Faculty Senate Meeting
UMass Trustee to propose lower fees, active minority recruitment to faculty senate.
Substantially improving access to a college education for Massachusetts citizens is the topic of a presentation scheduled for this Faculty Senate meeting. Ways to increase access could include making community college courses free to qualified students and reducing tuition and fees at the state colleges and the UMass campuses for residents of the commonwealth, according to Mishy Leiblum, a graduate student in Labor Studies and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees.
Leiblum will discuss these ideas and others from “Advancing Public Higher Education: A Roadmap for Gov. Patrick,” which she helped to write as part of the Public Higher Education Coalition last month. She plans to focus on the sections of the report that call for making the state’s higher education system, from the university through the community colleges, more affordable and accessible to the state’s students.
“These are probably the No. 1 issues for students for at least the last several years,” Leiblum said.
She is bringing the issues before the Faculty Senate to engender “straight lines of communication between undergraduates and faculty to take joint ownership of issues of access and affordability and of all the issues we face on campus,” she said. “We want to propose solutions.”
Among other issues Leiblum would like to see students and faculty addressing is the gap between minority representation at the high school and the college levels.
“Right now there are lots of high quality ad hoc initiatives,” she said, “but there are not a lot of centrally funded or significant grant-funded programs for recruiting or working on academic preparation” for college in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties. Students have begun some programs to create relationships with high school students from Springfield and Holyoke, she said. Sustained support of such work could lead to long-term benefits for both the university and the students, she added.
The coalition’s report is available at www.umass.edu/msp.
Among other business, the senate is also scheduled to receive the annual report of its Athletic Council and to consider new Ph.D. programs in Sport Management and Hospitality and Tourism Management.
• 2005-2006 Annual Report of the Athletic Council, University of Massachusetts Amherst (Carol Barr and MJ Peterson (Co-Chairs)
• Special Report of the Academic Priorities, Graduate and Program and Budget Councils concerning A Ph.D. in Management with a Concentration in Hospitality and Tourism Management
(Seshu Desu, Linda Shea and Joseph Goldstein, Chairs, respectively)
• Special Report of the Academic Priorities, Graduate and Program and Budget Councils concerning A Ph.D. in Management with a Concentration in Sport Management (Seshu Desu, Linda Shea and Joseph Goldstein, Chairs, respectively)
• Special Report of the Academic Matters Council concerning Expansion of University Without Walls Course Options (John Jenkins, Chair)
• Special Report of the Academic Matters Council concerning Elimination of the following HFA College Requirements: “In addition to the General Education requirement, completion of two 3-credit courses from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and/or the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics” (John Jenkins, Chair)
• Special Report of the Committee on Committees concerning Nominations to Faculty Senate Councils and Committees (Arthur Kinney, Chair)
• Special Report of the General Education Council concerning Recommended General Education Designations for CLASSICS 102 and 202 (Randall Knoper, Chair)
• Approval of new courses by the Academic Matters Council (John Jenkins, Chair)
ARCH-DES 211 “The City” 3 credits, EDUC 300 “Current Issues in Higher Education” 3 credits, ENGLISH 329H “Tutoring Writing: Theory and Practice” 3 credits, NURSING 150 “Faculty Seminar for Talent Advancement Program – Pre-Nursing Students” 1 credit, UWW 310 “Experiential Reflection of the Technological World” 3 credits, UWW 320 “Experiential Reflection of Leadership” 3 credits, UWW 330 “Experiential Reflection of Public Policy” 3 credits, and UWW 340 “Experiential Reflection of Organizations” 3 credits
• Approval of a new course by the Academic Matters and Graduate Councils (John Jenkins and Linda Shea, Chairs, respectively)
COMM-DIS 540 “Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders” 3 credits
• Approval of new courses by the Graduate Council (Linda Shea, Chair)
E&C-ENG 667 “Synthesis and Verification of Digital Systems” 3 credits and EDUC 610 “Investigating Science Classrooms” 3 credits