March 3, 2020 Minutes

Council of Department Chairs

Attendees: Behl, Bennett, Bill, Brazier, Gao, Karteron, Martin, Slowinski, Taylor, Underwood, Whitcraft, Wu

  1. Approve agenda (10:00)
    1. Approved as amended
  2. Approve minutes
    1. Approved as amended
  3. Showcase Fair Update (Valerie Bagley: time certain 10:30)
    1. Registration is closed today. We expect to have total 186 students and 336 guests (family members). The Showcase schedule has been finalized. The logistics of the Showcase will be finalized soon. See Science and Math Freshman Showcase for more information.
  4. Announcements
    1. From Chris Brazier:
      1. Vas Narayanaswami is The Outstanding Professor at CSULB;
      2. Jason Schwans is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award;
      3. Fangyuan Tian is the recipient of the Early Academic Career Excellence Award;
      4. Paul Weers is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Advising Award;
      5. Stephanie Leal is the recipient of the Outstanding Undergraduate Student in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity Award.
    2. From Barbara Taylor:
      1. Erika Holland will be featured in the next issue of QUEST (Oct. 2020) and Xianhui Bu will have a spotlight feature in the same issue.
    3. From Andreas Bill:
      1. Bryen Irving graduated with an MS in physics in Summer 2019. He is now at Stanford University doing his PhD in Physics. He won the Academic Affairs University Achievement Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity.
    4. From Dessie Underwood:
      1. Ashley Carter was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Advising Award.
      2. Bruno Pernet was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award.
    5. From Lisa Martin:
      1. Al Colburn is the recipient of the Nicholas Perkins Hardeman Academic Leadership Award.
    6. From Kris Slowinski:
      1. Dessie's data fellow's proposals on Identifying and Supporting Diverse Pathways to Timely Graduation in CNSM was selected by the University Research Advisory Council (URAC) to be developed further as a full-proposal - funding up to 100K/year for two years.
    7. Operations updates
      1. Commencement - Grand Marshall: Laura Kingsford turned down the opportunity to be Grand Marshall wanting it to go to a faculty member who hasn't been on the graduation stage as dean. Several candidates were discussed.
    8. ASM updates
      1. In order to improve data security campus wide, the University IT will work together with the College IT to set up automatic computer security scans of computers for people with level one data access. The University now requires each college to maintain an international travel log due to COVID 19.
      2. SEF funding proposal timeline
        All department SEF proposals should be due to Henry this Friday. HVDI proposals (about half page) are also due to Kris this Friday. The HVDI proposals can be related to redesigning/creating new low/upper division GE courses. All proposals should be mainly beneficial to students, not faculty assigned time or research. Next two CDC meetings will discuss and finalize the proposals for SEF and HVDI.
    9. Dean's updates
      1. Possible COVID 19 issues were discussed at the Dean's level such as campus shut down, online courses, lab courses, international and domestic travel restrictions, etc. The University asks all faculty to be thoughtful to student's requests of missing classes and exam makeups.
        Certain English tests for international student admission such as GRE are temporarily not available to students in certain countries. The University will adjust some international student admission requirements accordingly.
      2. Tenure hiring requests for AY 2021-2022 will be due to Curt on March 30. The Provost has allocated 40 positions across the university for need based hiring and additional 20 positions across the university targeted for diversity purposes in various fields. ESP's need is discussed and possible hiring with another department is discussed.
    10. Academic Senate Report
      1. Academic Senate voted in favor of the Ethnic Studies course requirement for all undergraduate students.
  5. Associate Deans
    1. Academic Programs
      Moved to next CDC
    2. Research
      Moved to next CDC
  6. HSCI building power shutdown (University electricians: Josh Cichuniec, Al Vaca, Robert Leigh, Steve Warner: time certain 11:00)
    1. A power shut-down for maintenance will be scheduled this semester for a Saturday in the near future. The main power supply will be totally shut down during the maintenance, and thus, the loads need to be transferred to the emergency power generator. The emergency generators power red outlets and have limited capacity if we exceed the capacity, portable power generators will be used. Down time for maintenance is usually 7-8 hours. After the date for the maintenance is determined, the College and the departments will work with the faculty to design a plan for the maintenance. The College and departments will collect information of equipment that needs back-up power. Faculty will be reminded that refrigerators and standard freezers will not require back-up power as they are well-insulated and won’t be opened during the outage.
    2. Unexpected power outages unrelated to the maintenance work were also discussed. Such power failure occurred last spring and caused damage to equipment. Each department should check their equipment and work with the College to find a way to minimize potential damages under such power failure.
  7. ICR policy
    1. The ICR policy is further discussed and is unanimously approved.
  8. Adjourn (11:59am)

Submitted by Tangan Gao, Chair, Mathematics and Statistics

Meeting Minutes APPROVED on March 10, 2020.

Upcoming Dates

  • Saturday, March 7 - Admitted Students session
  • Tuesday March 10 - Like a Boss: Women in Science and Math Panel, 6-7pm in HSCI-100 
  • Wednesday, March 11 - Graduate Research Fellowship applications due
  • Saturday, March 14 - Math Day at the Beach, 9am-3pm in USU Ballroom (Speaker: Darin Goldstein from CECS, CSULB)
  • Saturday, March 21 - Admitted Students session?
  • Monday, March 23 - Physics Distinguished Lecture (specialized) by Dr. Alexander Szalay "Statistical Challenges in Big Data Astrophysics", 11:15am in PH1-223
  • March 24 - Physics Distinguished Lecture (general lecture) by Dr. Alexander Szalay "From Big Data to Discovery: The Fourth Paradigm", 3:30pm in HSCI-100
  • Monday, April 13 - Nobel Laureate Lecture
  • Thursday, April 16 - Fellows Colloquium Featuring Michael Peterson on Quantum Computing
  • Saturday, April 25 - Open House
  • Monday, May 18 - Commencement rehearsal, 11 am
  • Tuesday, May 19 - Commencement, 1pm