College
of Arts & Sciences Meeting
Fairfield University
23 March 2012
Alumni House
MINUTES
Prof. Epstein (Chair, CAS) called the meeting
to order at 3:38p.m. There were
approximately 64 faculty members present.
Proxies submitted:
Susan Rakowitz as proxy for Betsy A. Bowen
Susan
Rakowitz as proxy for Nancy Dallavalle
Mike
Serazio as proxy for Maggie Wills
Joe
Dennin as proxy for Irene Mulvey
David
Sapp as proxy for Beth Boquet
Joan
Weiss as proxy for Manyul Im
Dennis
Keenan as proxy for Marcie Patton
Colleen
Arendt as proxy for Michael Pagano
Dennis
Keenan as proxy for Paul Lakeland
Glenn
Sauer as proxy for Anita Fernandez
I. Approval
of Minutes
MOVED by Prof. Humphrey and seconded by Prof. Walker,
that the minutes of the February 10th meeting be approved as
submitted.
Motion PASSED [56 in favor, 1 opposed, 7
abstained]
CORRECTIONS: proposed amendments or corrections submitted
below
á
Joe Dennin noted that his name was misspelled in the list
showing that Susan Rakowitz was his proxy
II. ASCC Motion
to adopt the Bachelor of Professional Studies (BPS) program
Chair briefly
introduced the ASCC motion. Chair
reminded CAS faculty that at the last General Faculty Meeting, a vote to close
University College passed. Therefore,
CAS faculty members have the opportunity today to vote on whether the Bachelors
in Professional Studies BA/BS (BPS) degree, previously awarded by University
College, should now be housed in CAS.
No other schools are considering the adoption of this program. The Business School has stated that they
will not house this degree program due
to constraints from their accrediting agency.
MOVED
by Prof.
Sauer and seconded by Prof. Sapp that the College of Arts &
Sciences adopt the Bachelor of Professional Studies Program as recommended by
the ASCC and A&SPC.
Chair opened the floor
for discussion.
Prof Humphrey
asked if there will be courses offered in evenings.
The Dean stated that students can
take courses at any time. But it is
important to remember that the current UC students are not necessarily taking
classes evening only. Students can
take day, evening, interim session, or summer courses, and they can take them
at all times of day presuming space availability. Evening courses will continue to be
offered in/by the schools.
The Chair noted
that the General Faculty vote to close University College didnÕt have an effect
on course offerings or curriculum.
Prof. Dennin asked if Fairfield employees get tuition remission
for the BPS program. The Dean stated
that yes, like other programs, Fairfield employees get tuition remission for
the BPS program.
Prof. Dennin then asked if the calculated revenue took this into
account.
Assoc. Dean Perkus
said that the data on how many students were on tuition remission has never
been collected, but can be as part of program review.
The Dean reminded faculty that, as
per the BPS packet provided for this meeting, if adopted the BPS would begin
formal program review in the fall of 2013.
Motion PASSES 63 in favor, 1 opposed, 0
abstained, proxies in favor 10, proxies opposed 1.
III. Elections for CAS Chair, 2012-2014
The Chair opened the
floor for nominations noting that Prof. Sally OÕDriscoll was already on the ballot,
having expressed interest in a second term. Seeing no other nominations, the Chair
closed the nominations.
Prof. OÕDriscoll
elected CAS Chair, 2012-2014 by acclamation.
IV. Election
for CAS Planning Committee Members (2 Positions)
The
Chair opened the floor for nominations.
Prof.
Robert Epstein nominated himself.
Prof.
David Crawford nominated himself.
The Dean gave informational remarks
including that the committee meets twice a semester as per the CAS Governance
Document. The Dean explained that President
Jeffrey Von Arx recently met with the CAS Planning
Committee to talk about Strategic Priorities of the College, and the President
was energized by this meeting. The
Dean stated that the Planning Committee will work to cull these priorities, and
serving on this committee gives one the opportunity to be on the ground floor
of planning for the College.
Prof. Epstein
and Prof Crawford were elected as members of the CAS Planning Committee by acclamation.
