Meeting minutes for February 26, 2025

The Academic Senate Committee on Academic Development/Elective Academic Programs met on February 26, 2025 at 1:00PM - online (Zoom)

Committee Members in Attendance:

Present: Arthur Abramov (2025), Rezan Akpinar (2026, Chair), Melissa Dennihy (2026), Chukwudi Ikwueze (2027), Deborah Karlin (2026, Vice-Chair),  Kevin Kolack (2025, Secretary & CoC liaison), Danny Mangra (2025)

Not present: Zeynep Akcay (2027), William Duque (2027)

Liaisons in Attendance:

Linda Bastone (President's liaison)
Christi Saindon (Communications, Speech & Theater, CETL co-director)
Mercedes Franco (Math, CETL co-director)

 

 

Business:

The meeting was called to order at 1:05PM

1. Attendance
2. Review Committee meeting minutes Dec 10, 2024 – approved without corrections
3. Reviewed committee charges & activities with CETL representatives, who introduced themselves and introduced the CETL calendar to the Committee.Student and faculty survey.
4. Student and faculty survey
   Asked CETL co-directors if we should survey faculty on their PD interests. They asked to see results from last time to compare to OAA meeting at the beginning of the semester. They are in the annual report from last year. Don’t want to give faculty survey fatigue. Dennihy posted a list of past seminars held in conjunction with CETL that were well-attended. Seminars sponsored and co-sponsored by the Committee are also in the annual report. Also, the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs is giving a biweekly seminar series. Jonathan Cornick (FEC) is also promoting several PD programs. There was some discussion of attempting to organize these events within this committee. Committee members in attendance agreed we will not send the faculty survey this semester, nor will we survey student satisfaction with the eval process this semester.
5. Workshop ideas
   See above. Committee has not organized or co-sponsored anything this semester. Committee will still promote the evaluation period to faculty and confirm promotion to students by Marketing. Committee discussion on workshop regarding the current faculty evaluation process (like last April). Bastone discussed possibility of just putting it in a memo/written instructions.
   There was some discussion led by Dennihy (WI coordinator) that faculty are not recertifying their WI courses. Could perhaps be workshop-style, in cooperation with this committee, the WIDWAC committee (which does the recertifying; James Nichols, Chairperson) and CETL. Saindon said it has been a topic of discussion among the administration. Suspicion is that faculty view recertification as retraining, when it’s far less of a lift than that- just sending in a small amount of documentation concerning what is happening in WI courses. Thoughts to bill it as “let us help you recertify quickly.” Especially important for upcoming Middle States self-study, but mustn’t feel like it’s a top-down mandate, more of a celebration/acknowledgment of the labor folks have done and are doing. Dennihy will work with Saindon and Nichols to organize it- possibly multiple drop-in sessions.
6. Subcommittee updates
   None.
7. Old business
   Charges revisions must be completed early next semester. 
8. New business
   Next meeting TBA

Meeting adjourned 2:10PM.

Respectfully submitted by:

Kevin Kolack

Minutes typed on February 26, 2025

• Agenda
• Committee Home
• Documents and Articles
• Minutes