FA Minutes, October 7, 2020

Faculty Assembly
Webex
10/7/2020 

Presenters:  Roark Atkinson (HGS, Moderator), Mia Serban (SSHS, Moderator), Ed Shannon (HGS, Moderator), Naseem Choudhury (FA President),

Guest Presenters: Peter Mercer (College President), Susan Gaulden (Provost)

Kim Lorber (Secretary)

Meeting brought to order at 1:04pm.

Assembly Minutes: September minutes were approved via Qualtrics.

FACULTY ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Faculty Assembly Agenda: This is available online.

Councilor-at-Large Over 11: Bonnie Blake was elected to serve in this position.

FA Representative to the Graduate Council: We are seeking faculty interested in serving.

CRW/EOF: A faculty liaison position was created. Todd Barnes has accepted and will serve in this role. FAEC has been in discussion with administration regarding the merger of EOF and CRW, and has made it  clear that faculty are nearly unanimous in opposition to the merger and resolute that CRW belongs in Academic Affairs. We are in contact with the Administration about this; our feedback has been well received.

Faculty Handbook: We have asked to reconvene the committee. We would like it worked on and revised by the end of the academic year with a revised draft version distributed in February to be reviewed by the various constituencies.

President Mercer’s Last Year: FAEC has asked the President to make few changes at the College and with committees as a new president will soon arrive which could result in reversing some and implementing other changes.

PROVOST’S REPORT

Thank you: Provost Gaulden thanked the faculty for their hard work. She has received a minimum number of complaints from parents.

Academic Integrity: If there are cases of academic integrity issues, inform the Provost.

Course Schedule: Behind the scenes the spring schedule is being reviewed; there will be five weeks for advisement and schedule tweaks.

Virtual Courses: Student survey results suggest students expect courses to be offered synchronously on Webex. All courses are asked to have a few synchronous sessions. Other courses, without any synchronous sessions, are categorized as online offerings.

Student Survey: Provost Gaulden has shared initial responses to the student survey, which the deans and Naseem have. Naseem will share this information with the faculty.

Spring Break: Concerns are students who may travel and might bring contagion risks to campus. The Administration is weighing the possibility of altering or cancelling Spring Break

Sabbaticals AY 21/22: There will be 6 sabbaticals offered for the next academic year.

Student Attendance and “No Shows”: Provost Gaulden thanked the faculty for reporting these.

Graduate Council: Scott Frees will chair this committee.

AACSB Accreditation/ASB: Site visitors found the ASB faculty created a very engaging environment, have excellent teaching relationships with students. Teacher Education and the Nursing Program have their accreditations happening soon.

Bischoff Award Winners: Michael Bitz and Daniela Buna. There will be a small in-person on October 28th at 3:00pm and it will be a live streamed Webex event.

Webex Room Kits:  One can see how this technology works on campus. There are 34 set-ups so far; more may be purchased if needed.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

AACSB: The ASB accreditation body met today with President Mercer and Provost Gaulden. There was universal approval of the College, students, and faculty. It was sincere. They highlighted the degree of cooperation in the faculty, as well as the amount of time being spent reviewing the curriculum and pandemic delivery models.

Next Round of Funds: It is hoped we will get something that will help towards our $5.4 million deficit. Most previous funding did not go to private higher education institutions.

Campus Buildings: We do not have a big mortgage on the dormitories; our biggest project is the Learning Commons.

Spring Break: Should students travel as normal during spring break? Should the winter break be made a week longer and not have Spring Break in order to reduce COVID-19 infection risks. Yesterday there were 700 new cases in New Jersey and 9 deaths. There is increasing evidence our students’ age,  allows them to often withstand the initial infection, however, symptoms can be impactful to them for coming years. Another possibility is to sprinkle out the 5 days of the break across the semester, one each week (a Monday, a Tuesday, etc.).

Q & A

ARC REPORT BY STEPHEN RICE

Documents and Dates: These are available on the website. These are PDFs. Download to your desktop, complete, and then forward. Set up a digital signature. The deadline for all GECCO and WAC submissions is 10/15/20. Other can be made to ARC until November 1st. Work with your rep to submit your document and after the review send it to: arc@ramapo.edu. Conveners need to provide digital signatures for new courses. There is a digital signature instruction on the same ARC page as the forms. It can be useful for conveners regarding other documents, as well. New General Education courses should go to GECCo first and only one form should be completed as it will be forwarded to ARC. You should not have to pay to complete a form; use Adobe Acrobat Reader and not Pro.

GECCo:  Send any submissions to: gecco@ramapo.edu and cc the person who is in charge of the category. Sarah will forward the document, otherwise.

Meeting Adjourned at 1:56pm.

Categories: FA RCNJ Minutes 2020, FACULTY ASSEMBLY MINUTES, Faculty Assembly Minutes 2020