V. Reminder: Nominations for Distinguished Teaching
Award
The Chair reminded
faculty that nominations for the CAS Distinguished Teaching Award are open. The Chair noted that these nominations
can come from anyone, and the nomination should explain what teaching
expectations might be specific to the nomineeÕs discipline. The deadline for submission of nomination letters
is Monday April 2, by 4 p.m. All letters must be submitted
electronically as an MS Word e-mail attachment to Jean Daniele, Assistant to
the Dean, College of Arts and Sciences (jdaniele@fairfield.edu).
VI. Brief remarks by the Dean
2
The Dean expressed gratitude to all faculty members who
agreed to be nominated and were elected to serve on College committees. She stated that this is important
work, particularly as other schools in our university develop their own
priorities and make decisions.
The Dean is committed to broad and deep collaboration with faculty
through our structures of shared governance and in other ways to develop
and meet CAS goals.
á
The Dean
was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming support for the BPS program, and was
glad to work with the ASCC, including Chair Jerelyn Johnson, and the A&SPC
on this motion.
á
The Dean
outlined that:
o The BPS Program will be reviewed beginning fall
2013, to ensure a year for transition prior to formal review.
o In the meantime, ASCC will review BPS policies
and draft revisions as necessary and those can go into effect for all new
students.
o There will be a call for self-nominations for
BPS Program Director and Steering Committee members. These positions will be modeled after
other interdisciplinary program director and committee member positions, and
faculty members interested in working with students with non-traditional
college trajectories should consider these positions.
o Faculty members are always welcome to tell the
dean their thoughts and recommendations.
As the program moves forward, ASCC can decide if certain BPS issues are under
their purview or if they are more appropriate for the A&SPC.
á
The Dean
clarified some misconceptions regarding part-time programs, faculty overload
teaching, and the closure of UC:
o There will be no requirement that any CAS
department offer their degree program on an evening-only basis, although
departments are welcome to do so if they wish. Only core courses should have regular
rotation through evening time codes (only about 1/3 of current UC students are
evening and online only; the others take courses at all times of day and in all
formats). Assoc. Dean Aaron Perkus
makes sure these courses are available at night by working with necessary
departments.
o There will be no limit on overload teaching for
faculty, other than that presented by routine enrollment management (courses
have to make enrollment targets, and enrollment minimums are higher than in the
past, though pro-rated payments are possible for low-enrolled courses). Enrollment minimums are up since a
recent look at UC discovered that real cost accounting wasnÕt done.
o Departments are also always welcome to offer
overload to faculty who want it rather than hiring adjuncts to teach necessary
sections. The main thing is to ensure faculty professional progress is not
impeded by extra teaching, particularly for pre-tenure faculty. Chair and
DeanÕs approval should be sought for pre-tenure faculty to teach overload.
o There will be no limit on the number of courses
that visiting students (i.e., casual course-takers from our own market or
elsewhere) can take at Fairfield for transfer, enrichment, and/or professional
development. We will always have non-degree students of all ages taking classes
at Fairfield and there is no effort to curtail that. These students are often good models of
life-long learning.
o Admissions requirements, registration
procedures, and related operations for part-time students are being developed
related to the principles and policies passed by Academic Council.
o Tuition rates for part-time and graduate
programs are also likely to go up, as per regular annual procedures. Tuition
for part-time BA & BS programs is likely to go up considerably, though Dean
is advocating for tuition that is not as high as proposed; tuition for BPS (if
adopted) would be discounted as always and only experience modest routine
incremental increases.
Prof. Curt Naser asked if market research was done
to determine the market tuition rate and the Dean responded that this is done
regularly to see what competitors are charging. Prof. Naser also wanted to know if
students were surveyed to know what they would be willing to pay. Lower rates could bring in more
students. The Dean explained that
there are different feelings concerning tuition rates. Some at Fairfield feel that a Fairfield
degree has a value that should not be diminished by decreasing tuition rate too
much. Others feel we should not be
in the business of part-time study at all. And others want to support
non-traditional students at Fairfield by having discounted tuition. Some feel
that part-time students are revenue generating, and tuition from these students
make up the gap that full-time students moving to part-time status causes,
along with other budget gaps. Others believe that part-time students donÕt add
significantly to the budget picture when you take out revenues generated from
our f/t day students moving to p/t status. At various times, probably all of
these are true.
