Faculty Senate

November 4, 2004                                                                                           325 Graff Main Hall

Vol. 39, No. 6                                                                                                  3:30 p.m.

I.          Roll Call.

Present:  Beck, Choy, Clow, Cravins, Dixon, Galbraith, Gendreau, Gongaware, Grunwald, Heim, Hench, Johnston-Rodriguez, Kernozek, Kraemer, S. Krajewski, Maher, Ragan, B. Riley, D. Riley, Shanks, Shillinger, D. Sullivan.

Excused:  Majak, Poulton.

II.         Approval of Minutes.

The minutes of the October 21, 2004, meeting were approved as distributed.

III.       Reports.

The UWL Faculty Recruitment & Hiring Guidelines, originally approved by the Faculty Senate in 2001 have been modified in three places under Step #1 Approval to Recruit and Advertise.  The changes reflect advertising requirements issued by the U.S. Department of Labor if it is anticipated that the pool will contain foreign nationals, as well as issues regarding the electronic submission of recruitment forms, and are not procedural changes.

Search and Screen Committee updates - interviews are being scheduled for Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.  Check the web site for dates/times.  Senators are encouraged to attend open forums.

Emily Johnson, Director of the General Education Program, distributed a summary of the current  purpose and goals of the general education program.

Diane Schumacher, Registrar, reported that the Office of Records & Registration is looking at moving to electronic submission of course grades – perhaps next spring.

Chief Financial Officer, Ron Lostetter reported on two upcoming events next week.  On November 10, Valhalla B in Cartwright Center, 11:00 a.m. and again at 5:00 p.m. the Campus Master Plan will be unveiled.  The final version will be approved by the Chancellor and sets campus development for a 15 year period.   Two days later on November 12, UW-System Chief Budget Officer, Freda Harris, will bring people from other agencies to visit classrooms and labs in session to see the kind of congestion we have with respect to instructional space.

Other news from Lostetter: 60 parking spots still available for sale on campus because freshmen were told they would be at the lowest priority to get parking permits in lots; Regents are dealing with pay plan issue – final proposal will be out tomorrow - speculation to increase tuition.

Georges Cravins and Joe Heim reported on two different Faculty Representative meetings.   At the October 29, meeting the agenda included: discussion on OPID, specifically how to get more people involved in application process (teaching oriented improvement grants);  unclassified staff discussion; credit transfer from technical colleges which is something the State wants – Faculty Reps had a long and fruitful discussion on the issue which was initiated by students; and NIH and grants specific to the Office of Academic Affairs – encouraged to get involved in initiative; and an afternoon discussion on international education.  Two additional things – the BOR has moved very strongly in direction of access, and we might hear recommendation with respect to graduation rates which is currently at about 67% in five years.

Senator Heim continued with the report indicating that the argument with access has to do with access vs quality.  More elitist university system – typical democrat should be concerned.  A copy of discussion points with respect to the 2005-07 unclassified pay plan recommendation was distributed.  In the document, the Regents will vote on action items that, if approved, will provide an 2 two percent annual salary increase combined with the previously requested 3 percent annual increase in its 05-07 budget request.  If approved, the 5 percent total pay plan increase for all UW System unclassified employees will result in a tuition increase from 4.3 percent to 5.5 percent each year.

Other news from Heim:  Elections virtually no change with respect to higher education.  Republications in Washington probably not favorable to higher education.  In Wisconsin the senate picked up one seat.  TABOR is back in January.  Mary Panzer was head of state senate and went down in defeat against a more conservative Republican.

IV.       Approval of the 2006-2007 Academic Year Calendar.

Chair Riley reminded Senators of previous discussions pertaining to assessment of incoming students with respect to general education.  Approval of the 2006-07 academic year calendar would provide an opportunity to include a day for assessment of incoming students during new student orientation. Could possibly use electronic assessment for outgoing students, but nothing is built into calendar for this purpose.  The senate decided rather than trying to select dates for that purpose, to let the General Education Committee come back to the Senate with a plan. 

It was noted that J-term for 2006-07 is one class day shorter than for 2005-06.

M/S/P to approve the 2006-2007 academic year calendar.  (voice vote)

V.        SEC Motion regarding General Education.

Mike Winfrey, a member of the General Education Committee, joined the Senate.

Chair Riley reviewed the responsibilities of the General Education Committee, which was charged to develop an assessment plan for the general education program, develop student learning outcomes, and to ask departments to review their general education courses with respect to student learning outcomes.  The Committee and the General Education Director felt pressure to hurry-up and have a new program in place by the end of the academic year.  The SEC offers the following motion to relieve the pressure to have a new general education program developed by May and to suggest that the General Education Committee focus on the course review/assessment and to use the results for improving the program.

