Chair: Dr. Susan Camp

Recorder: Sarah Lewis

Members Absent: Anthropology Department, L. Seppi, A. Welsh, J. Fiorini, Educational Administration Department, S. Fettes, W. Opello, C. Ballesteros, E. Basualdo

                        The meeting was called to order at 3:06 PM.

I.              Approval of Agenda

The agenda was approved as distributed.

II.            Approval of October 5^th, 2009 Minutes

The minutes were approved as distributed.

III.         FA Chair’s Report – S. Camp

The Chair began her report by asking the Assembly if they would wish for her to continue to bring copies of the minutes to the Faculty Assembly meetings, or if the e-mail attachment that is sent out earlier in the week is sufficient enough.

 She then lastly reported that the FAEB is working with the President and the Provost to propose three committees/task forces/groups.  These include an Academic think tank, an assessment standing committee, and a general education visioning committee.

V.          Reports of Councils, Committees, and Task Forces

 Personnel Policies met Friday, October 17^th, and discussed the election for the Dean of the School of Communication, Media and the Arts.  They reported that the election is completely electronic for the 38 faculty members of the College of Communication, Media and the Arts.  18 faculty have already voted in the electronic election, and all faculty members within the college should have an email with a link to vote

    Academic Policies Council met on October 9th and the request from the Department of Curriculum & Instruction to change wording related to the infusion of computer and information literacy was discussed.  The council found the justification for the change of wording in the Adolescence Education 7-12 major cognate to be reasonable.  The wording that is consistent with SUNY Central’s original text is, “Any General Education computer and information literacy course, pass competency exam-OR-infusion of computer and information literacy in the major.” The council also discussed the proposed Arts concentration for the Childhood Education 1-6 B.S.  This proposal was sent back for slight revisions in syntax and for reworking the copy for ease in understanding what is meant by non-studio Music courses. They also discussed the revised proposal to add an African/African-American concentration to the Childhood Education 1-6 B.S., however the council found a need for greater focus and clarity in the proposal.  Lastly the proposal to modify the Political Science B.A. was given a preliminary examination.  The council decided to wait to hear the Provost’s words regarding the department name change before pursuing the matter further, and there will also be a Political Science representative at the next APC meeting.

Priorities & Planning met on October 9^th and engaged in a discussion of the Academic Affairs report presented by Provost Coultrap-McQuin at the previous meeting.  This discussion included a clarification of the term, “Frictional Savings,” and it was stated that these are primarily savings from replacing retiring faculty with adjunct or temporary faculty. The Council discussed the Provost’s proposed cuts to department OTPS funds, and questioned the rationale behind the decision and expressed concern over whether or not the cuts would be equitable across programs.   It was also agreed by the members present that the Priorities and Planning has of late been informed of the priorities set by administration and that the role of the Council should be to exert meaningful influence on the priority decisions made at this institution.  Lastly the Political Science Chairperson, Dr. Stephen Rosow presented a proposal for revision of the major and minor programs in the Political Science department.  The changes had no effect on existing General Education offerings and no additional resources were included in the proposal, so it was passed unanimously. 

General Education met on October 19^th and the Council reviewed department assessment data for Gen. Ed. category (unique to our campus) Tolerance and Intolerance in the U.S.  Council members agreed to forward their notes to LaLonde on data/results’ strengths and weaknesses. For future rounds of assessment, Gen. Ed. Council agreed to ask departments to include a “next steps,” such as, strategies for improvements, if necessary, gleaned from their assessments. In helping other readers outside their department to be able to process their data/findings, the Council also agreed to ask departments for written statements on what they consider to be exceeding, meeting, and not meeting the rubrics for tolerance and intolerance. The Council also granted a one-time approval of MET390: Carbon-free Energy for Intellectual Issues.

Information Technology Council met on October 16^th, and discussed the following items:

SCAP: Deadline for proposals is Nov 20.  Campus guidelines and forms, as well as the SUNY System SCAP Guidelines are on the CTAB web site:   http://www.oswego.edu/cts/techboard/

New wireless system: The production version of the software is now available. 

Replacement for OmniUpdate for the campus web site:

-       The campus is in the final procurement stages of purchasing Ingeniux.

-       CTS is still investigating what will or could take the place of OU Educate

Email/Calendaring Project:

-       Discussion of the 2 products will be part of the CTAB Applications & Equipment Committee meeting Wed, Nov 4, 8:00am, Poucher 101.This is an open meeting, and everyone is invited to attend 

     MyOswego – access to student photos:

-       The committee heard that faculty would like to have student photos included in their MyOswego information

-       CTS has done some investigation and found that a customization to Banner needs to be done first.  CTS is talking to other schools who have developed such an application.

ITC’s next meeting is Friday, Nov 13, 3:00pm, Lake Effect (Library) Conference Room

Graduate Council met on Friday, October 9^th and elected Jodi Mullen as its chair. Patrick Murphy will be the reporter for the Faculty Assembly.  The Council approved Chemistry 558—Crystallography, and began to discuss the criteria for graduate faculty and the format for graduate course proposals.  

Library Council elected Karel Kurst-Swanger chair, and Gwen Kay FA reporter. They discussed the timeline for the year vis a vis renovations that will occur, beginning with a program design study this year. This will be followed by work with the architects, and then renovations will begin. They are actively seeking a student representative, as 80% of library use is by students.

   Admissions and Student Services Council will be meeting on October 23^rd, from 1-2 pm in the Library Instruction Room #2. 

   Undergraduate Curriculum Council UCC met on Monday, October 12, 2009. UCC prepared prerequisite report and provided it to Tom Kubicki of Pre-Requisite Task Force meeting on 10/16/09.

