September 12, 2023 Minutes

Council of Department Chairs

In attendance: Curtis Bennett, Prashanth Jaikumar, Lijuan Li, Will Murray, Lora Stevens, Jim Kisiel, Jesse Dillon, Barbara Taylor, Krzysztof Slowinski, Christine Whitcraft, Babette Benken, Margaret Karteron, Lindsay Aymar.

  1. Approve agenda (10:00) - Approved as amended – discussion of Informal Fall Reviews added
  2. Approve minutes from August 29 - Approved as amended
  3. Announcements
    1. Operations
      1. Send any evaluation questions to Margaret
      2. September 22 – Scholarship awards reception after the research symposium (in same rooms)
        1. Students have been invited
        2. Chairs will get copies of invitations sent out
      3. Consider having department chairs put Symposium/Scholarship Reception information in departmental announcements
      4. Mentors are going to be invited as well
    2. Dean
      1. Continued uptick in COVID
        1. Infections happening in the college (students + faculty + staff) fairly frequently
        2. Student reports aren't reaching the instructors (we believe the parameters for who/when gets notified based on infection detection time)
        3. Can strongly recommend masks but cannot require
        4. We do not know yet if there will be vaccine available at the health center (possibly with flu vaccine)
      2. Academic Senate updates
        1. Enrollment Services Move
          1. From academic affairs to student affairs – this is not uncommon to the CSU system
        2. RTP – replaced the CPEC document with where the senate ended last year
          1. Senate moved to replace original FPPC document with prior
          2. Change to early tenure process – will not be the same standards as traditional 6 year track
          3. Colleges and departments need to make explicit what early tenure requirements are
      3. Commencement
        1. Announcement made that commencement will be at Angel's Stadium again this year, but the students will walk and cross the stage
        2. We may not have micro-stages, more information to come
  4. Associate Deans
    1. Academic Programs
      1. New Personnel
        1. Dennis Garcia – Time Certain 10:10
        2. Sergio Temores – Time Certain 10:20
    2. Updates – See: Beach XP and CNSM Tutoring (PDF)
      1. Beach XP
      2. Tutoring
    3. Transfer Admissions for Sp'24
      1. Transfers cannot graduate in 2 years with the GE requirements
        1. Currently a 4-5 year pathway to graduation
        2. Incomplete prerequisites are slowing people down
      2. CNSM numbers are not terrible compared to the rest of the University, but still an issue
      3. UC's are recruiting transfers
        1. Current recruitment strategy is based on outreach and collaborations with several CC's to expand CSULB awareness
      4. We need to re-focus on transfer graduation rates
      5. Discussion on how to create a pathway to help these students succeed moved to 9/19 meeting
        1. General Science degree?
        2. Add options for BA instead of BS to some departments?
          1. Need more directions students can go to complete GE's while avoiding log-jams
        3. We need classes that are more functional service-courses (example of Gen Chem and OChem)
        4. Dr. Kisiel and Dr. Whitcraft will present explaining more about the Science Ed and ES&P programs solutions/ Dr. Kisiel will be reaching out to individual chairs
    4. Update on Advising
      1. Early confusion on whether or not students are aware they are in the BEACH XP program has been resolved (they know now)
      2. Information with section numbers available: Beach XP Class Schedules
      3. Faculty should be informed sooner if their students are involved
    5. Research
      1. New Personnel
        1. Andrej Bosanac – Time Certain 10:30
          1. Introductions
      2. IT Announcements/Issues
        1. Email went out on Friday 9/9 about doing a mini audit looking for level 1 and 2 data (level 1 is social security number/level 2 is name, birthday, address, phone number)
        2. This involves any computer used on campus or any university owned computer that joins our network (personal equipment is not involved in audit)
        3. Email Dr. Taylor with any questions
      3. Research Updates
        1. No updates
      4. Graduate Programs
        1. No updates
  5. Documentation For Lecturer Appointments
    1. How to determine list of classes the PTL is qualified to teach
    2. We have very large number of lecturers but it is not guaranteed we will continue with current level of FTS going forward – need to have good justification for hiring lecturer going forward
    3. Have a spreadsheet of all lecturers teaching and what courses they are capable of teaching
    4. If a lecturer teaches a course and there's no negative review then they can teach it (number and variety cannot be too narrow - it is not the lecturer's choice to teach one thing but not the other)
    5. You can make it explicit in an evaluation that the lecturer is only did poorly in one class, but this shouldn't be happening in general
    6. We do not want a culture of bad teaching and good evals
    7. Dr. Slowinski does not get evaluations until they are completed
    8. Still discussing the process with faculty affairs
  6. Fall Informal Reviews
    1. Lecture visitations can happen in the Fall, but formal evaluations happen in the Spring (can include material from Fall visitation)
    2. Informal visitations should still be documented as a formal memo
    3. Make sure to document everything – if there is an issue write a memo and send to Dr. Slowinski
    4. Instructors should always be informed of official lecture visits (even in the Fall informally)
    5. Faculty has rights to documentation as a part of due process
    6. Statement of Fact documents are not the same as reprimands, but they should still be documented
    7. Last Spring's spots need to be assigned again and reevaluated
  7. Micro-credentials – moved to be discussed at 9/19 meeting
  8. Open discussion

Upcoming Dates

  • Sep. 22: Student Research Symposium
  • Sep. 22: Scholarship Reception. 4-6 pm
  • Sep. 25: RTP deadline to Interfolio (not minis)

Meeting Minutes were APPROVED on Tuesday, October 3, 2023.

Note: The minutes above reflect 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.