Council of Chairs

Council of Chairs Meeting of March 16, 2009 Minutes

Attended:  Peter Grego (AMC)
Craig Finney (HHD), Phyllis Herman (HUMN), Hamid Johari (E&CS), Jennifer Kalfsbeek (Tseng) – Secretary, Tae Oh (COSM), Tom Spencer (S&BS), Melanie Williams (COBAE) – President.

Guest:  Dr. Juana Mora, Director of Academic Personnel, Faculty Affairs

The meeting started with the gathering of signatures for the “Thank you” Penny Jennings of Faculty Affairs letter on behalf of all Chairs to Peggy. 

-The first of 2 agenda items for the meeting was to hear from Juana More, the new Director of Academic Personnel in the Office if Faculty Affairs on general faculty assignment issues, part-time faculty concerns and teaching (TA) issues. 

• Dr. Mora explained that she works under Penny Jennings as the primary contact person regarding part-time (PT) faculty issues, including teaching assistant assignments.  Dr. Mora explained that she works on all phases on PF faculty employment, from recruitment to scheduling to the filing of grievances. 
• Dr. Mora informed the Council of Chairs that she will be visiting the academic colleges and presenting to the departments an “Entitlement Road Show” presentation that discusses what the PT faculty entitlement issues are in the contract and to assist all departments in being in compliance with the PF faculty contracts.
• She pointed out that, as departments are decreasing course sections due to anticipated lower enrollments, she will be the contact person to assist Chairs in making appropriate decisions and contract-compliant decisions regarding assigning courses to PF faculty in the academic departments.
• Tom Spencer asked Dr. Mora if he can hire additional PT faculty or if he is required to use existing faculty until each has at least a load of 12 credits.  Dr. Mora stated that she would look into the load requirements more specifically and respond to him later in the day. 
• Jennifer Kalfsbeek asked if it was true that TA’s can not grade the work of other graduate students.  Dr. Mora explained that in some cases they can grade the work of other graduate assistants, but that the guidelines needed to be assessed before doping so.  Dr. Mora also pointed out that if the “teaching assistant: is instead hired as am “instructor” they can grade the work of the students in the class.  Tae Oh then stated that in his college, the hiring of assistants as “instructors” is done.
• Dr. Mora reminded each of us to contact her if we have additional questions regarding PT faculty cont5racts and she provided us with her contact information as well as the contact information of Rian Medin in Faculty Affairs.

-The second agenda item was a discussion on the CAUN budget as presented by Melanie Williams after her attendance of the University Planning and Budget Group (UPBG) meeting on March 11, 2009.

• Melanie shared with the group the agenda and budget that was presented at the meeting and recapped the details of the UPBG meeting.  Highlight included:
  • A reduced target of incoming freshman form last fall.
• We received 35K applications for fall 2009, we have admitted 17K
• There will be an enforcing of existing rules that affect enrollment, including disqualified students.
• There was discussion on reducing the number of undergraduate credits a students can possess at CSUN before they are cut off from financial aid eligibility; as CSUN currently it is over 180 units.
• The provost is encouraging revenue generation through the acquisition of more grants and donations and increasing our offerings through distance learning modes of delivery.
• The construction on the PAC has been resumed; construction on Science V never ceased because it was scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2009 and to stop and re-start would be more costly than to complete as projected.
• The federal stimulus package may or may not directly impact the CSU system. 
• CSUN student emails will become Gmail emails accounts through a CSU-Google contracted agreement.   Faculty may change to Gmail in the future as well.

-Finally Melanie opened the discussion for new agenda items for the next meeting, scheduled to be held on April 20th from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm in JH 3107. 

Next COC Meeting: 
Monday, April 20, 2009

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Last updated: March 19th, 2009