á
The Dean
expects staff and budget augmentation in the College in support of part-time
programs, and also related to the growth of graduate programs and the influx of
first-years.
o Shifting Aaron PerkusÕ associate dean position
to the College, maintenance of Sandy Richardson as part-time programs
operations coordinator, Elizabeth HastingsÕ portfolio shared with MFA and
Humanities Institute, and some additional operations support. The Dean is
requesting a third assistant dean position, but does not expect it to be
approved.
o Staff portfolios will be expanded to include
significant shares of CAS operations, thus lightening the growing burden on CAS
staff. These staff will work with department chairs to ensure part-time
students are well integrated and supported.
o UC budgets, after some losses to the budget gap
and other relevant areas where former UC business will be taken up, will be
distributed to CAS and DSB to support marketing and operations for part-time
programs.
o Gains for the College from distribution of
remaining UC budgets could be in the neighborhood of $300,000 - 400,000 in the
form of staff salaries, benefits, and operating funds.
o Total savings from UC integration will be in
the neighborhood of $500,000-$750,000, maybe more, per year compared to the
budgets of FY Õ09 (this includes loss of three positions, maybe 4; along with
closure of extensive discretionary budgets, through consolidation of
operations, etc.)
o Much of this savings already has been realized through
cuts/changes made over the past two years.
á
The Dean
explained that non-credit/non-degree programs are now under the purview of the
schools while the CUC spends next year conducting research and making
recommendations to the AC and SVPAA. In the meantime, Elizabeth Hastings is
still Director of Lifelong Learning and available to discuss ideas for
non-credit revenue generation (as always), to help with logistics related to non-credit
programming, etc. Ideas should be
brought to the attention of Department Chairs and Dean, as well.
Associate Dean Aaron Perkus made a comment that
with the GF vote to close UC, the role of advising is shifting to departments,
so he recommends that chairs identify one faculty member to be the advisor for
part-time students since a modified core still exists for current matriculated
students. Dean Perkus would like to
talk with chairs about the part-time individuals and to help to make the advising
transition to departments going into the fall. Dean Crabtree mentioned that departments
such as English and Communication have most of the part-time students pursuing
degrees in the College, and these programs have already integrated advising to some
extent. Some departments only have
one or two part-time students, and may not be as aware of these students or their
needs. The Office of Exploratory Advising
can give support, as well.
á
The Dean
said that $7M is the worst case scenario.
á
Revenue
has not kept pace with costs even with relatively modest expense increases.
á
The value
proposition is an increasingly salient concern for families, which complicates
the admissions, yield, and financial aid picture considerably Ð peer
schools are all increasing merit aid, and we donÕt have that aggressive of an approach
to get good student to come here.
á
Tuition
rate has gone up around 5% over the last five years, while financial aid has
increased more than 10%.
á
Over the
same period, faculty salaries have increased around 3.5% (staff salaries have
increased around 2.4%, and cost of benefits have increased 5%).
á
There is a
lot of pressure on all the deans to contain costs, generate new revenues, and
ensure new programs have stable cost to revenue ratios.
á
The Dean
has met with Paul Fitzgerald to determine if she should go forward with faculty
generated programs, and he is optimistic.
á
Other
future considerations will include questions about our ideal size for full-time
undergraduate programs and graduate enrollments, our financial aid and pricing
policies, (our discount rate has been going up) other ideas to ensure our
vision and goals make sense given the marketplace for higher education.
á
The Dean
explained that this is different than a program review. It will entail an examination of program
data and calculation of program costs in order to determine where savings might
be found, where additional investments are needed, and so forth.
á
This will
be initially quantitative (# of students, enrollment trends, # of faculty,
faculty loads, etc.), followed by qualitative analysis. He will be providing the
quantitative data to the Deans and we will discuss with the Chairs.
