Faculty Assembly Executive Council | Minutes12/12/18

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Faculty Assembly

 1.  Faculty Assembly Minutes Approved

 2.  FA President’s Report

• Exam Make-up day is Sunday December 23rd which presents a calendar crunch with Christmas and winter break.
• There is a possibility of starting the academic year earlier.  This would require adjustment to the AFT contract to start last week in August and to end the academic year earlier in June. The AFT will work with Provost’s office to determine the possibilities.
• The New Jersey state legislature’s 120 credit cap is non-applicable to RCNJ and does not impact the College’s credit-hour system.  Public liberal arts colleges are exempt.
• Consequently,  RCNJ avoids having to redesign its programs in a very short period of time. The College’s consideration of a hybrid ¾ credit hour model in the future is independent of the pressure of the legislation.
• The faculty handbook will be revising the by human resources.  RCNJ is the only New Jersey college with separate human resources and employee relations departments.  The function of these offices will be consolidated under human resources.
• Starting January 15, 2019 Nicole Morgan Agard will primarily and solely serve as RCNJ’s  Chief Diversity Officer.
• One and two credit courses are not rigorous.  They require assessment and revision. Students  (namely transfer students) take up to 16 credits in in order to meet the 128 credit hour requirement.  
• Every other meeting for Faculty Assembly will be in the Pavillon

3.  College President’s Report

• President Mercer is traveling to Trenton along with the presidents of other New Jersey public colleges to meet with the New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education. They will work on a strategic plan for Higher Education.  RCNJ’s appropriations are lowest per capita than any other public liberal arts college. The challenge for RCNJ resides in how the College manages to get things into a budget that is flatlining. Some broad themes of the new strategic plan include: Workplace training and reducing tuition.   We will also examine the possibilities for the New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education’s design of a funding formula.
• RCNJ receive 2k less per student than TCNJ.  The only schools receiving less per capita are Montclair State University and Stockton University.
• RCNJ had received more admissions applications than in any other  time in the College’s history. The application rate is up by 5%.
• The College’s graduate programs doing well with 600 graduate students on campus
• The Learning Commons will shift to Linden Hall which is being reconfigured to serve as swing space for the library’s collections.  The Library facility will be completely demolished before it is reconstructed. The project is on budget at 42 million dollars and on time with drawings and specifications.  It is likely to completed based on the established timeline.
• Patrick O’Connor, RCNJ’s Government Relations Officer,  attended a briefing given by the Director of New Jersey Transit.  The Director suggested that he will try to help devise a plan for developing public transportation options for access to RCNJ.  Pat O’Connor will work with New Jersey Transit to hopefully implement a plan in two to three months.
• There is nothing to preventing RCNJ from  offering Associates degrees. This comprises the primary initiative taken up by which are cannibalizing some two year colleges.  

4.  Provost’s Report

• Introduction of the Provost’s Special Assistant, Diane Couzens
• The Provost invites faculty to contribute to his discussion board   
• During a speech the Provost suggested that RCNJ needs to be innovative as success  is defined by defined by increasing impact, providing more opportunities and student success. The Provost proposed three cornerstones:
  • Curricular Innovation characterized by signature graduate programs that feature Data Science,  RCNJ online [an online course offerings that are not in competition with existing programs], and Programmatic reviews that entail self-studies.  
  • International Orientation:  Attracting new students and expand RCNJ activities abroad.  An innovation taskforce will be established to address this.
  • Scholarly Excellence:  Enlarging and supporting faculty-student research

5.  Voting Item: GECCo (Experiential Component)

• Vote Results: [Abstain = 5  No= 1 Yes = 90]
• The Language of the Voting Item:: The Experiential Component in the General Education Program will be moved from a Category to an Objective that states: Participate in an engaged, experiential activity that connects the course to real world settings.
• Issue with New General Education program relative to the experiential component. All objectives overlap with experiential objectives and  ⅔ do not encompass the experiential component at all. The experiential should be an objective and listed as a category with other categories.  The proposed solution is to make the experiential component an objective.
• Gecco will devise a manual and have standing committees like ARC
• The ambiguity of the language “Experiential” and “engaged” ambiguity will be addressed to determine what the metrics and qualifiers for these terms.  There needs to be clarity on how ”engaged” is operationalized.

6.  Middle States Report (Stephanie Sarabia)

• The Middle States self study Oct 15th first draft were submitted by the working groups.  
• During December 2018 the steering committee reviewed the chapters and provided feedback.  The process was advised after the committee attended the Middle States conference.  The report will be published on the self study website. Google groups will be used to enable feedback on the report
• The Middle States working group co-chairs are seeking to establish Middle states office hours  to be available to discuss the chapters of the report.
• David Nast and Stephanie Arabia are taking suggestions on the process

7.  Report: Student Athletes (Dr. Ben Fine)

• Student Athletes/Faculty:  Ben Fine is the faculty member contact that serves to bridge gaps between student athletes and their classroom performance by keeping coaches informed of and student athletes’ progress.  Dr. Fine reports to Chris Romano about these relations. He affirmed that student athletes should not be afforded an unfair advantage in their courses.

8.  FA Q & A

• How can RCNJ facilitate an International Orientation and more more study abroad?
  • The Innovation Taskforce can determine how can we accomplish this to support travel funds. Ramapo Online would increase revenues to fund study abroad and academic affairs needs.
• Concern expressed about the language of the OSS statement that is circulated among faculty and students.   It indicates that students must meet with OSS advisor at the end of the first week but does does not specify anything about meeting with the instructors to discuss OSS accommodations.
• Concerns expressed about expectations for service and faculty scholarship.  Faculty that are and wish to produce scholarship cannot be engaged in the level of service that we are currently expected to maintain.

9.  Information Items

Chief Diversity Officer (Nicole Morgan Agard)

• Communications Meeting Overview
• Change at the College Since the EDIC ‘s Establishment
• Drafting a College Wide Diversity Plan
• Creation of an anonymous Online Bias reporting system
• Diversity Committee + Bias Response Team
• Diversity Convocation Feb 13 2019 John Quinones from ABC “What Would You Do” will be in attendance
• Call for Search Advocates to sit on search committees – receives training. Not a voting member on a committee

SGA President (Stephan Lally): Food Pantry and Student Relief Fund (SRF)

• Tiffany Miniweather and Stefan Lally: We Care Program  [MSW internship program] Help with non-Tuition related expenses
• Given out over $2500 for student expenses
• CCSE, CSI,EDIC  -good academic + financial standing, in need, appropriate behavior
• Homelessness, books.
• Student Relief Fund https://www.ramapo.edu/give/ To donate to the Student Relief Fund, scroll down to “Other,” and please write in “Student Relief Fund” in the text box for Other Gift Designation.)

Library Update

• No access to phone from 7th to 18th of January
• Closed Jan 2nd to 21st

Fair Trade (Neriko Doerr)

Visit https://www.ramapo.edu/fair-trade/ for more information

• Adjunct Professor Service Awards – 3:00pm AFT (Alumni Lounges):
  • All members of the College Community are invited to stay for the  Adjunct Professor
  • Service Awards at the beginning of the AFT meeting.

Faculty Assembly Adjourned 3 pm

Categories: FACULTY ASSEMBLY MINUTES, Uncategorized