Faculty Assembly Executive Council | Minutes | 12/05/18

FAEC Minutes 12/5/2018
Faculty Assembly Executive Council [FAEC] Meeting Minutes
Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2018  | Location: A218  | Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Attendees: Tae Kwak, Donna Flynn, Sam Mustafa, Cristina Perez, Hugh Sheehy, Renata Gangemi, Christina Connor, Kathy Zeno
Secretary: Nakia Matthias
Guest:  Provost Becker;  Stephan Lally, SGA President;  Sarah Carberry, GECCo Chair; and Michael Unger

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 1.  FAEC Minutes Approved

 2.  SGA President,  Stephan Lally: SGA Food Pantry and The “We Care” Program

The SGA food pantry stock is currently adequate.  The food pantry also includes toiletries; baby food/supplies; and school supplies.

There is a need for monetary donations to the We Care Program.  The program encompasses the Student Relief Fund, as well as resources for food insecurity [food pantry], and homelessness.

An announcement for donations to the We Care Program will be made at the next Faculty Assembly on 12/12/18.

The average request for student assistance is $500 and assistance is granted at $2000 or less.

The SGA President wants to create a Wellness Fee, whereby students will be granted unlimited free mental health services with their enrollment. The proposed mental health services provision required board approval.  At present students are allotted three medical/clinical visits per year with a copayment of $15 per visit to under the current scheme offered at RCNJ.

Information about the We Care Program can be found via the Office of Equity and Diversity Programs web page at: https://www.ramapo.edu/ccec/we-care-program/

Applications to the Student Relief Fund are available via the following link:

https://www.ramapo.edu/sga/student-relief-fund-application/

Donations to the Student Relief Fund can be made via the Ramapo ‘Giving” web page. Follow these instructions to donate to the Student Relief Fund:

1. Visit the Ramapo ‘Giving’ web page: https://www.ramapo.edu/giving/
2. Click on the “Make A Gift” button
3. In the “Gift Designation” area click on the drop-down menu and select “Other”
4. In the “Other Gift Designation” field, manually type in “Student Relief Fund”

3.  FAEC Morale Fund

The FAEC “Morale Fund” budget has been reduced from $2,000 to $1,500.  The FAEC has cut spending on FA refreshments [not including coffee], faculty requests for celebratory funding, and paper ballots in effort to donate as much as possible monies to the Student Relief Fund, which needed capital, particularly in the beginning.

A request has been made to the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, Cathleen Davey and President Mercer to restore the $2,000 budget.

4.  Starting the academic year earlier, Reading Day, and Exam scheduling

Provost Becker is considering options to begin the academic year earlier within the month of August in order to adequately accommodate reading day scheduling and commencement scheduling.  This proposal must be discussed with the AFT before a decision can be made. However, the change is proposed in part to avoid issues related to the fall of Labor Day within a given calendar year and the potential time-crunch that it creates with reading-day and exam proximity to the holidays.

Reading day schedules that fall on a Sunday are not academic days as no classes and offices are offered in Sundays.  Weekend reading day scheduling does not grant students adequate time to prepare for exams due to the absence of any real break between their classes and exam dates.  Reading Day needs to be formally defined by the college so may that it may be honored in accordance with its intended purpose of allowing students to have adequate preparation time for their exams.

Some hybrid courses are experiencing exam scheduling conflicts with regularly scheduled classroom-based courses.  This must be rectified going forward.

5.  Faculty Scholarship

At a recent Librarians Unit Council meeting, the provost discussed his plan to request from each school/unit a scholarship statement outlining how each area defines scholarly excellence in order to help guide the tenure and promotion process. Per the provost, the scholarly statements would work alongside the Faculty Handbook. However, the RCNJ Faculty handbook specifies the terms for faculty scholarship and decisions to revise these terms must be made in consultation with the AFT.  

  6.  GECCo Report from Sarah Carberry and Michael Unger

The criteria general education courses will be revised by Sarah Carberry. GECCo will also devise a revised charge and manual.

Students will be required to take three experiential keystone courses to include:

• First Year Seminar (FYS)
• Studies in Arts and Humanities (SIAH)
• Social Science Inquiry (SSI)

For these courses the changes involve the removal of outcomes that conflict with what GECCo and FA voted on.  Additionally, an extended experiential task force will be voting on the new objective for these courses. In the past there has been no continuity in what was voted on versus what was implemented.

The Deans Council will officially be dissolved by way of the authority of the FAEC, GECCo, and ARC.

Sarah and Michael pointed out that other than a registrar-purge there is currently no mechanism for a class being removed from the course catalog if it has not been taught for 10 years.   

Sarah and Michael  also discussed ways to steramine assessment.  They maintained that assessment processes must consist of a routine that involves audits, syllabus checks, tracking whom has been assessed, and developing information based on a random cluster sample of how faculty programs and courses are assessed.

In terms of courses such as FYS there is a misconception that these classes can be assessed the same way because they have the same course number but there may be no consistency in their content and specific focus.  Assessment for such courses must be customized and a syllabus audit must be a feature of this process.

The FAEC and GECCo share the belief that work of assessment should be minimized but maximum benefit and effectiveness should be achieved through its processes.

Meeting Adjourned at 12:00 pm

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