Courses Approved:

PSY 475H - History and Current Systems in Psychology and PHL 496 -

Joint Seminar in Philosophy/Psychology (co-taught) approved pending

changes to catalog course descriptions (as outlined by APC)

ECE 101 Introduction to Engineering was approved pending their

acceptance of a recommended change to the learning objectives section.

HIS 381 History of Human Trafficking approved as submitted.

Pre-requisite Submissions:

      As requested by FA, here are the departments that have and have not

submitted prereq plans.

HPW’s Pre-requisites were resubmitted with the requested changes made and were approved, Music and PBJ were sent back to department for clarification and UCC will next meet on Wednesday, 10/28/09

  Academic Outreach met on October 9^th and elected Rob Auler as both Chair and Recorder, Kristen Eichhorn as the FA Reporter, and the FAEB representative as Bob Casper.  They discussed summer, winter, graduate programming and student enrollment at the metro center. They will meet again on November 6^th at 2 PM.

   Faculty Senator Kay will be traveling to SUNY IT Oct 22-24 and will be hearing from the Chancellor at this meeting, and will have a full report at the upcoming Assembly meeting.

  Calendar Committee has distributed the 2013-2014 Academic Calendar today.  This keeps in line with the rolling process of  being 3 years out with approved College Calendars and keeping with the guidelines that approved by  Faculty Assembly.

Campus Concept Committee met on Oct 19, and further prepared for the Master Plan architects' visit which is to be announced. On a future date, the architects will attend FA, make a presentation and ask for your input.  We also discussed the approach for the Hewitt Quad programming/projects

 Admissions to Major Task Force has met twice since the last Faculty Assembly meeting.  On October 7^th, the subset began discussing questions to ask faculty, staff and students.  At the October 16^th meeting, they looked at a draft of these questions and also discussed a possible place to bring questions to.  Faculty Assembly was mentioned as a possibility at this meeting.

V.            Academic Affairs Report- Susan Coultrap-McQuin

Provost Coultrap-McQuin started her report by stating that the topic of this report was change and the future. Though the budget was not on the list of topics that she was going to discuss, she would be willing to answer any questions that anyone might have. She affirmed the strong position of the College and assured members that through careful planning we anticipated enough in reserve and revenue streams to keep our commitments to the same number of classes and to small classes, which are things that SUNY Oswego prides itself on.

She then continued her report by posing the question, “In a time of enormous challenge and change…How are we building vitality and excellence for the future?” She stated that one part of the answer to this question is seeking new students and building new programs. The first initiative was launching engineering development 5 years ago, and more recently the creation of the Metro Center in Syracuse. She also discussed that certificate graduate programs are being created and developed for the Metro Center to attract professionals looking to continue their educations. Also, SUNY Oswego has created Professional Science Master Programs on campus, along with shortening the time to degree in Education programs. There has also been an increase in online programs offered at Oswego, as well as partnerships with community colleges. SUNY Oswego has also begun systematically recruiting international students and is working on a degree program in Dubai.

Provost Coultrap-McQuin also stated that retention is key for this campus. It is known that if students make it from the first year to the second year in college, they are the most likely to graduate. The Foundations for Excellence Program being undertaken this year is an evaluation of 1^st years and transfers to the college, with faculty and staff across campus involved in the project. She also announced that the college has reached the 80% retention mark for 1^st to 2^nd year students, which is a very good retention rate.

She continued her report by talking about increasing flexibility and agility for faculty and students, and how to ensure the time and attention to students that you can only give to students when you are not pulled in multiple directions or burdened with many requirements. She also talked about how the college needs to ensure learning for the 21st century: we have recently been addressing advanced writing skills, scientific and quantitative literacy, multicultural and global awareness. Provost Coultrap-McQuin also stated that in response to last year’s work on Writing Across the Curriculum that OLS is expanding the writing center. Also we will begin to re-imagine General Education here at SUNY Oswego.
Additionally, SUNY Oswego is continuing assessment and improvement activities with program reviews, student evaluations, Middle States and learning outcomes assessment. A Middle States Steering Committee is being created and will develop questions for self-study. This group will work with work groups to evaluate studies and need to have a good look on academic outcomes.

As we look to the future, Provost Coultrap-McQuin predicted that we would continue to see an increase in integrative and interdisciplinary programs. She also discussed a more individualized, experiential, technological learning environment. In this environment more students are developing their own topics and research projects, their own learning plans. She also stated that as the world is more multicultural and global in orientation then so too will be our learning environment. She lastly predicted that SUNY Oswego will be increasingly embedded in regional activities and development. Programs are developed in response to stakeholders and in collaboration with the community. Finally, this institution will be creative and more in charge of its own destiny, even with less reliance on state funding. She believed that we can continue to move forward during tough times with a strong vision of our future.

VI.          Unfinished Business

--Proposed Changes to Computer Science B.S. were discussed and was passed unanimously.

--Parking Resolution

            There was much discussion about the parking resolution. An Assembly member asked why this was even on the floor, and if this was an issue for Faculty Assembly to even be addressing.  It was decided that Faculty Assembly would discuss the resolution and pass on its suggestions to the Parking Committee.  Many ideas were talked about on the floor and one suggestion was that there should be a revision of the whole policy since it was from another era where evening classes were not that common.  UUP President S. Abraham stated that he would contact Albany about the UUP component in revising the current parking protocols.  Bill Goffe removed his resolution from the floor and will reword it and resubmit it to the Assembly.

VII.       New Business

Time did not allow for discussion.

 The meeting was adjourned at 4:57 PM.