Chair J Reeder had several announcements:
>> Things are moving statewide on implementation of the new Ethnic Studies requirement
>> The Spring 2021 retreat will be held virtually on Thursday, 21 January from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm.
>> The issue of stress on faculty has come up. One question is how much time faculty members spend on service to faculty governance. Relative to the rest of the CSU campuses, SSU ranks 6th in how much time is spent on Academic Senate business, and 10th in how much time is spent on the Executive Committee.
>> Traditionally, an “academic hour” is defined as 50 minutes. Many one-hour classes are scheduled to end at xx:50, to provide a 10-minute break till the next hour’s classes. But in many cases this break is shortened by running a class beyond its scheduled end-time. From now on the 10-minute break rule will be enforced.
President J Sakaki announced that the new campus Chief of Police was sworn in recently. She also announced that the Chancellor would be interviewing Dr Anthony Fauci in a “Fireside Chat” on 18 December 2020 from 12:00 to 12:45.
Provost K Moranski had several announcements:
>> Applications for the 2021-2022 academic year are down significantly, but this is true statewide. We’re doing better on transfer applicants than first-time applicants. We may extend our applications deadline from 4 Dec to 15 Dec, and possibly to 15 June [which was in fact done subsequently].
>> The Chancellor’s Office is re-thinking the whole applications modality, and believes that probably the window for applications is too short.
>> There was a glitch in the processing of SETEs, but the privacy of students’ responses was not compromised as a result.
>> Coronavirus vaccines will be made available to the campus, and will be used first for students desiring a vaccination, and thereafter will be available to faculty and staff.
>> A lecturer senator pointed out how difficult it is for lecturers to plan their spring since there is so much uncertainty about which classes and how many sections will actually be offered. A Federal program will provide funds to compensate full-time faculty for not teaching a full load so that opportunities are opened for lecturers. But the program has not yet been funded even for the spring term, let alone the next academic year or two.
Student Affairs VP G Sawyer announced that 88.87% of the 5,988 eligible to continue in the spring will re-enroll. We desire to bring that figure up to 95%. One of the problems is holds on students’ records, which the University should hasten to deal with. He also announced that 450 students are now living on campus (in sparsely filled residence halls due to quarantining), but that figure will rise to 536 for the spring.
The Associated Students’ “Pantry” program for needy students will remain functional during the mid-winter break.
The Statewide Senators announced that a new Faculty Trustee will be selected for a two-year term 2021-2023. C Nelson, Poli Sci, last year’s Chair of the Statewide Senate, will chair the selection committee.
FSAC reminds faculty that the Course Outline (aka Syllabus) is in effect a Contract with the students and must be respected. There is a problem in many cases with the nature and timing of finals, especially under distance-learning protocols, e.g., how much is on-line, how much is timed.
The CFA reminds lecturers that they are eligible for unemployment benefits when not actually teaching. Also, a team is now bargaining for a new Contract with the CO, and our campus is represented on the team by former CFA Chapter President E Newman, Math/Stat.
The Senate discussed a preliminary document regarding RTP procedures prepared by FSAC. It is only in draft form now and not presented to the Senate for a first reading. One question is whether re-appointment review for probationary faculty should occur on a 2-4-6 year schedule or a 3-6 year schedule.
V Garlin, Professor Emeritus of Economics and member of the SSU-ERFSA Board, noted a small but significant change from earlier policy in the section on Reasons a President Can Overturn Faculty Recommendations, namely, that “it should happen infrequently”. It was not clear whether this was an inadvertent omission in the typographical-error category, or a significant policy change. The SSU-ERFSA Board opposes letting this omission stand, and if there is a policy dispute stands firmly for retaining the omitted language.
>> Submitted by Rick Luttmann, Senate Representative for SSU-ERFSA