REGULAR MEETING OF THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE

 

Minutes

November 1, 2004

 

104 Gore Hall                                                                                                  4:00 p.m.

 

Members Excused: J. Bernard, V. Misange, R. Morgan, J. Stoner, C. Thoroughgood

 

 

The meeting was convened by Senate President Charles Boncelet.  President Boncelet informed the Senate of the passing of Dr. Kenneth Koford who was a long time member of the Senate.  A moment of silence was observed in Dr. Koford’s memory.

 

I.                    The Agenda was approved unanimously.

 

II.                 The meeting minutes of October 4, 2004 were approved unanimously.

 

III.               Remarks by Provost Dan Rich:  Provost Rich began by announcing the Carvel Center ground breaking ceremony that took place on Friday, October 29th in Georgetown DE.   Governor Carvel and his family donated 2 million dollars and the University was able to obtain matching funds for one year from the State.  Governor Carvel who is 94 years of age was in attendance. 

 

The Provost also informed the Senate that the Early Learning Center was recently opened and dedicated as well.  This building was previously owned and occupied by Girls Inc.  The U of D purchased this building and it was completely renovated.  It now serves 240 children from 6 weeks to 12 years in age.  

 

A Symposium starting next Saturday will be a full week of celebration of the Paul Jones exhibition.  All are invited to come out and observe the exhibit. 

 

The Provost talked of a magazine called “The Scientist” that did an assessment of the best places to work in the world for life scientists.  The U of D ranked in the top ten along with Cornell, Perdue, U of Jerusalem, etc. 

 

Delaware has now achieved Ebscore status.  It is an experimental program for improvement of capacities and research.  Some states don’t have the capacity for competing for federal grants and this helps.  We have now qualified for this status.  Any faculty member, any researcher at U of D whether you knew about it or not,  if you apply for grants and come in in the top ranking and reach a point where there is not enough funding to support those grants there is a separate Ebscore fund available only to researchers in Ebscore states.        

 

November activities will be announced in Udaily.  The Provost asked the Senate to keep up with all the activities coming in November. 

 

Jeff Jordan – Multicultural Issues.  Jeff informed the Senate that 3 years ago the need for recertification surfaced and the work began last year before he became the UGS Chairperson.  Jeff informed the Senate of the tremendous amount of work done by the Undergraduate Studies Committee last year including two open hearings.  Jeff passed out documents containing the 1987 resolution passed by the Faculty Senate, and informed the Senate of a new plan for recertification.  He told the senate that there has been no recertification since 1987.  Jeff walked the Senate through the five year plan which is to recertify this year, and five years down the road recertify again.  Every five years recertification by the UGS Cte. The UGS Cte. was given this authority in the 1987 resolution passed by the Senate.  There are 217 courses that need to be recertified explained Jeff.

 

The plan is as follows:

 

The Recertification Plan:  Five Major Points

1.      Initial 5-year period following certification.

2.      Well constructed assessment study required as evidence.

·                    “The intent was (is) to measure the level of success achieved in reaching these outcomes through course evaluations.”

·                    “The committee felt that it was a faculty member’s responsibility to come up with assessment criteria, perhaps with help from CTE.”

3.      Decertification unless resubmitted for review.

4.      Review by UGS as to recertification, decertification, or 2-year conditional recertification pending further assessment.

5.      A course will be recertified if and only if evidence can be presented that provides reason to think that three of five criteria are met (after the five year initial period):

C1.      Students have acquired a significantly greater understanding of the cultural or ethnic diversity of the people of the United States.

C2.      Students have acquired a significantly greater understanding of the world religions and cultures.

C3.      Students have acquired a significantly greater understanding of the behavior of individuals from other cultures and ethnic backgrounds.

C4.      Students have used the ideas the class has generated about the cultures it considers to deepen their understanding of their own ethnic and cultural background, beliefs, and values.

C5.      Students are able to use their understanding of ethnic, cultural, or religious differences to inform their own behavior and decisions to a significantly greater degree.

 

Jeff explained that these five criteria have generated a lot of concerns and his committee has tried to address these.  “We have the five

criteria based on the assessment tool, but for the initial recertification, no faculty member can be expected to show outcome

assessment, that’s five years hence” explained Jeff.  So the committee has developed  5 criteria that will be used this year,  and then the

initial 5 criteria will be used five years hence. The revised criterion for this year is as follows:

 

C1’. The course content provides significant opportunity for students

to gain a greater understanding of the cultural or ethnic diversity of the

people of the United States.

 

C2’. The course content provides significant opportunity for students

to gain a greater understanding of the world religions and cultures.

 

C3’. The course content provides significant opportunity for students

to gain a greater understanding of the behavior of individuals from other

cultures and ethnic backgrounds.

