August 29, 2023 Minutes

Council of Department Chairs

In attendance: Curtis Bennett, Prashanth Jaikumar, Lijuan Li, Will Murray, Lora Stevens, Jim Kisiel, Jesse Dillon, Barbara Taylor, Krzysztof Slowinski, Christine Whitcraft, Babette Benken, Margaret Karteron, Lindsay Aymar.

  1. Approve agenda (10:00) - Approved
  2. Approve minutes from August 15 – Approved as amended
  3. Announcements
    1. ASM
      1. GA/SA/ISA/TA classifications discussion
      2. From the Academic Senate Policy:
        1. "Under supervision, Instructional Student Assistants [...] perform teaching, grading or tutoring duties for the majority of work hours in a given appointment in a given academic department or equivalent administrative unit over the course of an academic term."
        2. "[A] Graduate Assistant provides professional non-teaching assistance to faculty members. Graduate Assistant work may involve supervising students in a classroom, workshop, or laboratory... training students in the use of equipment or other resources; assisting faculty with research and preparation of course materials; participating in the evaluation of students' work; tutoring students; ... Graduate Assistants are not responsible for the instructional content of a course, selecting student assignments, planning of examinations, determining the term grade for students, instructing the entire enrollment of a course, or providing the entire instruction of a group of students enrolled in a course."
        3. Teaching Associates who are enrolled in a Master's degree program are normally employed to teach lower-division laboratory or discussion sections under the direct supervision of the course coordinator, department chair/school director, or a faculty member assigned to teach the same course.
    2. Operations
      1. Scholarships Event
        1. The scholarship awards will happen after the student research symposium on September 22 from 4:00PM – 6:00PM in the USU ballrooms A/B/C – calling it a "soft rollout" because some departments have already done awards
          1. Not calling out names – the dean will give a few short remarks and a slideshow with photos/possibly bios and/or abstracts
          2. Currently have 25-30 boards but can get more from psychology as needed
          3. ES&P is included in both the symposium and the awards ceremony
        2. Margaret will send an email later this week explaining further – will go to all faculty also to begin raising awareness of the event. Students who have received scholarships have already been informed their presence is expected
        3. Department chairs need to amplify message that we want scholarship recipients to participate – make it clear in the abstracts what research is scholarship funded so we can keep those posters up after the symposium
        4. Departments are paying for the posters – explain to G2 that PIs are not going to be who is designated to pay if it's coming from department funds
        5. Send poster PDF's to Lindsay, then Lindsay and Danny will take picture of scholarship students with posters
        6. Chairs should send slides from previous scholarship receptions this year to Margaret
      2. In progress on RTP action of Faculty Evaluations
        1. Discussion of timeframe for faculty response
          1. Will operate as class visitation reports are part of the departmental committee statement
          2. The time to respond to departmental reports is when the departmental committee evaluation is put forward
        2. Dr. Bennett and Dr. Slowinski will communicate with faculty affairs about the best way to move this process forward in the future
    3. Dean
      1. COVID in classes
        1. 20% uptick in hospitalizations – if you approve anyone teaching from home, they need to fill out the form
        2. 3 weeks is the maximum/semester
      2. Brief commencement update (from deans' council)
        1. Venue is still being discussed, but likely that students will walk
        2. Possibly will allow hoodings
      3. AB 928 and Cal-GETC
        1. There's going to be another debate on GE's at academic senate
        2. Reduction of 6 units in required GE's with 3 units of art
        3. Discussion to make it an upper division requirement but this is not something the college can manage
        4. Without double counting CNSM gets at least 10 more units (we need to keep double counting)
      4. Transition to Teams from Telephones
        1. Project implementation is October or November
        2. Payment is coming from college budget
        3. Some phones by request will still be around, just hooked into Teams network, rather than extra landlines
      5. Community College outreach/programs
        1. Send Dr. Bennett any info on programs you're doing with CC's
      6. Director of Development
        1. Likely will not have one for a while – currently searching for Director or Senior Director
  4. Associate Deans
    1. Academic Programs
      1. Lecturer Evaluations
        1. 2 CNSM eval forms included – any additional comments should be in by 9/1 5:00PM – Policy needs to be on the website by end of September
        2. 2.1 #5: Not asking specific numbers on student performance
        3. Dr. Slowinski to possibly send out 1-pager elaborating on wording
          1. Possible change of "outcomes" and "improve"
          2. "Access" – DEI access/class promotion access/disability access/financial access/cultural access
        4. Motion to approve forms pending further comments is seconded and approved
      2. Other
        1. Dr. Slowinski will send updated info on completion rate – chairs can distribute at their own discretion
          1. Different from the materials that get sent out to everyone
    2. Research – updates will be emailed out by Dr. Taylor
      1. Research updates
      2. IT updates
    3. Graduate Programs – No updates
  5. YouVisit
    1. Launching soon – probably early-mid September, it will include a Spanish version
    2. For marketing we want to embed the tour into individual department pages that can launch from any part of the tour, as well as adding our links into the supplemental media section of the tour
    3. First analytics will be 90 days after launch
  6. Budget Discussion
    1. Packet with budget information
      1. First page is 2019/2019 budget
      2. Backside of first page is last year's budgets
      3. Last page compare to CE budget totals 2018/2019
    2. Carryover could have made some numbers higher or lower
    3. Coordinators have access to data warehouses – can give better breakdowns for colleges as needed
    4. Get updated list of department chairs for RS funds
  7. Open discussion
    1. Should we change the term "field work"?

Upcoming Dates

  • Sep. 22: Student Research Symposium
  • Sep. 22: Scholarship Reception

Meeting Minutes were APPROVED on Tuesday, September 12, 2023.

Note: The minutes above reflect discussion on the date of the CDC meeting about policies, not actual policy. Faculty and staff should wait for official communication on each subject before acting.