Faculty Senate

Meeting Minutes

May 5, 2003

 

104 Gore Hall                                                                                                                     4:00 PM

 

Members absent:  T. Bates, J. Butkiewicz, P Chapman, S. Gillan, D. Green, D. Juan,  

 

Members excused:  J. Barker, J. Bishop, C. Cannon, M. DeMent, R. Fluery-Steiner, J. Gizis, I. Hall, J. Hill-Stoner, E. Kaler, Y. Kor, D. Legates, D. Miller, R. Morgan, A. Munchow, T. Fraser Russell, C. Thoroughgood

 

 

I.  Adoption of agenda.

President Jay Hildebrandt convened the meeting.  There was unanimous adoption of the agenda for the meeting.

 

II.  Approval of the Minutes of April 4, 2003.

Jay noted that there was a correction of the meeting minutes of April 7, 2003 in that Andreas Muenchow should be listed as excused and not absent.  These minutes were then approved unanimously.

 

III.  Election of Senate Officers and Selected Committee Members.

Michael Keefe (COCAN chair) solicited volunteers from the senate floor to run for the available Faculty Senate offices prior to the election.  He noted that candidates were running unopposed for president-elect, secretary, and COCAN at-large even though persistent effort has been made over the past several months to generate additional candidates.  On the ballot there were spaces for write-in candidates, but write-in candidates should be identified before the election.  He added that senators had the option of voting ‘No’ for any particular candidate on the ballot.  There were no volunteers as write-in candidates.  The vote was made and the ballots taken for counting.

 

IV.  Remarks.

A. Provost Dan Rich made a brief informational presentation.  An academic council on discovery-based learning was formed last year and a report is under development for presentation in the next school year.  Admissions continue to show increases in quantity and quality for both undergraduate and graduate applicants.  The undergraduate class is anticipated to be the same size as last year.  He added that those accepted into the UD undergraduate honors program have an SAT average of 1342 and undergraduate out-of-state admissions show an acceptance rate of 36-37% while the in-state acceptance rate is over 70%.  The acceptance rate for graduate students is 29%.

B.  Ken Koford (chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee) presented a summary from committee discussions on the multicultural requirement at UD that has been in-place since 1987.

Presently the majority committee opinion is that this university requirement should be changed and this should be done with an expansion in the number of credits from three to six while incorporating another category of classes described as global perspectives.  Doug Buttree further described the proposed arrangement whereby a student selects one class from the global perspectives class list and another class from either the global perspectives list or the multicultural list.  Ken further explained the definitions of terms used in these discussions, along with examples of courses and their categories.  P.K. Krishnan presented the minority opinion of the committee.  He noted that an increase from 3 to 6 credits represents a significant jump in credits with regard to the current campus-wide effort to constrain UD curricula for undergraduate majors to 124 total credits.  Also there was opinion that it would be quite valuable to evaluate the effectiveness of the multicultural requirement that has been in use for the past 16 years in order to assess the validity of expansion to 6 credits.  A straw vote indicated that the majority present felt more information was necessary before finalizing any resolution.  As discussion followed, Jay Hildebrandt reminded everyone that these presentations were for information purposes only.

C.  Avron Abraham (update on ad hoc General Education Committee) summarized the activities and structure of the Gen Ed Committee.  He said that a committee report will be delivered in the fall on their assessments and recommendations including subcommittee reports on Life and Pathways courses as well as capstone experiences.  He also announced an upcoming ITUE conference on campus this June and distributed brochures on Life Clusters and Study Abroad opportunities for winter session 2004.

 

V.  Announcements: Jay Hildebrandt.

Jay stated that the Faculty Senate website can be used for submission of comments in response to the presentations of Ken Koford and Avron Abraham.  Another option would be to email suggestions to Karren Helsel-Spry at Also, an open hearing is scheduled to take place on Monday, May 19th from 4 to 5 PM in 103 Gore Hall on the self-study report of UD athletics by the NCAA.

 

VI.  Consent Agenda.

A.  It was earlier announced that the printed agenda did not include item no. 10 concerning HRIM, but did appear on the Faculty Senate website.  The on-line document of the Faculty Senate agenda is the official version.  In a call by Jay Hildebrandt for pulling any of the consent agenda items, Ken Koford requested that item 9 on the new major in Health Studies be pulled for further discussion.  Items 1-8 and 10 were approved unanimously.  At this point Ken asked questions about the new major and Pam Beeman of Health & Nursing Sciences responded.  The subsequent vote approved the new major with 40 yes and 6 abstaining.

B.  Resolutions.  There was no discussion on the lone resolution; it passed unanimously.

 

VII.  Agenda.

A.  Old business: None.

B.  New business.

Mike Keefe announced that the slate of candidates was approved.  There was unanimous verbal confirmation of committee appointments.  Applause was accepted by Jay Hildebrandt for his year-long efforts as President of the Faculty Senate, others were acknowledged as well.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:20 PM.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Dallas Hoover (Faculty Senate Secretary)

 

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