Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Minutes of October 6, 2008
Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Monday – October 6, 2008; Hawaiʻi Hall 208
Present: Wakayama, Crookes, Hilgers, Ross, Keil, Tiles,
Crosby
(secty Mitsutani)
3:00 SEC meeting
1) Minutes of previous meeting were approved with one
revision.
2) Brief discussion of the Chancellor’s draft document
concerning hiring and search procedures of executives, as slightly modified
following input from CAB. This will move forward to a vote to adopt this
document at the next Faculty Senate meeting.
3) Possible Manoa clarification or amendment of Manoa
policy M9.201 Executive Policy (E9.215) to be forwarded to VC Ostrander,
following input from CAB.
4) SEC Chair has written to Chairs of Faculty Senates at
other System campuses encouraging consideration of possible faculty senate
motions concerning faculty input to the UH System presidential search process.
However, these motions will not be passed in time for input into BoR
deliberations on this matter this month. We expect these motions to be passed in
time for the BoR’s next meeting. There is already a three-member BOR
subcommittee of Ron Migita, Jim Hayes and Kitty Legaretta.
5) Senators assigned to committees. Four senators were
unassigned; they will be found committee assignments but this is still pending.
6) SEC had been approached by a faculty member about the
closing of a center in the College of Business. SEC referred this back on the
grounds that the matter must be taken up by Faculty Senate of the College of
Business.
Meeting with Asst VC for Undergraduate Education Ron Cambra
(3:40) and interim VCAA Peter Quigley, on undergraduate orientation and related
issues.
- Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE)
- WASC institutional proposal
The second essay that has gone in in this proposal covers the UHM undergraduate experience. - Engagement, retention and graduation [are the three main themes that OUE
is concerned with at present]
Cambra says that undergrads are not particularly engaged with their UHM education, so it’s the responsibility of his unit to increase this. Retention rates from 1st to 2nd year are about 80%, which is lower than many peer institutions. An additional 30% is lost in the 2 to 3rd year. Many of these students are the undeclared students (aka general arts and sciences students). These students do not know what they want to become; they also don’t know what UHM has as potential for their experience.
Graduation rates have improved over the last couple of years (partly because of higher tuition costs; but partly because current typical students are dealing with revised GEC requirements. Many students now graduate with exactly 128 credit-hours; this is partly the result of STAR system’s providing accurate and timely feedback to students on their credit/course needs. - OUE initiatives
a) Student Success Center (SSC)
A new workplace has been established in Sinclair Library
including a tutoring center (English and Math depts); this was an initiative of
Neal Smatresk w. Greg Geary. The environment is more student-friendly (non
air-conditioned).
b) Academic advising
Council of Academic Advisors (made up of the senior advisor
of each college) have worked with OUE. There is a mandatory advising policy
beginning F08 freshmen. All have been assigned to a particular advising office
(in colleges, if have declared major; 40% of 1800 are the undeclared, they go to
the Manoa Advising Center). Students must declare a major as they transfer from
second to third year.
c) Manoa Advising Center (in QLCSSC); there are only about 3 advisors
there (there are 12 within A&S), there are 7 vacancies; there are 6 in addition
for athletics. Advisor to student ratios (presumably as they apply to MAC
only)—1:250 is the target, 1:400 would be acceptable, at present in practice it
is approximately 1:1000.
MAC also takes care of pre-majors (pre-med, pre-education…)
d) STAR
This software system will allow all students to develop a
four-year academic plan, when its final form is implemented. A beta model will
be in place in Fall 08. This will provide feedback every year if students fall
behind.
e) Honors Committee
f) First year coordinator: learning communities and freshmen seminars.
Putting students in LCs and having them work with a group of students aids
graduation rates.
g) sophomore year experience
h) Ka ‘ie ‘ie agreements handles students who transfer from CCs to Manoa.
(This was originally intended to be only for KCC to Manoa, but was unexpectedly
extended to apply to all CCs students transferring to Manoa.)
i) GEC foundation coursework, English 100. There was a backlog of
students not having taken ENG 100. Additional sections were laid on; a waiver
program was instituted; this program will be assessed at the end of this year.
j) giving tree
5. Continuing tasks
a) At-risk campus-wide initiatives
b) student athlete academic services
c) course management task
d) UHM recruitment of high school students
e) clickers initiative
f) articulation agreements
6. Challenges and needs
OUE needs more advisors, preferably 10. Consistent advising
(agreed procedures across colleges) is also very important.
Tutoring: about $70k is available in main areas, but more
would be highly desirable. (This is only at the Student Success Center; there is
also tutoring in departments.)
Meeting with Alan Teramura (Interim Dean, Natural Sciences)
concerning the joint report from the two committees considering the A&S
reorganization. (VCAA Quigley stated that one part of this report was not
finalized.) This report is being circulated widely, will be posted on the
Faculty Senate website, and will not be summarized in detail here.
Teramura noted that the first two meetings of his committee
spent the entire time explaining why there should not be a single A&S college.
40% of peer & benchmark institutions do not have a single A&S college, though
60% do. Review of peer & benchmark institutional structures was productive.
Support for a hybrid model was almost unanimous. The hybrid model is associated,
typically, with two or three disciplinary agglomerations. In peer and benchmark
institutions, the academic deans are very small offices (they may share a
secretary), have input on promotion & tenure, act as interface between dept
chairs and on budgetary matters liaise with and advise the Executive Dean. There
would also be an executive steering committee involving these positions (and
presumably the other offices). A question was asked about the function of the
Office of Research. Teramura answered it by saying that its function is meant
“to put people together to find collaborative things”; the Admin office will
administer RTRF, not the Office of Research. Some felt that this might be a
weakness. SEC was told that the model for this office was SSRI (whose current
Director is an academic). Discussion
focused on the likely grant-getting function of this office, which SEC was told
would be enhanced, as when Library and Information Sciences was integrated with
Natural Sciences. However, there should be Deans, not Associate Deans, for the
academic divisions, as they would be overseeing 3-400 faculty.
Developing from this report, Quigley and Teramura noted
that there would be considerable imbalance between the size of the A&S College
and a variety of small Schools that exist on UHM.
Quigley and Teramura made remarks about the maintenance of
unique and exceptional programs within the reorganization.
Quigley and Teramura believe that there should be extensive
faculty discussion of the report, but the Chancellor is keen to move forward as
soon as possible; Quigley and Teramura note that the current budget situation
makes this an extremely bad time to begin a search.
7).
Finalize agenda for October 15th Faculty Senate and Congress Meeting
SEC discussed agenda item.
Meeting adjourned 5:30.
Respectfully submitted,
Graham Crookes
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