Faculty Assembly President's Report -- 4/28/04
In the interest of time I am going to make a very brief report.
Before we begin today I must take a minute to thank all of you for your kind
messages etc. over the past couple of months. I am especially grateful
to Ellen Kaiden for serving as Acting FAP in my absence from Faculty Assembly.
Ellen and the entire Faculty Advisory Council have done a tremendous job of
keeping things on track and moving when I had to be away. Thank you!
1. FA procedure: Faculty Assembly today was rescheduled
from April 14, 2004 in order to give the ASEC and CLA committees more time
to develop concrete proposals for us to consider and to allow units and
convening groups space to work on their pieces of these discussions. We have only an hour and a half for today's meeting. We
will concentrate largely on the ASEC Preliminary Proposals posted at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/facassem/asecprelimrecomm41904.html I wish to thank Stephen Klein of ARC, Roger N. Johnson, Murray
Sabrin, Iraida Lopez and others for putting their reports in writing to
save time at today's meeting. A special added faculty assembly on
May 12, 2-4 -- also in SC219-- will be largely devoted to a first stage exploration
for the Gen Ed proposal which is to accompany CLA -- or as it now to be
called the Unit Plan. In light of the preliminary nature of these proposals
-- and the evident need for continued analysis and refinement of these proposals,
we strongly urge that no formal motions regarding ASEC or the Unit Plan be
advanced at this meeting or the next. These meetings are devoted to
discussion only on these topics. The final two FAs of the year May 24
10-12 and May 24 2-4 will focus on the formal full recommendations from ASEC
and the CLA Committee. Voting on those proposals will follow the meeting
by mail ballot so that the entire faculty can speak to whatever changes we
are proposing to our academic structure and to our curriculum.
When we get to the ASEC agenda item today we will set aside a maximum
of 1 hour for the ASEC team -- moderated by Carol Bonilla Bowman one of the
three co-chairs to report on the Preliminary Proposals and then to take input
from the group. Sandy Pfeiffer has agreed to sit up front along with
the ASEC group to answer specific questions raised by Assembly members about
the administrative perspective on these preliminary proposals and Babs Varano
will also sit with the group to answer specific questions about data.
Reminder: we will be following scrupulously the three minute maximum
guideline for each faculty comment and there will be only one comment per
person until everyone who wishes to speak has an opportunity to do so or until
we have reached the end of the hour.
One further note: a deliberative body of this size can only be effective
if we remain not only efficient but civil with one another and maintain a
professional decorum in our discussion. There is one Parliamentarian
for the Faculty Assembly and that is David Greene. If a Parliamentary
question needs resolution he will advise me on how to proceed and I
will make the ruling based on his guidance.
Following Faculty Assembly additional responses regarding the ASEC Proposals
-- or other matters of course -- are encouraged. Please send your
responses/comments/questions directly to the committee and/or to me for general
posting.
2. Budget Hearing/BOT Meeting: Following Faculty Assembly
today at 4:00 in Pavilion 2, Vice President Vicki Bruni will be holding an
Open Hearing on the Budget. Tonight at 7:00 pm. at the Board of Trustees
public meeting, the Board will be voting on the Unit Plan (CLA) concept.
I encourage as many of you as possible to show up tonight to demonstrate to
the Board our strong commitment to the Unit Plan.
3. Presidential Search: All of you received copies
of the memo sent to me by Gail Brady, Chair of the Board of Trustees inviting
nominations to the Board of at least two candidates per level for 3 categories
of faculty: 1) recently tenured faculty; 2) faculty less than 15 years
at the college and 3) faculty who have served over 15 years. The deadline
to submit these names was yesterday, April 27 which made it impossible to
bring this before the full membership today. I would note, however,
that I had met with Alice Chandler 2 weeks ago to discuss the search process
and I requested at that time that faculty representation be expanded from
the 3 representatives plus 1 ex-officio member we had last time. The
answer was a definitive "no."
Given the time constraints set by the Board, I followed the precedent established
at the time of the last Presidential Search to have the Faculty Advisory
Council develop with me a slate of appropriate candidates and to then check
with these candidates regarding availability and willingness. Ultimately
we sent forward 3 names for each category. We tried to ensure that the names
were as widely diverse as possible including in terms of academic units,
and academic fields. I think that you will agree that the nine faculty
whose names were ultimately selected -- and who all agreed to be willing
to undertake this important and labor-intensive task -- are outstanding choices.
The names are as follows:
Recently tenured faculty: Paramjeet Bagga(Biology/Bio-informatics,
TAS, Rachel Budin(Theater/Lighting Design, CA), Daniela Buna (Physics, TAS)
Middle faculty: (Under 15 years): Susan Eisner (Management, SAB),
Shirley Knight (Librarian, Library), Carter Meyer (History/American Studies,
AIS)
Long-term faculty: (Over 15 years): Donna Crawley (Psychology/Women's
Studies, SSHS); Sam Pinn (Social Science, SSHS); Warner Wada (Painting/Visual
Arts, CA)
The Board plans to announce tonight the three faculty who will actually
serve on the committee. In the meantime please join me in expressing
our appreciation to these committed colleagues.
I will also sit with the search committee ex officio as Faculty Assembly
President.
4) Faculty Assembly Elections: I am delighted to acknowledge
our newly elected Faculty Advisory Council members: Patricia Ard of
AIS, Susan Eisner of SAB, and Amruth Kumar of TAS. They will take office
as of Sep. 1, 2004. Ellen Kaiden and Mark Howenstein will continue on
the Faculty Advisory Council for their second year as well. Let us give them
all our applause! I am also honored to be re-elected as Faculty Assembly
President and to see George Gonpu of SAB re-elected as Faculty Assembly Secretary.
Congratulations George.
5) Planning Process: Dorothy Echols-Tobe, Vice Provost
for Institutional Planning has developed a new planning process which has
been approved by the Administrative Council. The planning process -- which
will be posted shortly on the FA website -- includes the creation of an All-College
Planning Council which will meet primarily toward the end of September to
review the plans that have gone forward from the various units of the college.
Sitting on the All College Planning Council will be the Faculty Assembly President
(this year myself), plus a representative chosen by ARC (this year Stephen
Klein), a representative from SBGC (this year Michael Edelstein), a representative
from the Faculty Advisory Council (this year Ellen Kaiden).
Note: for this year's planning process the work that would be expected to
be going on at this point in convening groups etc. is actually being done
in the form of the discussions underway regarding ASEC, the Unit Plan etc.
and the impact of these proposals on the curriculum and functioning of the
convening groups. So relax -- this is not actually a new thing on your
plate this year!
6) Commencement: Commencement this year is May 25, 2004.
The Commencement speaker this year will be former U. S. senator Carole Moseley
Braun. Faculty/Staff robing begins at 9:15 a.m. in SC136-137. Faculty/Staff
will again park in Oak/Maple lots so you need to enter at the north entrance.
More details are available at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/facassem/commencementinfos04.html .
7) New FA website: I call your attention to the look
of the new Faculty Assembly website (at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/facassem ) designed by the FA student aide, Christina Medina. She has
done a tremendous job of organizing and making more navigable the FA site
and has found and added a search engine. Brava! Christina.
8) Status Report: I have prepared a status report for
the Faculty Assembly on where we stand regarding the various initiatives
that have been undertaken this year. You can view that report in detail
by visiting http://phobos.ramapo.edu/facassem/FAprojectstatus.html
Cordially, Kay Fowler, FAP
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