December Faculty Senate Meeting Draft Minutes

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DRAFT MINUTES

Fourth Meeting Academic Year 1997-1998 of the

Faculty Senate of Villanova University in the

Cinema Room, Connelly Center,

Tuesday, December 15, 1997 at 4:00 PM

PRESENT: Professors William J. Barnhurst; Walter E. Conn; Rick Eckstein, Trudi Graves; Lowell Gustafson, Chair; Masako Hamada; Edward Kresch; Kenneth Kroos; Michael Levitan, Executive Secretary; Howard Lurie, Harry Strack, Robert Styer, Treasurer; and Margaret King, Recording Secretary.

ABSENT: Professors Cheryl Asher, Victor Brooks, John D. Caputo, Linda Copel, William Fitzpatrick, Karyn Hollis, Michael Hones, Robert West, Joyce Willens and Virginia Powers.

An additional meeting was added to the schedule in order to discuss the Academic Strategic Plan and the approval by the University Senate of CATS evaluations being disseminated on the web.

I. CATS Evaluations Being Published on the WEB

At its November meeting, the University Senate approved the dissemination of CATS evaluations on the Web in spite of the fact that the Faculty Senate, the Faculty Affairs Committee, and the Academic Policy Committee had passed resolutions stating their opposition to it. The discussion centered on the Faculty Senate's response to this reversal.

The Faculty Senate decided to provide faculty members with information expressing the Faculty Senate's point of view regarding CATS evaluations on the Web, as follows:

The Faculty Senate would like to call to your attention the new university policy of placing all CATS survey data on the world wide web, which will soon be implemented by the administration. The Faculty Senate would like to ensure that individual faculty members have enough information to make an informed decision on whether or not to grant permission to have their CATS data placed on the world wide web.

Current plans of the administration are to send a form to each faculty member with the results of the recently administered CATS survey of student opinion. You will be requested to sign the form and indicate whether or not you give permission to place these results on the web. If there is no response, a second form will be sent. If a response is still not received, your results will be automatically placed on the web sometime before pre-registration for the spring semester of 1998. Your response on this form will remain in effect until you indicate differently in future semesters.

The Faculty Senate and the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC), which are primarily comprised of faculty members, and the Academic Policy Committee (APC), on which there is a plurality of faculty, all overwhelmingly voted against the placing of CATS data on the web or any electronic medium for a variety of substantive reasons.

However, the University Senate, of which only about thirty percent are faculty members, subsequently voted in favor of placing CATS data on the web so that students can use this information in selecting courses for the following semester. This policy directly affects faculty; similar data about the performance of students, administrators, alumni, or staff will not be placed on the web. Although this affects faculty, the University Senate chose to override the positions of the FAC, the Faculty Senate, and the APC. The faculty members on the Executive Committee of the University Senate have requested that this policy be reconsidered at the February 20 meeting of the University Senate.

The CATS data is principally gathered for personnel use: for faculty development, evaluation, salary recommendations, tenure and promotion decisions. Placing these data in public view may be a violation of privacy. It also places far too much weight on these data. CATS data from one semester's courses are only part of the full range of materials that are used in evaluating teaching, yet no other information about courses is to be distributed on the web under this policy. The policy calls for no other relevant material used in the evaluation of courses to be placed on the web. It also may change the effect of the survey from facilitating faculty development to encouraging faculty competition.

There are other ways for students to collect and disseminate information which they can use in selecting courses. For example, students could create and administer an independent survey which is solely for their purposes. The same instrument should not be used for evaluation of faculty by their peers and administrators on the one hand, and course selection by students on the other. Students have conducted their own survey in the past here at Villanova and could do so again, if they choose to do so.

There is no way to secure information placed on the web. It can quickly and easily be downloaded and placed on an unsecured server. Professional colleagues browsing the web might come across the data, potentially prejudicing the refereeing of publications or grant proposals.

It can be misinterpreted that faculty who choose not to have their CATS data placed on the web are simply expecting negative student opinions, as stated in a front page story in The Villanovan. There are in fact many reasons for choosing to deny permission to place CATS data on the web. One is a concern about violation of privacy; materials used in decisions about job performance, salary, tenure, and promotion, should not be publicly available. Other reasons might concern anonymous student surveys in general. Still others might be in regard to the process of adopting the policy.

Reasonable people can certainly disagree about these issues. However, the Faculty Senate believes that clearly stated faculty positions on a matter directly affecting faculty were not given preference in this case. For this procedural reason, as well as for the substantive reasons expressed above, no CATS data should be placed on the web. Making it non-mandatory is better than having it be mandatory, but even so, this places the university on record of favoring the electronic distribution of private information and places the burden of opposition on the individual faculty member.

Nevertheless, it is now the university's policy that CATS data will be distributed beginning this spring on the web unless individual faculty members deny permission for this.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

The vote on inclusion of the above information in the minutes:

In Favor: 11 Opposed: 1 Abstained: 0

II. The Academic Strategic Plan

This draft document has been revised by Dr. Johannes based on information received from various parts of the university. The sections which are of immediate interest to the faculty are:

1. Should faculty goals be listed fifth, even though no order of importance is implied in the plan?

2. Section 1.9 Class Size

A 22½% increase in class size, up from 22½ to an average of 27 students per class is probably one of the most important points in the document affecting faculty.

The increase in class size could be achieved by (a) creating large lecture hall sections, (b) increasing the size of sections that are de facto small or, (c) increasing the normal cap of 35. It was felt that the faculty senate should take a stand that (c) was not acceptable.

The group felt that increasing class size would contradict many of Villanova's pedagogical goals and would be detrimental to the students.

3. Sec. 1.12 Core Curriculum

The issue here is the university core curriculum principle vs each college's core requirements. What will be the effect of a university core on college cores? This section will attempt to define what a core is.

4. Section 5.2.2 Teaching Loads (under Situation Analysis Summary)

Teaching load often would be 18 hours per year. The question of reduced class load to research was raised: should Villanova be encouraging research on the backs of the students?

The problem of corporate concerns vs academic goals must be addressed.

5. Section 7 Merit Increases (under Internal Strengths and Challenges)

Yearly salary increases should at least match cost of living increases with a merit increment in addition to that.

6. Should a faculty club be included as a goal?

Rather than construct resolutions, Dr. Gustafson will write up a memo reflecting the Faculty Senate's concerns to send to Dr. Johannes. Faculty Senate members were encouraged to forward additional concerns to Dr. Gustafson.

Dr. Gustafson thanked all those present for taking the time during this busy week to attend the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 5:25 pm.