Minutes of November 17, 2004
(unapproved)
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The Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) met at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 17, 2004, in 567
Capen Hall to consider the following agenda:
- Approval of the minutes of October 27, 2004
- Report of the Chair
- Report of the President/Provost
- Discussion of the Faculty Development Report
- UB’s Plan for Assessment for Undergraduate Education
- Old/New business
- Executive session (if needed)
- Adjournment
Item 1: Approval of the minutes of October 27, 2004
The minutes were approved as distributed.
Item 2: Report of the Chair
Chair Nickerson reported:
- The Faculty Senate (FS) Student Life Committee passed a resolution recognizing Pat Kujawa’s many years of distinguished
service to the Student Association. Pat is retiring in December.
- The Gaduate School Executive Committee (GSEC) decided that, as of the June 2005 conferral, Ph.D. dissertations have to
be submitted in electronic form. For masters degrees, electronic submission will be required beginning in September 2005.
- The GSEC had further discussion about the outside reader policy. It now seems likely that university policy will be that
an outside readers will be optional at the discretion of each department. There will be a minimum of three members required
for each committee.
- The Affirmative Action Committee has invited Provost Tripathi and Chief of Staff Willis to meet with them concerning how
diversity concerns are being addressed in UB’s strategic planning.
Item 3: Report of the President/Provost
None
Item 4: Discussion of the Faculty Development Report
In fall 2002, the SUNY Provost established an advisory task force on faculty development and charged them to examine and discuss a
broad range of issues relating to faculty at all SUNY campuses. The Task Force issued a 47-page Preliminary Draft Report dated
September 30, 2004, and solicited comments from campus governing bodies by November 30th.
The full report was distributed electronically (to save paper) last week, and the Executive Summary was included with today’s
agenda. The full report offered 19 recommendations, and FSEC discussed all of them in general and a few in specific. There were no
objections, because many departments at UB are already doing everything that’s being recommended.
Item 5: UB’s Plan for Assessment for Undergraduate Education – K. Grant, P. Gold, C. Tutzauer
Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Kerry Grant said the University has spent a lot of time working on a plan
for assessing undergraduate education, as requested by SUNY two years ago. UB’s original proposal, which had been approved
by the Faculty Senate, wasn’t accepted, so now we’re one of the last few campuses that haven’t complied. A new plan now
being proposed aims to be “the least painful process of assessment that can be devised by mankind.”
The new plan still needs faculty input and approval before a final version is submitted to SUNY in February. CAS Assistant
Director for Assessment Carol Tutzauer explained that the assessment process is intended to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Faculty will be able to use course-embedded activities for assessment purposes; there are no additional classroom requirements.
Multiple-choice final exams will be acceptable for faculty who choose to use them, because they provide a scoring system that is
acceptable to SUNY. Papers, projects, and other subjective activities are also acceptable because there are scoring systems for
them as well.
Aggregate reports will be compiled on the percentages of students who exceed, meet, approach, or fail to meet the learning
objectives. No information is provided about individual students, and the reports will have no bearing on students’ grades or
grade point averages. A sampling of seniors may even be given the Graduate Record Exam for free.
Faculty members will receive individualized reports on their classes plus the aggregate data. The individualized reports will not
be shared with SUNY; they will be compiled only to provide useful feedback for instructors.
An ad hoc committee will be appointed to review the assessment proposal.
Item 6: Old/New business
None
Item 7: Executive session (if needed)
There was an executive session.
Item 8: Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 3:33 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Will Hepfer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate
Attendance (P = present; E = excused; A = absent)
Chair: P. Nickerson (P)
Secretary: W. Hepfer (P)
Architecture & Planning: GS. Danford (P)
Arts & Sciences: S. Bruckenstein (A), M. Churchill (P), J. Faran (P), S. Schack (P), K. Takeuchi (E)
Dental Medicine: M. Donley (A)
Education: X. Liu (P)
Engineering & Applied Sciences: C. Basaran (P), J. Jensen (P)
Informatics: J. Ellison (E)
Institutional/General: O. Mixon (A)
Law: vacant
Management: C. Pegels (P)
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: J. Evans (A), L. Harris (A), J. Hassett (A)
Nursing: P. Wooldridge (P)
Pharmacy: G. Brazeau (A)
Public Health & Health Professions: C. Crespo (A)
Social Work: Barbara Rittner (A)
SUNY Senators: W. Baumer (P), W. Coles (P), M. Kramer (P), P. Nickerson (P)
University Libraries: C. Tysick (A)
Guests: P. Balzano (SA), M. Cochrane (Reporter), L. Labinski (Prof. Staff Senate), L. Meister (SA)
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