A&S Senate
Minutes
November 24, 2008

 

I.  Approval of tentative agenda:  approved.

II.  Approval of Minutes from October 2, 2008:  approved.

III.  Report of the College of Arts and Sciences (J. Staros)

• You can now process appointments.
• Budget for the college was discussed.
• N. Goodman heard that there was a rumor about recruiting Graduate Students.  Some TA’s will be reduced.

IV.  Report of the School of Journalism (H. Schneider)

• The School of Journalism (SOJ) is now two years old.
• SOJ is the first and only undergraduate School of Journalism in the SUNY system.
• Focus is on high-tech future of the media.
• Never has there been a greater need for smarter well-educated journalists with a passion for the public interest.
• When the program began it was decided that we needed two missions.  It was not sufficient just to train the journalists of the future.  We needed to train the news consumers of the future as well.  The SOJ is committed to the second mission as well as the first mission.
• We have one of the most comprehensive programs in the United States.  We require our journalism majors take 47 credits of study across multi-media platforms.  We also require 80 credits outside of journalism.
• Four concentrations are:  Science in the Environment, Society and Diversity, Global Issues and Perspectives and Public Affairs.
• The SOJ has six full-time faculty.
• In June we created a Center for News Literacy.
• Summer 2009 will be the first Study Abroad in China.

V.  Presentation on the Teaching, Learning and Technology (G. Glynn)

• We have 37 full-time professional staff.
• One stop shopping for all your teaching support needs.
• David Ametrano, the new Director for the Faculty Center was introduced.
• Ying Xiong, the Education Assessment Specialist was introduced.
• We are hoping to start a Teaching Learning and Technology Certificate.
• There is a lot of work being done on the website.  There is a calendar of workshops.
• The bi-annual teaching and learning survey:  Sent to 2,050 faculty and instructors with a 25% response rate.
• Updated the Progress on Classrooms in terms of technology.
• Desktop video conferencing is available.
• Sharepoint collaborative web spaces and Blackboard integration.

There was discussion concerning the courses between Southampton and Stony Brook and what Senate Southampton will be affiliated with.

VI.  President’s Report (R. Ben-Zvi)

• The A&S Senate Committees are working hard and doing a great job.

VII.  Old Business:  no old business.

VIII.  New Business:  Howard Sirotkin spoke about the fact that lecturers are not vetted by Stony Brook for each course when hired by the home department. It was brought up that Southampton has issues regarding governance.  A vote was brought to the floor to meet with the President regarding the course issues.  All were in favor.

Meeting adjourned

Submitted by:

Laurie Theobalt
Secretary