á
Nature of
discipline according to external benchmarks, centrality to mission, etc. will
all be considerations.
á
The Dean
is working with chairs on generating any and all strategies for trimming costs
while trying to maintain high quality programs. Slightly increased enrollments
in courses; trimmer expectations for course enhancements, labs, etc.; the Dean
is open to any ideas any faculty member wants to bring forth.
á
Assoc.
Dean Manyul Im is working with science chairs to do an audit of labs and lab
staffing. One change has been moving
from students getting paid to getting credit for being TAs in the Biology
Department. The department was
nervous about making this change, but the students gave very positive feedback
and have embraced this new model. This
change has resulted in a $13,000 a year savings in the Biology Department.
á
The Dean
explained that this is related to the unpredictability of revenues in current
climate, and the difficulty of maintaining any kind of guarantees in this
climate.
á
The collective
goal of attracting and retaining high quality faculty remains the same.
á
The
administration maintains a commitment to work with FSC to get faculty the best
compensation package possible.
á
The
administration is also proposing a 15% healthcare contribution (up from 3-year
rate of 10%) and an across-the-board reduction (down from 10%) to 8% retirement
contribution.
á
The Dean
suggests that faculty members talk to the faculty salary committee members.
á
The Academic
Council is having an emergency meeting to discuss this, and faculty members are
encouraged to talk AC and FSC members about ideas for alternative suggestions,
and to just give them support while they work in the trenches for the benefit
of all faculty members.
á
This
discussion was in part to advance discussions of the Health Sciences building
expansion project, which is the only academic building listed for the
Comprehensive Campaign.
á
Patrick
Kelley Õ76 Biology, current doctor who is director of global health at the
Institutes of Medicine in Wash D.C., gave a tour
de force keynote address about inter-disciplinarity
in health care and reducing global inequities in the 21st century. Other Deans and their board chairs were
there, including engineering, and faith and public life, for example. It was a great opportunity for
discussion and inspiration.
á
The Dean
has provided language to influence the case statement and vision for the building
project (the SON expansion) that is part of the Comprehensive Campaign, in
order to fully account for the importance of the CAS programs in Bannow to the project, to expansion of the SON programs,
etc. President von Arx asked the Dean to share her ideas with the other
Deans. In the past the building has
been talked about as a Ònursing annex,Ó which will not be that exciting to
donors. The Dean has suggested
talking about it as an Integrated Health Sciences Complex, because alumni are
not interested in only a small subset, but want to support all students. In
fact, every discipline should be at the table as we consider how Fairfield can
advance a special distinction in the health sciences, broadly conceived.
á
An area of
Distinction in the Health Sciences is being proposed for Fairfield Ð This
is not just about Nursing, as many of FairfieldÕs successes are in the natural
and soc/beh sciences
related to health-related research, preparation of students for post-graduate
health professions education, and related initiatives across the curriculum and
in faculty research agendas.
á
There is
room for all CAS departments and programs to consider how they engage in
supporting and advancing this distinctiveness. For instance, there has been a
visiting scholar discussing the use of art in hospitals around the world, the
MFA program has a series of engagements with SON on writing, health, and healing. In addition, social science collaborative
research with SON already exists, and Fairfield science students are engaged in
legitimate research with science faculty members related to health issues that
result in student conference attendance and student co-authorship on
publications.
á
The Dean
will work with CAS Advisory Board faculty members, Drs. Matt Kubasik and Jill Deupi, to determine the best way to present the ideas of
what Patrick presented to the faculty.
The ideas call on FairfieldÕs liberal arts and social justice
sensibilities, in a call to reduce global inequities.
á
As we
consider FairfieldÕs distinctiveness in the health sciences and other professional
education, we must have a simultaneous, highly visible and compelling, equally
visionary focus on advancing the Humanities.
á
The Dean
has discussed this at great length with the CAS Planning Committee, which met
with the President recently to discuss strategic priorities and areas of
distinctiveness in the College. The
CAS Planning Committee will be creating documents that cull together the ideas
to share with the CAS chairs, programs, directors, and fuller faculty in early
fall.