 

C4’. The course content provides significant opportunity for students

to deepen their understanding of their own ethnic and cultural

background, beliefs, and values.

 

C5’. The course content provides significant opportunity for students

to use their understanding of ethnic, cultural, gender-related or religious

differences to inform their own behavior and decisions to a significantly

greater degree.

 

 

Jeff informed the Senate that the deadline for submitting courses is December 20, 2004.  He asked the Senators to help get the word

out in their units by passing along the following url for the form: http://www.udel.edu/registrar/mcrev.html

 

Jeff then answered questions and concerns.  Dr. Fox asked about a standard outcome assessment tool.  Jeff  referred this question to

John Courtright, Undergraduate Studies.  John stated that there will be an assessment guru that will be available through CTE to help

with this process of assessments.  Eric Benson asked about staggering the recertification so that all 217 courses wouldn’t be up for

recertification at the same time.  Jeff explained that the committee decided not to stagger the courses, but recertify them every five

years.  Avron Abraham asked if courses came in after the recertification period, when would they be up again.  Jeff explained that they

would be up at the very next recertification period.  So, if they came two years after the recertification period they would be up for

recertification in three years.  Sheldon Pollack asked if 215 courses were three times more than needed.  Jeff explained that he didn’t

really know, but as a committee they would be looking for possible “fat that needs to be shed”.  Lawrence Duggan asked for answers

to questions that had been submitted by the college of Arts and Sciences.  Jeff answered that his committee was looking into those

questions and they would be addressing them in the future.  It was also suggested that outcomes assessment was the rage of community

colleges,  but not this university.  John Courtright informs the Senate that Middle States accreditation will be based on outcomes

assessment and that this is practice in universities other than community colleges.  Linda Gottfredson asked about numbers 4 and 5

“their own behavior”  Linda said that we should be careful not to demand that students disclose their own personal beliefs when we go

to assess them.  Jeff thinks it’s a good point, but that this is not the intent of the committee.  Jay Hildebrandt asked a house keeping

question concerning the time frame for 2005- 2006 .  Jeff said that they have until April before courses have to be ready for the

catalog, and that they plan to have them completed by then.  Provost Rich told the Senate that they can check the website for Middle

States Commission on Higher Education for further clarification on outcome assessments - what it does and does not mean.  He told

the Senate to keep in mind that this has become important to accreditation agencies under the challenge of having federal legislators

replace the pier based accreditation with a government review systems.  Eric Rise asked if the Dec. 20th deadline is for existing courses

or new courses also.  Jeff said that is for both, but this is only the Undergraduate Studies Committee’s deadline. Larry Peterson asked

if they anticipate this type of assessments being applied to course proposals other than the two that are mentioned today - E110 and

multicultural requirement courses?  Provost Rich answered the question by saying that the expectation will be applied to the institution

as a whole, but maybe not in the exact same way.  The requirement is not course specific.  Jay Custer stated that “when you change the

criteria for the new courses it’s significant that you put in significant opportunity in all cases; and then when you move to the evaluation

on the outcomes and drop opportunity and then say have acquired in many of them that they are really two different things and that

accreditation shouldn’t drive this process, but rather thinking about it more clearly should.”   He thinks that the committee has set up

two very different kinds of criteria - “Opportunity vs. some kind of outcome.  It assumes that a student can’t take advantage of

opportunity of the class and maybe decide on their personal outcome, if you will, to be to disregard them.  To me you are kind of

saying that that’s a negative outcome.  It doesn’t seem possible to rate classes or  accredit them, or assess their outcomes on the basis

to which they get people perhaps to change their minds about beliefs or things like that”.  Dr. Custer said that “in all cases all we can

ever hope to do is to provide them with the opportunity and the information so they can do that.”  He said he hopes that between now

and five years the committee would do some more thinking about those assessments and push them towards opportunity and not

change peoples minds.

 

IV.       Announcements:  Senate President Charles Boncelet informed the Senate that an electronic form is still in the works.  November 20th is the new target date for getting the new form up and ready.  When the new electronic form is ready this word document form will be taken away. 

 

A forum for electronic privacy policy will be held this spring.  It will be co sponsored by the Faculty Senate and the Provost Office.  Prof Jeffery Rosen of George Washington law school will speak on April 5th.  

 

Grade Inflation – an ad hoc committee will be approved again this year.  The committee will be larger and the Executive Committee will write its charge.

 

V.                 Consent Agenda:

a.       Announcements for Challenge: None

b.      Resolutions: None

 

VI.              Regular Agenda:

a.       Old Business: None

b.      New Business: None

 

VII.            Introduction of New Business:  None

 

VIII.         Adjournment:  The meeting adjourned at 5:25 p.m.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

Karren Helsel-Spry