CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH
ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING NO. 7 – FEBRUARY 23, 2006

M I N U T E S

1. CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by the Chair, Margaret Merryfield, in the Towner Auditorium at 2:08 pm.  All voting members were present except: CBA: M. Walter; CHHS: M. Costa, R. Friis, R. Tuveson, B. Vogel; CLA: E. Blankley. E. Klink; LIBRARY: L. Anderson; STUDENT SERVICES: P. Ashe; STUDENTS: H. Okahana; EX-OFFICIO: M. Crego, B. Griffith.

EXCUSED ABSENCES: COTA: M. Burns; CED: D. Hamm; COE: T. Mangir; STUDENT SERVICES: J. Prince; ADMIN: C. Lindsay, F. K. Alexander; DEANS: J. Houck; EX-OFFICIO: R. Kochan, D. Robinson.

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

The agenda for the February 23, 2006 Academic Senate meeting was approved.

3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The Academic Senate meeting minutes from February 9, 2006 were approved.

4. ANNOUNCEMENTS

a.	At the door you will find an eleven page report from the Ad-Hoc Committee on Plus/Minus Grading.  We will be discussing it at the March 16 Senate meeting.

b.	The University Awards Committee has met and has selected the recipients of both the Outstanding Professor Award and the Nicholas Perkins Hardeman Academic Leadership Award.  The recipients of the Outstanding Professor Award are Troy Johnson from American Indian Studies and History, and Galen Pickett from Physics and Astronomy.  The Hardeman award recipient is Craig Smith from Communication Studies and Film & Electronic Arts.  The latter will receive his award at a presentation at the April 20 Academic Senate meeting.  All award recipients will be acknowledged at the University Awards Banquet.

c.	Kirstyn Chun from Counseling and Psychological Services has been elected to serve out Michael Johnston’s term as an Academic Senator for Student Services.  Welcome to Kirstyn.

d.	Thomas Rhoads, Legal Studies, has been appointed to the University Awards Committee in replacement of Karen Kleinfelder who is on sabbatical.

e.	There is a free Women and Careers Conference on Friday, March 3 for students.  Students may register by contacting the Women’s Resource Center.  

f.	Senator Olson announced that next Wednesday is Faculty Supper Club.  Britt Rios-Ellis will be presenting.  A Nigerian buffet will be served.

g.	Interim Provost Abrahamse brings regrets on behalf of President Alexander.  He was called to attend an off-campus meeting with Congressman Rohrbacher regarding a 35 million dollar Homeland Security Grant.  

	She announced that the independent doctorate (Ed.D.) has been approved.  She asked Simon Kim to stand up and describe the degree briefly.  He reported that the Ed.D. is an opportunity for our campus and the Long Beach community to develop K-12 and Community College Leadership.  The degree program will begin in the fall of 2007.

	The Interim Provost also announced that because Luis Calingo will be leaving the University in August, they are working on appointing an interim dean for the College of Business Administration.

	Finally she reported that Kathy Cohn and she have been educating President Alexander on the process of searching and hiring a Provost.  

h.	The Chair commented that as the Ed.D. begins to go through the curricular process, the Senate will have the opportunity to give input.

5. REPORT OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE CSU

No report.

6.  REPORT OF THE CFA

CFA President Sondhi reported that salary is the top priority in the bargaining at the moment, but that work load, FERP and job security for lecturers are also topics on the table.  She indicated that flyers are available regarding today’s CFA meeting at 4:00 pm.  She encouraged the body to come to the meeting, speak up, sign the petition and join them for the March 9 day of action.  There are also flyers regarding this day of action at the door.  Finally, she challenged the body to take a position on faculty conditions and develop a resolution.  CFA President Sondhi introduced a guest who reported that at the meeting today there would be a discussion about the institutional crisis of recruiting, retaining faculty, and the continuity in programs for students, as well as FERP, lecturer job security, and stability of the work force.

7. REPORT OF THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE

Emma Daugherty Phillingane, Chair of the Nominating Committee reported that the Committee has a call out for nominees for the CSU Statewide Senator as well as a call out for candidates to serve on the Provost Search Committee.  Both slates will be presented at the March 16 Senate meeting where nominations will also be accepted from the floor.

