Faculty Senate	Minutes	Senate home | Comments
Tuesday, 15 February 2005   See Agenda   Meeting 2005-06

Roll call

Absent: Dworkin (Psychology), Honchell (Curricular Studies), Howell (Economics & Finance), Maume (Sociology & Criminal Justice), Tse (HAHS), Weber (Communication Studies)

Approval of minutes

January minutes were approved.

Individual reports

1. Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo reported, including the following:
• UNCW received high praise from the Board of Governors and President Broad for our hosting of the February Board of Governors meeting.
• She asked Human Resources Director William Fleming to report on possible child care on campus. He said that many faculty and staff are seeking a child-care benefit. Ken Gurganus is chairing the Human Resources Advisory Committee, which is studying the feasibility of a child-care option, particularly the question of available resources and legal issues.
• She also asked Provost Paul Hosier to report on enrollments. He said:
  • Admissions Director Roxie Shabazz is chairing the new Enrollment Affairs Committee.
  • He has heard rumors about next year's enrollments and wants faculty to have accurate information. The current freshman class size is 1900; our target for next year is 1950. We also expect 1250 transfers (up from 1234 last year) and 358 graduate admissions (up from 341 last year).
  • Applications will probably be down 3% from last year, but the quality is up: average SAT of applicants has increased from 1092 to 1103. Less qualified students apply less often as our reputation for high admission standards grows. We predict that the SAT of the incoming freshman class will be about 1130, up from 1126 this year.
  • Out-of-state applications are up. Applicants from the local 8-county area are down.
  • Minority applicants are down (a trend at most schools).
  • In response to a question about the quality of transfer students, he said we need to gather data about the success of transfer students.
  • He hopes to have news about the CAS dean search this week.
• The Chancellor said that the Board of Governors is asking the legislature for a 7.5% salary increase for faculty, but few expect an increase of that size. Some are predicting that a 2% gain would be a more likely outcome.
   
2. Faculty Assembly delegate Richard Veit asked for comments on the Assembly's draft of "Minimum Standards of Governance on the 16 UNC Campuses." UNCW meets all of the standards in the draft except that our college/school curriculum committees are appointed by deans rather than elected by the faculty.

Committee reports

1. The following motion by the University Curriculum Committee carried :
   

That the Senate approve a change in status for the Anthropology Program and that it become the Department of Anthropology [Motion 2005-05-12; establish Anthropology department; carried].

[Much comment centered pragmatically around shared secretarial resources between the Sociology and Anthropology departments and philosophically around the question of what factors make it academically and economically desirable for a program to split off and gain departmental status.]

2. At the request of the Basic Studies Curriculum Revision Committee, the Senate went into a committee of the whole to discuss a draft of a preamble to a revised Basic Studies curriculum. The committee stated that the draft is in rough form, and it is seeking feedback related more to content than to editing. Among the varied comments from many individuals were these:
   • Ethics should be a separate bullet.
   • We should decide objectives and create a curriculum around them; others favored the opposite approach.
   • "Core curriculum" may be a bad choice, since departments use that term within their majors.
   • We need to decide what is an educated person.
   • The term "scientific" is not exclusive of "quantitative" and "qualitative," so they should not form a series of three items.
   • Basic Studies should have two components: (1) Basic knowledge behind disciplines and (2) the ability to use that knowledge critically.
   • An instrumental purpose is stated, but the preamble should emphasize ways of thinking, how to explore and think creatively, aesthetics.
   • The phrase "speech and writing" is limited; "discourse skills" is more inclusive.
   • What is the role of the library?
   • Basic Studies should focus more on interrelationships among disciplines rather than the characteristics of separate disciplines.
   • It is difficult to make changes to introduce something bold and new. When something bold is proposed, it meets a firestorm of criticism—the nature and limitation of a democratic process.

   Chair Noland closed the discussion and asked that it continue electronically by Senators and others sending comments to the Senators mailing list (senators@lists.uncw.edu).

Adjournment

Minutes by Richard Veit, Senate secretary