Legislation to make course titles uniform at Commonwealth Campuses and University Park will be one of the issues addressed at the University Faculty Senate meeting today.
Faculty Senate Chair Kim Steiner said this could be a difficult subject because course abbreviations are used differently throughout Commonwealth Campuses to help prevent instances of "curricular drift" -- credit from courses at Commonwealth Campuses not transferring toward majors at University Park. It also refers to courses containing similar material not being recognized because of different course numbers.
Members will also vote on legislation proposing to revise the Senate policies relating to re-enrollment, reinstatement and academic renewal of students, which is an academic forgiveness policy that resets a student's grade point average to zero. The proposed policy change aims to make all of these processes easier for students and to assure effective academic advising. Reasons for faculty dismissal will also be discussed at today's Senate meeting.
Members will examine whether the term "grave misconduct" is an acceptable cause for dismissal, Steiner said. All the cases of this type of dismissal are confidential and no formal case study has been conducted, he added.
John Bagby, chair of the subcommittee on faculty rights and privacy issues, said a report will be presented to inform the Senate on the important issue of faculty dismissal and to initiate discussion.
Interest in clarifying charges may have been sparked from Nona Gerard, a faculty member in Altoona who was dismissed on March 1, 2004, he said.
Gerard was dismissed for "grave misconduct" and "failure to perform" after the tenured professor allegedly wrote e-mail messages criticizing the integrative arts program.
There will also be an informational report with suggestions on textbook selection. The report acknowledges the increasing textbook prices and urges faculty to take the rises into consideration when selecting textbooks for classes.
The Senate meeting is open to the public and will take place at 1:30 p.m. today in 112 Kern Building.
