Provost reviews service learning plans with Faculty Senate

12:31 p.m., April 15, 2004--A new University office to support expanded service learning opportunities for undergraduates will be in place by next fall, Provost Dan Rich said at the University Faculty Senate meeting April 12.

Rich told the senators that the new Office of Service Learning was suggested in a report he recently received from the University’s Academic Council on Service-Based Learning, created last spring. Before making its recommendations, the council collected information on UD courses and activities involving students out of the classroom, identified types of service learning already in place on campus and examined model programs at other university campuses .

In another initiative, Rich said, four of 10 structural improvement grants for faculty will focus on academic service learning.

Also at the meeting, Senate President Karen Stein announced that an ad hoc committee on recycling has been created and will report next spring.

In other business, the senators provisionally approved the creation of a MBA/MS dual degree in information systems and technology management in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. The program will be reviewed in five years.

Senators also voted to add the immediate past president of the Faculty Senate as a voting member of the executive committee for one year and amended the role and function of its Academic Appeals Committee.

Three stages of academic appeal exist before a student or faculty member may make a final appeal to the senate committee. These include appeals to the faculty member, to the department chairperson and, finally, to a hearing panel appointed by the dean of the appropriate college. The Academic Appeals Committee may uphold the college committee decision without a hearing or conduct its own hearing.

The approved wording for this fourth stage of appeal reads “Šif upon review this committee determines that an appeal is warranted because of a flawed previous process or a disagreement with the previous decision, or the perceived need for further investigation, then the committee must conduct a hearing prior to rendering a final decision. For purposes of a hearing and depending upon the nature of the appeal, the Academic Appeals Committee chairperson may either appoint an ad hoc panel (consisting of three faculty members and two students) from among the current committee members or the committee, at its discretion, may serve as the entire hearing panel.”

The Faculty Senate also approved proposed changes to University guidelines for faculty promotion and tenure. Discussion centered on how external reviewers are selected, how a candidate’s workload distribution is documented, whether or not faculty members can participate at both college and department levels and clarification of a candidate’s role in the appeal process.

Earlier in the meeting, the Undergraduate Studies Committee submitted a preliminary report on its review of the multicultural course requirement at the University, established in 1987. Discussion arose over a proposed list of required outcomes for all multicultural courses and how these outcomes would be measured. Sen. Jay Custer said that the goal of these courses is to teach students to think critically about related issues, not to indoctrinate them. Tom Leitch, chair of the committee, told the senators that the committee would continue to work on the issue and would bring a plan to review the multicultural courses to the senate next spring.

Article by Cornelia Weil

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