May 5, 2020 Minutes

Council of Department Chairs

Please note that these minutes reflect discussions that happened on the date of these minutes. Due to the COVID-19 situation, things are rapidly changing. For official policy, please wait for documents from the appropriate offices.

Attendees (5/5/20): Curtis Bennett, Barbara Taylor, Tangan Gao, Chris Brazier, Andreas Bill, Babette Benken, Christine Whitcraft, Dessie Underwood, Lisa Martin, Margaret Karteron, Rick Behl, Kris Slowinski, Will Murray (invitee, incoming Chair), Henry Wu, Maryanne Horton.

  1. Approved agenda
  2. Approve minutes
    1. April 28 minutes, approved as ammended.
  3. Announcements
    1. Commencement

      1. Survey about virtual ceremony was sent to 60,000 and 1,800 responded (about 600 yes, 600 no, 600 no opinion). 100% of comments were in favor of in-person. If virtual then should be live. Tentative CSULB graduation recognition/celebration of completion in 2nd half of June. Several options were considered for the live commencement: Thanksgiving, 2nd commencement in Spring 2021, etc. See the commencement webpage for updates: /commencement
        Departments are in charge of the organization of departmental graduation ceremonies. Help is only provided in form of guidelines, for example for captioning live (e.g. https://webcaptioner.com) . Contact Daniel Ames or Margaret Karteron. A celebrity event will take place on May 15 for graduating seniors for high school and college across the country (?). Contact Margaret Karteron if you have interesting graduation stories.

    2. Nominations RTP Committee
      1. Ballot will come out as Qualtrics after the 5/5/2020 CDC meeting. A discussion followed about the rules on college RTP committee composition and the importance of having 6 rather than 5 committee members. Discussion about online vote (Qualtrics). Issues with privacy, recounts, etc. were raised. A dry run with a few people is recommended. The college constitution does not require that ballots be on paper.
    3. Dean's Report
      1. This week’s president’s message was based on an epidemiologist’s report stating we may need 8 weeks of entirely AMI courses in Fall 2020.
      2. The administration is considering a repopulation plan of the campus. Deans were in favor of returning to campus as soon as possible. However, health concerns were also raised. For example, a) cleaning of rooms with consecutive classes, b) faculty sharing offices, c) overall cleaning supplies of the University.
      3. Research lab reopening: CSU science deans and ORSP are looking into a plan for research labs. The hope is that in phase 2 PIs can return to the lab but likely without students. Discussion followed on the issues with students coming to lab. See also sect. 4.A.2-3 below.
      4. CARES money: Communication will be sent by CSULB administration this week to students. Money available is in the rang $250-$1,500 per student. In addition, the University may provide some money for students not eligible to receive CARES money. Further, the University will be allocated $3Mio in addition to the $41Mio for being a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).
      5. Please let the dean know of your money needs related to the covid-19 as soon as possible (including shipping of material/kits). Rick Behl shared information about BeachFunder site that they use to raise funds among alumni (great response!). Letters were sent to alumni. Henry Wu mentioned that the AY 20-21 SEF course funds may become available from activities that cannot be held during the Fall 20 semester.
      6. Inform students, staff and faculty that the Health Center and Counseling Center are open.
  4. Associate Deans - Research
    1. Microbiology planned power outage: Friday 5/8. Barbara Taylor will be onsite to make sure all emergency power is on and computers are turned on afterwards.
    2. Student Summer Research Awards
      Formulate a plan for students who had lab focused projects if they cannot get into the lab. What alternative work can be done by these students?
    3. Research Restart Plan
      The college will need to interpret the deans' plans with the requirement that the interpretation complies with state and city health and safety guidelines. Discussion followed on starting new projects. The density of persons should be a measure for safe occupation of labs and offices. Also, the cleaning staff that takes care of access to the labs needs to be considered.
    4. For startup funds: we continue as in the past. Q&A followed about S-factors for next academic year. Consider how to deal with 496 students.
  5. Associate Deans - Academic Programs
    1. SOAR
      1. See spreadsheet and in particular the tab “zoom availability”. CNSM advising/registration plan.
      2. July 13-18: Transfer students registration/peer-mentoring.
      3. June 17-19: SOAR workshop.
      4. June 10-12: Registration advising will occur one week before the SOAR days.
      5. June 5-8: Preparation of recommendations to students (on courses to take).
      6. ALEKS for Math and Chemistry need to be completed before then.
      7. May 18-22: Faculty transfer advising. A shared drive calendar will be created for faculty to participate in Zoom advising meetings. There will be peer-mentoring possible.
      8. May 16- June 26: Faculty advising of transfers occurs as in the past, but via zoom and scheduling of advising hours is made via EAB.
      9. Expecting modules from departments (?) There is also possibility to generate short videos for freshman.
      10. Advising videos will be provided on May 27.
      11. Reminder: Chairs need to provide the zoom/camtasia videos for SOAR by this Friday!
  6. Planning F2020
    1. Course Expectations
      1. Give your list to the dean of the graduate courses and perhaps some senior courses that should meet in person. We will likely not have in-person senior courses. Please do not send the message that all undergraduate courses will be online. Things are changing weekly!
      2. Discussion on course expectations and how to convey these expectations to all. Departments should think about what is contained in the SCO. Adjust the SCO to the present situation (e.g. synchronous class with faculty available). The concern is that students may drop from classes if the SCO is not clearly stated.
      3. Each department should write a statement approved by the curriculum committee on the standard of teaching in the Fall. This statement will become de facto part of each SCO.
      4. The order of hiring of lecturers is contractual and having been trained in online teaching cannot constitute a priority.
    2. Faculty Learning Groups/Modules
      1. Faculty Leaders – please suggest
        We do not simply want to have trainers but rather persons who can organize practical meetings with faculty that can speak to the specialty. Faculty would get $1,000 and trainers $2,000. A discussion followed on the timing (start in 2nd week of June), content (what should it be aside from replacing ATS), and goal (what is the vision?). Department chairs should probe faculty on what they need.
      2. Modules
      3. Please provide suggestions for names of modules and contents.
        Empathy – Kelly Young
        Community in a virtual setting
        Case studies (flipped)
        Virtual Homework sets and Exams
        Alternative Modes of Assessment (competency based assessment)
  7. Adjourned at 4:30 pm

 

Upcoming Dates:

The Charis Retreat that was scheduled for the end of May will be moved to July or August, if at all possible. 

Townhall Meetings with the dean on Wed. 5/6/2020 12 - 1 pm and Fri. 5/8/2020 1 - 2 pm.

Submitted by Andreas Bill (Chair, Physics & Astronomy)

Meeting Minutes were APPROVED on Tuesday, May 12, 2020

*Note: This reflects 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.