8.  CONSENT CALENDAR

The Discontinuance of the Early Childhood Specialist Credential Program (AS-684-05/CEPC/URC) came before the Senate as a Consent Calendar item as a first distribution.  There was no discussion.  This item will have a second distribution at the March 16 Senate meeting.

9. REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

No report.

10.  PROPOSED POLICY REVISION: POLICY 02-08 DECLARATION OF MAJOR 

Item 8.1 the proposed revision to Policy 02-08: Declaration of Major (AS-683-05/CEPC) came before the Senate for a second reading.  The revision proposed is to remove the following phrase as indicated by strikethroughs:

			To help insure timely completion of graduation requirements, students who have a 
			total of 60 Units competed and in progress must have declared a major before they 
			may register for the next term.

Vice Provost Dowell commented that he applauds the Senate for reviewing the issue as he just had a discussion with a student whose academic progress was affected by this policy.  Senator Olson expressed concern as to whether or not this revision would make it into the new catalog.  Senator Huckaby indicated that it should not make a difference because students are already being advised in alignment with what the revised policy will state.  It was M/S to accept this revision.  The motion carried.

11.  DISCUSSION OF WASC THEMES

Introduction
Dave Hood, the WASC Steering Committee Chair gave an introduction about the process of WASC accreditation.  He reported that by October 15 the campus has to turn in a proposal of how it will go about it.  There are two main issues to focus on for WASC.  They are capacity and educational effectiveness.   The question being asked is if the campus has the policies and procedures in place to accomplish these two issues?  Additionally, do these policies and procedures work?  The campus will be held accountable for the plan and its effectiveness.  The proposal must include learning outcomes, program assessment and general education issues.  Another question raised is if the campus can be so decentralized and still be effective?  The WASC steering committee came up with three themes – capacity, use of human resources, and learning/educational effectiveness.  A series of researchable questions needs to be drafted and carried out with campus involvement.  Yesterday, the WASC steering committee went to the lecturers to get feedback.  The input from the campus is not meant to be static, but will continue throughout the preparation of the proposal.

Theme I:  Building Capacity for Institutional Success
Chair Merryfield began with asking questions to get the conversation started – “Will we carry out the growth plan for the campus?  How will we do it in a way to protect the quality of education?  Regarding technology are we using the best type?  Can we protect the security of our systems?  Is use of technology successful?  Regarding the budget, are we spending in the best way?”

Some questions and concerns on this theme were shared:

•	The term “building capacity” needs to be clearly defined.
•	Is the newly reconfigured structure of the Senate working?  For example, now that there is no Graduate Council, are the issues related to graduate programs being addressed?  Has the addition of Executive Committee members been effective?  Have the goals of the restructure been accomplished?
•	How will the information be collected on the researchable questions?  A small group of faculty might be chosen to focus on a particular question and get the information needed.  Also input from faculty in general could be used.
•	Can we increase capacity?  The infrastructure is dissolving – we can’t keep up at the present level of capacity so how will we be able to expand?  One question is – why is our current situation the way it is?
•	What is the actual status of technology?
•	What is the ability of the organization and structure to meet its mission and goals?  How is the organization structured and is the structure working?
•	What is a teaching intensive, research driven institution?  Doing both is tearing faculty in two directions.

Theme II: Attending to Human Resources for the Sake of Campus Community
Chair Merryfield stated that faculty and staff are being asked to do extraordinary things and that there is a desire to build loyalty and strong support for the institution.

