Honesty. Suggestions include investigating the development of an honor code; educating faculty and students about plagiarism
All Faculty Meeting. The meeting should be held at the beginning of a scheduled Faculty Senate meeting or moved to a separate time.
Senators were asked to seek additional concerns from their constituents and submit these to the Executive Committee.
8. New Business
There was no new business.
Meeting adjourned at 5:07 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna Cox Terri Tugel
President Secretary
Minutes approved at the June 9, 2005 Faculty Senate meeting.
Faculty Senate
Faculty Senate Office
06/13/2005 |