 On Monday, the General Education Committee passed three motions asking the faculty senate to

• Approve a mission statement for the general education program
• Ask the faculty senate to host a Faculty Forum on general education in February
• To give provisional approval of the student learning outcomes for the purpose of conducting assessment of student learning.

M/S  the main charge for the General Education Committee for the 2004-05 academic year is to charge academic departments to review their current general education courses relative to the current list of student learning outcomes (http://www.uwlax.edu/FacultySenate/committees/GenEdudocuments/GEd%20Outome%20Rev5-5-03.htm)  As such the Faculty Senate expects the General Education Committee to devote its time and efforts during fall 2004 primarily to this charge, and send a report to Faculty Senate related to the course reviews and other information gathered about the program by early spring 2005.  In addition, the General Education Committee should continue in its usual tasks of reviewing and approving new courses and Writing in the Major Programs, as appropriate.  The General Education Committee should also continue in its required task of assessing student learning in the program.

The Faculty Senate has not requested that the General Education Committee propose a major revision of the General Education program by the end of the 2004-05 academic year.  However, based on the results of its program review and assessment activities, the Committee should investigate strategies that can enhance program quality and student learning.  The Committee is also encouraged to engage in campus-wide dialog and discussions with all constituencies.

Much discussion followed.

• Senator Hench raised the question of what he believes may be a fundamental flaw to this approach.  That is, the proposal presumes there is a consensus of what we as a campus community want to achieve in the general education program.  It is his fear because we have no common agreement. 

• Learning outcomes not a revision of general education program – all they really are is just updating and keeping the general education program revised in terms of goals/objectives.
• Committee has discussed what we want in the general education program with an overall view.
• Will this result in reevaluation of courses or review of all courses to determine whether or not they should belong in general education?  No decision has been made that this or that course shouldn’t belong in general education.
• We need to clarify lines of communication; in particular, the General Education Director reports to the Provost while the General Education Committee reports to the Faculty Senate.
• Taken committee 3 years to come up with outcomes – hard to believe it will take committee one year to come up with structure.

Senator Hench refocused his original comment – do outcomes solve what we want to solve with respect to general education program?

Senator Kraemer said that the committee should be given clear assignment to proceed with evaluating the current General Education program using the best tool that they now have, namely the current learning outcomes, and that it is important to remember that the current learning outcomes will be significantly revised and improved as a result of the assessment process and ongoing faculty discussion.

The motion from the Senate Executive Committee passed.  (show of hands: 19-yes, 0-no, 3-abstain)

VI.       Name Change for Department of Women’s Studies.

Sandra Krajewski, Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies provided the following rationale for the name change which originated within the department and has been approved by the CLS department chairs.

Rationale for changing the name of the Department of Women’s Studies to the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies:

• The discipline of Women’s Studies focuses on gender analysis. Therefore, many Women’s Studies Departments founded in the last decade are now called Gender Studies.
• Calling the Department simply Gender Studies would ignore the 29-year long history of this Department’s struggle to make scholarship on women visible and important on this campus. While that effort has succeeded in many areas on campus, it is by no means completed, nor is it ever secure.
• In many ways, the change simply brings us into line with what we already do.  Women’s Studies has included courses on gender in our curriculum when they clearly demonstrate an understanding of the disciplinary perspectives and scholarship of Women’s Studies.  That perspective centers on understanding the personal, symbolic, and institutional processes by which gender intersects with race, class, sexual orientation, and other hierarchies of difference.  Including Gender and Sexuality in the title along with Women more accurately reflects the state of the discipline, highlighting the need to both change and persist.
• Including Gender and Sexuality in the title thus reflects our need to examine, as do several of our courses, how racial stereotypes are gendered, and how those genderings revolve around stigmatizing and idealizing gender-and race-specific notions of sexuality. 
• Including Gender in the title also reflects our need to examine the construction of both femininities and masculinities and their relationship to each other.  Our “Violence Against Women” course, for example, challenges false cultural assumptions about masculinity such as the belief that violence against women is inevitable and embedded in the human psyche.
• Including Gender in the title would foster the development of masculinity studies on this campus, a growing field of scholarship internationally, and of interest to several of our UW-L colleagues.
• Including Sexuality Studies would provide a visible home for LGBTQ scholarship and teaching that simply the name Women and Gender Studies could not.
• Including Sexuality Studies would also foster inclusiveness for LGBTQ identified people on campus and in the La Crosse community.
• Including Sexuality Studies would open the door for the development of scholarship on sexuality, especially from the other departments (Psychology) or even other colleges, (SAH).

M/S/P to approve the name change of the Department of Women’s Studies to the following: Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.  (show of hands with one abstention)

VII.      Adjournment.

The meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.