á
The Dean
will be putting out a call for proposals for faculty to participate in a Òthink
tankÓ to rearticulate a vision for the Humanities Institute and the ways it
advances the humanities at Fairfield. This call will go out in April, for
faculty to engage in (funded) work during the late spring and summer months.
á
What
results will be a vision statement for innovative, forwarding thinking
initiatives and visibility for the Humanities at Fairfield, along with revised
funding priorities (including funds for humanities research).
á
These
outcomes will form the basis for continued fundraising for the Humanities, as
well as longer-term planning for greater physical presence/visibility for the
Humanities and traditional liberal arts.
á
Liberal
arts should not only be seen as traditional but also as innovative.
á
The Dean
reminded faculty members that participation in commencement is an expectation
for all faculty unless you are excused by the SVPAA.
á
The Dean
stated that it is demoralizing to see empty faculty chairs at commencement.
á
On Saturday May 19 from 2pm until 3:30pm there will be school/college
wide receptions for the baccalaureate degree candidates and their parents.
These receptions will be held just prior to the Baccalaureate Mass at
4p.m.
á
The
information about these commencement events has gone out through Faculty
Announcements. The school/college wide receptions arise from much faculty
urging, though faculty members probably wanted receptions on Commencement day,
rather than the day before. But the
day before event is what has been planned and success depends on faculty
presence and involvement.
á
The College of Arts and Sciences reception will be housed under a tent
on the field adjacent to Lessing Field, directly across from Campion residence
hall.
á
The CAS reception will be officially hosted by the Dean.
á
This is an opportunity to celebrate with students and their families,
consolidate post-graduate relationships with students, affirm familiesÕ choice
of Fairfield, etc.
á
Invitations to students go out with Senior Week materials. The Dean asked faculty members to please
encourage seniors to attend with their families and to indicate excitement
about seeing them there.
á
Great faculty events are being scheduled at the downtown bookstore. The
Dean asked faculty members to please work with Elizabeth Hastings on any ideas
they may have, and to please make a point to attend readings, book
celebrations, faculty appreciation evenings, etc. The Dean held office hours
for her grad students there for intensive meetings over drafts of their final
papers, and it was a real pleasure.
á
Laura McSweeny selected ÒTeacher of the
YearÓ by Alpha Sigma Nu! Her speech
will be in the fall with induction of students as well.
á
The Dean
expressed that she is always so happy to see all the CAS faculty members at CAS
meetings; CAS meetings are an essential time to be together, to discuss
important issues, to advance business in the College, to exercise faculty
rights within and responsibilities to shared governance, and to enjoy intellectual
community.
á
The Dean said
that she has always seen herself as a faculty dean, and so will continue to
work to support and advance faculty work Ð our shared work in shepherding
our academic programs, enhancing research and improving teaching, supporting
our collective institutional citizenship, and promoting the fine work of the faculty
on campus and beyond. She said that
we have much to be proud of from our work together these past few years, and
the Dean is confident that, despite obstacles, we will continue in this
success.
á
The Dean
expressed that these are not simple or easy times, but our collegiality, our
shared intellectual passions, our commitment to the educational enterprise
Ð these all bind us together and will keep us strong.
á
The Dean
expressed thanks to everyone and the CAS staff for their dedication and invited
everyone to stay and enjoy the refreshments.
VIII. Q&A
Prof.
Bucki asked if any special consideration has been
made for student transportation down to bookstore event. The Dean explained that there is regular
bus transportation to bookstore and the bookstore is a stop on the regular Stag
shuttle circuit. If there are any
transportation ideas related to events at the downtown bookstore, the Dean
suggested that faculty members email Elizabeth Hastings. She is the official faculty liaison to
the bookstore and is happy to help.
IX. ADJOURNMENT
Prof.
Crawford MOVED to adjourn the
meeting, and Prof. Dennin
seconded the motion.
Meeting
adjourned at 4:45 p.m.
NEXT CAS MEETING
Monday,
April 23, 4:30-6:30, Alumni House (annual celebration)
Respectfully Submitted,
Amanda S. Harper-Leatherman
Substitute CAS Faculty Secretary