Chair: Dr. Susan Camp

Recorder: Sarah Lewis

Members Absent: Anthropology Dept., A. Welsh, J. Fiorini, Educational Administration Dept., A. Shore, R. O’Connor, C. Ilie, T. Delaney, C. Ballesteros

                        The meeting was called to order at 3:09 PM.

  I.              Approval of Agenda

The agenda was approved as amended to remove the Transfer Services Report.

  II.            Approval of October 19th, 2009 Minutes

The minutes were approved as distributed.

  III.         FA Chair’s Report – S. Camp

Dr. Camp began her report by asking the Assembly members to listen carefully to University Faculty Senator Gwen Kay's report later in the meeting.  She stressed that there are a great deal of things that are happening throughout the system that will affect us. 

The Chair then discussed how there are proposals for both a President’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service and a President’s Award for Excellence in Professional Staff Service, and how both proposals were brought to the floor and will be discussed at the next Faculty Assembly meeting.

  IV.          Reports of Councils, Committees, and Task Forces

Personnel Policies Council has almost completed the election of the search committee for the Dean of the School of Communication, Media & the Arts. We are in the midst of a runoff election for the faculty position outside of the School of CM&A. The balance of the committee is as follows: ART - Cynthia Clabough, COM - Kristen Eichhorn, MUS - Todd Graber, THT - Jessica Hester, Prof Staff - Aaron Reece (MUS). The council is also continuing its work on review processes and procedures for faculty with interdisciplinary appointments, and will meet again on Friday, November 6.

Academic Policies Council met on October 23^rd, and talked about the proposal to revise the B.A. and minor in Political Science, which also includes a change of name of both the department and the major/minor to Politics.  The proposal was discussed in much detail with S. Rosow, the Chair of the Political Science department, and was returned to the department to make the necessary changes.  The proposal to alter the 5-year combined B.S. Accounting- M.B.A. program was considered, and this passed after a brief discussion.   Lastly the proposal from the Department of Biological Sciences to update the list of courses under Area Requirements was discussed.  The proposal was passed, provided that all courses are found to have been passed by UCC.  The Council’s next meeting is planned for November 6^th. 

General Education met on both October 26^th and November 2^nd.  At the October 26^th meeting, they reviewed department responses to Intellectual Issues Assessment query.  With the individual department’s permission, the Council agreed to send sample/exemplary models that speak to the relationship between assignments and assessment to all departments.  They also discussed the Critical Thinking Assessment, and concluded that they should assemble a working group to look at Critical Thinking Reports and Samples with guiding questions like: What have we learned from this process and how to help the student learn in the majors. 

At the November 2^nd meeting, they reviewed the revision of BRC 200- Social History of American Broadcasting.  This was sent back to the department for clarification in course outline.  The Council also began a discussion of re-envisioning General Education by way of Gaston and Gaff’s “Revising General Education- And Avoiding the Potholes,” AAC&U. 

Information Technology Council had no report but did announce that the SUNY Conference in Information Technology is on May 25^th-28^th, 2010 at SUNY Plattsburgh.  If anyone is interested in presenting at the conference, your idea needs to be submitted by January 18^th, 2010.  The submission form is at visit cit.suny.edu, and there are also scholarships available for first time attendees.

Graduate Council The Graduate Council met on October 23 at 8am.  The Council approved two courses:  History 623: Reading Seminar: Modern Europe, and History 624: Research Seminar: Modern Europe. 

The Graduate Council also approved a document entitled: "Criteria for SUNY Oswego Graduate Faculty" pending some minor revisions.  Once the final document is available, it will be distributed to the members of the Faculty Assembly for its approval. 

The Council is also now discussing the format for Graduate Course Proposals as well as Graduate Internship Policies. 

Our next meeting will be held on November 20 at 8am in the English Department Conference Room (302P CampusCenter).

Admissions and Student Services Council met on October 23^rd, and elected Steve Abraham as Chair and Reporter to Faculty Assembly, and Shannon Pritting as note taker for the semester. They discussed how a few years ago, there was an initiative from the ASSC to create a guide about opportunities and services for incoming students. 

Joe Grant stated that there is a need for a collection of opportunities available at SUNY Oswego that could be provided to prospective and current students.  This collection may include career resources by major.  They discussed how this information more than likely already exists, but is located in several different places throughout campus.  The ASSC would like to pull together all this information into a single document or webpage.

There was also discussion of addressing transfer student advisement, but there was general agreement that this issue was being reviewed by other committees on campus, and was not a pressing issue for the ASSC. Their next meeting is November 18^th.

Undergraduate Curriculum Council met on October 28^th, 2009 and approved the following courses:

ART 348 – Creative Code for the Visual Artist-I

             ART 448 – Creative Code for the Visual Artist-II

             ECE 211 – Electric Circuits

             ECE 233 – Signals and Systems

             ECE 335 – Digital Signal Processing

One course submission was returned to the department for clarification.

Catalog Coordinator reported that the Undergraduate Catalog has left her desk, and that the Graduate catalog is still being reviewed before being sent out.

Campus Concept Committee met on Nov 2, and discussed the approach for the Hewitt Quad programming/projects.

Admissions to Major Task Force met on October 30^th, and reviewed drafts of questions for both faculty and students.  They intend to administer to faculty and students in different venues, which include: Faculty Meetings (which include Chair and Department Meetings) College Hour Programs, and was a discussion about bringing the questions to Faculty Assembly.  

V.            University Faculty Senate Report

Please see attached.

VI.          FTE Calculation

Ms. Nojan began her report by giving a brief history on the FTE calculations.  She reported that in 2000 Faculty Assembly voted to use the Faculty FTE to determine the number of Faculty Assembly representatives for each department.   She stated that this system for determining Faculty Assembly representation has been implemented for the past 9 years, and that she did not realize that people did not know how FTE was calculated.

She then reported about the system itself.  The system, which is called the Course and Section Analysis, which is also called CASA was developed defined and maintained by SUNY Central Administration.  The reports are designed for the purpose of faculty and department workload and cost as defined by Central Administration. The reports themselves are generated by faculty and department, and not by the program itself. 

Ms. Nojan then continued her report by talking about where the data for the FTE calculations come from.  The data for the FTE calculations comes from BANNER and the course registration, payroll and personnel, information from the Provost and the Deans, along with information from the Department Chairs.  She also discussed that full time faculty equals one FTE Faculty, regardless of the appointment type, which includes on-track, temporary or visiting, and regardless of the courses taught. She also stated that 3 part-time faculty represents one FTE Faculty.  She also stated that courses with different departments do have representation in the departments that sponsor the program.  For example, Cog Sci would be represented in Psychology and Computer Science. 

She lastly reported that they are going to be replacing this system since it was created in 1975.  At the end of her report, it was suggested by S. Moore that Personnal Policies Council develop another system that is just strictly for use in Faculty Assembly representation.

VII.       Unfinished Business

  --Proposed Changes to B.S. Geology Program Track II (Old Program temporarily suspended) This proposal was briefly discussed following a presentation by D. Valentino and was passed by the Assembly unanimously.

-- Proposed Calendar for 2013-2014

            There was discussion about the insertion of a Fall Break Day, which was raised by members of Student Association at last meeting.  The proposed calendar was passed with a vote of 23-9, but there was a suggestion revisit the calendar guiding principles, and Student Association was encouraged to create a guiding principle that would allow for Fall Break to occur every fall semester.

VIII.     New Business

           Time did not allow for discussion.

 The meeting was adjourned at 5:07 PM.