Senators Present: Gloria Craig, Jeffrey Elbert, Norman Gambill, Patty Hacker, Jerry Jorgensen, Christine Larson, Gary Larson, Nancy Marshall, Vance Owens, Jim Paulson, Tish Smyer, Jerry Sweeney, Jan Vandever, Hal Werner, Zeno W. Wicks III, Howard Woodard

Guests Present:  Dr. Carol Peterson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Senators Present by Proxy: Rajender Aparasu (Craig), William Campbell (Werner), Daniel Hubbard (G. Larson), Kendra Kattelmann (C. Larson), Nicole Klein (C. Larson),  Donald Marshall (N. Marshall)

Senators Absent: Alex Moutsoglou, Larry Rogers, Jeff Spark, Fedora Sutton, Tamme Williams

Call to Order: Jan Vandever, Chair, called to order a meeting of the Academic Senate, South Dakota State University at 3:34 PM, Tuesday, November 28, 2000, in the Jackrabbit Room of the Student Union (USU 103).

Approval of Agenda: Motion made to approve the agenda (C. Larson /G. Larson). Motion passed.

Approve of Minutes: Motion made to approve the minutes of November 14, 2000. (Jorgensen/Smyer). Motion passed.

Report by the Vice President of Academic Affairs: Dr. Carol Peterson

The university’s organizational chart has been updated. Copies of the new chart were given to senators.

All faculty members should have received a clarification of the university’s workload policy via e-mail. The message contained answers to common questions about workload. Many of these questions surfaced last year in the President’s Faculty Committee. There have been updates to the policy to reflect changes in workload, particularly how technology is considered in workload.

There have been questions relating to curriculum changes. This will be on the agenda for the next Academic Council meeting. The new process needs to be looked at and streamlined. A routing form to clarify actions taken on proposed changes at the department and college levels will be added. While the new process allows greater flexibility on when changes may be proposed, some structure will be necessary at SDSU due to our size and complexity.

Report by the Chair of the Academic Senate: Dr. Jan Vandever

Reminder that senators have been invited to meet with diversity consultants on Thursday, November 30 from 3:00 to 4:00 PM. Senators are encouraged to attend this meeting.

Old Business

Senator Christine Larson reported on the Academic Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee on Advising the New Core. She distributed copies of the three forms that were mentioned at the last senate meeting. Send comments/changes to her.

The Progress Status Report is closely based on a form created by the College of Arts and Science. It lists the BOR Core and SDSU IGR’s separately. Students use it as a checklist to indicate what courses they have taken to fulfill each requirement. The form is on a disk. Once it is more finalized, the electronic version can be made available so that departments can customize it.

SDSU Guide to General Education Core Requirements is similar to the guide created by the College of General Registration. It is an alphabetical list of courses approved for each BOR or IGR requirement.

The Core Course Reference Grid is also based on a document from the College of Arts and Science. It lists all courses that satisfy one or more goals with check marks indicating what requirements each course fulfills.

Senator Larson will make some changes to these documents and take to Vice President Peterson’s office for assistance with their layout and design. They will be made available for use this semester and next. Once complete, we can put the guides on the academic portion of the web page. After the guides have been used, we can modify them if necessary.

Senators discussed the extent to which students are informed about the core and told how it fits within their overall education. Is it accurate to assume that this is being explained through the orientation and advising processes? Do students read the explanation of the core that is in the catalog? An understanding of the core depends to some extent on the individual student. The need for an understanding of the importance of a good, general education is related to the work of the Lead Forward committee on the possibility of a freshman experience.

New Business

Motion to approve the South Dakota State University Fall 2000 Graduation Candidates (Wicks/C. Larson). Motion passed.

Dr. Don Crowe, Chair, General Education Core Committee presented a brief update on the committee’s work. This year, all courses approved for Goal 5 are being examined.  The committee has been meeting monthly. At this time, the full committee has discussed five of the sixteen courses for Goal 5. Dr. Crowe hopes to bring recommendations to Academic Senate for additions and changes to the list of core courses by February. In January, the committee will meet with Dr. Hegge regarding weaknesses in test scores in the areas of reading and writing.

Members of the General Education Core Committee have noted that, in some cases, syllabi do not meet the BOR standards. Specifically, the syllabi do not address the specific ways in which the course fulfills the IGR’s. Committee members feel that it isn’t their place to reject a course based on this, but they do feel that this should be noted. The same has been true with the catalog summary of courses. The catalog copy and syllabus should tell students what the course does to meet various goals.

Vice Chair Gambill led a discussion on plans for the upcoming Conference of Senates. A planning session will be held on Saturday, December 2 from 12:00 to 4:30 PM in Sioux Falls. The Conference of Senates will be held on Friday, December 8 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. As of Tuesday, a total of 17 legislators and representatives from SDSU and USD have indicated that they will attend. SDSU can send two additional representatives to the meeting. If you are interested, please contact Chair Vandever or Vice Chair Gambill.

The discussion of issues to emphasize at this year’s conference included continued salary enhancement, technology infrastructure, out of state tuition, competition for South Dakota students, declining enrollment, tuition costs both in South Dakota and in neighboring states, challenges of attracting high quality students, out-migration of our students both to attend college and for employment opportunities following graduation from South Dakota universities.

Announcements

The library is hosting workshops for graduate students, faculty, and staff about JSTOR, a collection of over 120 digitized journals dating back to the 1800’s. Information and handouts will be available at the reception for those unable to attend a workshop. Workshops and receptions will be held on Wednesday, November 29 (workshop at 3:00 PM, reception from 3:45 to 4:30 PM) and Thursday, November 30, (workshop at 11:00 AM, reception from 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM). Workshops will be held in the electronic classroom on the main floor of H. M. Briggs Library. Receptions will be held in the Library Conference Room, 123B.

Executive Committee will meet on Tuesday, December 5 at 3:00 PM in Briggs Library (BL 222).

The University Holiday Open House will be held at Woodbine Cottage on Tuesday, December 5 from 2:00 to 6:00 PM. All are invited and encouraged to attend.

The South Dakota Art Museum will hold its grand reopening on Saturday, December 2 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The museum’s gift shop is particularly exciting as it contains art from all over the world.

Adjournment: Motion made to adjourn the meeting at 4:55 PM (Hacker/G. Larson). Motion passed.

Respectfully submitted,
Nancy Marshall, Secretary
Academic Senate