Arts and Sciences Senate
September 22, 2008
Minutes

I.  Approval of agenda:  approved.

II.  Approval of minutes from April 28, 2008:  approved with corrections.

Dr. Cynthia Davidson introduced Dr. Ruth Ben-Zvi as the new A&S Senate President. The Senators thanked Dr. Davidson for her work as past A&S Senate President.

III.  Report of CAS Dean (J. Staros)

• This is the Fourth consecutive year that Stony Brook has been ranked by US News and World Report in the top 100 for National Universities.  We are also in the top fifty for national public universities.  Contributing factors include increased retention, graduation rates, competitive admissions, and higher SAT scores.
• Enrollment has hit a new high in 7/08 of 12,586 (10,657 FTE undergraduates and 1,929 FTE graduate students).  Preliminary head count for fall ’08:  23,742 (326 which are Stony Brook Southampton).
• Budget:  Provost Kaler has recognized that the college has been structurally under funded and added 1.2 Mil in base funds to the college budget.
• In July Governor Patterson announced an all agency 7% budget cut and hard hiring freeze.
• Prospects for 09/10 budget reduction in CAS faculty of 20-25.

IV.  Report – Promotion and Tenure Committee (J. Davila)

• The Committee met bi-weekly.
• The PTC acted on 29 cases; 22 already moving through administration
• PTC prepared an amendment on peer teaching observations in the dossier and the amendment was passed by the A&S Senate in April 2008.
• PTC is in ongoing discussions with the Library Science group on whether their files would go through the CAS PTC.
• The budget should not impact PTC cases.
• Dr. Hugh Silverman questioned the sentence in the Report under “Philosophy and process.”  Sentence #1:  “The PTC plays an important role in the College of Arts and Sciences as an advisory committee to the Dean and as a means for providing quality control for the faculty.”  The wording should reflect that this is an A&S Senate committee and not an advisory committee to the Dean.  Dr. Norman Goodman reminded the group that all governance bodies advise administration.

V.   President’s Report (R. Ben-Zvi)

• There are many departmental senator and at-large senator vacancies.
• The new Chair for the Academic Judiciary Committee is Dr. Georges Fouron.  Dr. Nancy Tomes has stepped down as Chair of the Curriculum Committee.  Dr. Darcy Lonsdale and Dr. Edmund Chang are now the Co-chairs.
• The committees seem to be lacking in HFA vacancies.
• The positions of Vice-President and Secretary are still vacant. 
• Motion to accept the PTC Report with revisions to be brought to the floor at Oct. meeting:  all in favor to accept report.

VI.  Old Business:  No old business

VII.  New Business:  No new business

Adjourned at 4:50 p.m.

Submitted by:

Laurie Theobalt
Secretary