Some questions and concerns on this theme were shared:

•	There needs to be a consistency of personnel policies and procedures – consistency in access to resources, consistency in salary.
•	The expectations of faculty have been raised.  Faculty are expected to do scholarship even though they are teaching, and need to do assessment and advising.  Is work load part of this theme?  Faculty have different kinds of work load at different stages of their careers.  Lecturers shoulder a lot more burden.
•	When searches fail – why do they fail?  
•	When faculty leave – why do they leave?  What number of faculty have left?
•	What keeps faculty here?  What was the strategy in the past to keep faculty?  How do faculty maintain sanity now?
•	What is the level of satisfaction of faculty with scholarship and creative activity, and with faculty governance?  What weight of importance would they give these?
•	Regarding students – why do they come here?  Why do they come back for a graduate degree?  Why don’t they come back for a graduate degree?
•	Can a list of “best practices” be provided?   Is there evidence that supports that they are indeed best?
•	Need a few more questions regarding staff.  Question 4 – are our personnel policies and practices aligned with institutional goals? – this needs to be asked for both Themes I and II.  Then the faculty need to align to the mission first.
•	We need to ask who is making the decisions regarding assessment?  Are they including those who do a lot of the teaching (lecturers)?
•	Regarding salary – how do we find ourselves in the position of stagnant salaries and behind other institutions?
•	In response to question 2 – how can we promote best practices in assessment and student success in ways that can be integrated into the normal workload of faculty? – Can there be more TAs to absorb the burden?  
•	There needs to be a question of how to involve the community.
•	How does our support of graduate programs compare to other campuses?
•	In what ways are faculty being affected by the higher quality of students?  Has it affected their workload?
•	How are we nurturing staff and faculty?  What levels of flexibility does the institution create for allowing faculty to do different types of service?  How does the institution value faculty who do teaching as a priority (RTP)?
•	How is service valued in the department, in the college, at the university level?  Is there a consistency of value?
•	What are student/faculty ratios?  What are student/tenure-tenure track ratios?  What are student/lecturer ratios?  How do these ratios affect student learning outcomes?  What do the ratios do to student and faculty morale?
•	Assessment is about improving student performance.  Should assessment lead to more students getting better grades?  What is the value of good grades here?  We should break away from the grade curve.
•	How can we make staff/faculty/administrators more diverse?

Theme III:  Graduating Students with Highly Valued Degrees

Chair Merryfield explained that this theme is about student success (graduation) and assessment of learning outcomes. 

Some questions and concerns on this theme were shared:

•	Regarding highly valued degrees – if we have more graduates is that better than having 10% high achievers that can bring positive light to the University?  Then our degrees would be perceived as more highly valued?  Our institution’s mission – teaching vs. research.  Which is more highly valued?
•	What highly valued degrees means is that students, employers, faculty value the degree.
•	Faculty are struggling to reconcile the two roles of teaching and scholarship.  How do we accomplish this two-part goal?
•	What do students think about this?  How do they feel about CSULB?
•	How do we know if a student learns?  Regarding #4 – how successful have been our efforts to improve student progress to degree using technology? – how do we measure technology success?
•	Regarding #1 – students often come here unprepared.  How does this contribute to how student finish their degrees on time?
•	Are we offering programs that would lead to students being marketable?
•	We need to pay attention  not only to the student as a product but ask what are the behaviors that go with what we think a person with a college degree should have – the immeasurables.
•	Why do classes being passed not serve as proof that the student learned?  Are faculty effective teachers?  
•	How many programs on campus require internships and/or directed studies?  
•	Why does it take 6 years to get a degree?  What is the University doing to emphasize the importance of taking summer and winter sessions?  
•	What relationship do departments have with high school students?  There needs to be better bridges between high school and college.
•	What are the faculty interests and needs?  How can the University build on potentials?
•	Methodology – can we measure what a good citizen is?  How do we represent the data that gets at these questions?  There needs to be a qualitative ethnographic analysis.  A study of the culture of the University in addition to the data that Institutional Research can provide.
•	Perhaps there should be exit exams like they do in high school.  Maybe these would be inside the department.
•	Alumni could be a resource for assessing long term learning.
•	What are the competencies expected of students?  Critical thinking, verbal and written communication, ability to work in a culturally diverse environment, employability?  How satisfied are the alumni with their degrees?

12.  ADJOURNMENT

It was M/S to adjourn.  The motion passed and the meeting adjourned at 4:00 PM.

		Submitted by,						Approved by,

		Micaela Aragon						Keith Freesemann
		Recording Secretary 					Secretary of the Senate