The Senate vs. The Provost

(CSULA – UT) At Tuesday’s regular meeting, the Academic Senate continued its discussion of the contentious issue of program suspension or elimination. A few months ago the Senate proposed a revision to the current Policies and Procedures for Academic Program Discontinuance and submitted it to President Rosser for approval. The main cause for concern at this meeting on Tuesday was whether courses should be discontinued permanently or simply suspended temporarily.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Academic Senate secretary Dr. Cari Flint reported that the previous proposal was returned unsigned by President Rosser. However, there are inconsistencies with this report and minutes from the Senates previous meeting on November 24, 2009, which state that President Rosser approved the Senate’s proposed modification on November 23, 2009 and that those rules would be effective this quarter. This meeting was held to discuss the revisions that should be made to the policy before it is resubmitted to President Rosser.A bigger issue they are facing, however, is whether the decision to suspend classes should be left to the Senate or to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Desdemona Cardoza. The Provost is reportedly asking for the decision-making right so that she can suspend full programs, and consequently several classes, in order to help manage the current budget situation. The Senate doesn’t want the administration to have this power, especially because they are the teachers of the classes that could potentially be cut without consultation and deliberation. The policy the Senate is trying to get signed by Rosser has at least temporarily stopped the administration from trying to obtain that decision-making power.

Tuesday’s meeting began with Chairman Robert Land who then turned the meeting over to the secretary. Flint explained the problems the committee was facing with the current revising of the policy. She then opened the meeting up for discussion about these changes. According to Flint, their hope was to create a policy that everyone could agree on.

Most of the members present seemed to be primarily concerned with changing the wording of the policy. The most important would be changing the word discontinuance to suspension after the word program. They couldn’t stress the importance of this enough, as it was constantly repeated by several of the professors.

The next item up for discussion were the programs covered by the policy which everyone agreed should be undergraduate and graduate degrees, concentrations and options, minors, certificate programs, and credential programs.

Next on the table were the reasons and the criteria for suspension or discontinuance. This section included both budgetary and non-budgetary reasons. The reasons currently listed in the modified policy include issues with curriculum, enrollment, and accreditation.

It also specifically highlights that suspension of an academic program under the conditions previously listed are supposed to allow the faculty time to review and modify the program for future reactivation.

According to Flint, their purpose is to ensure that students already enrolled in the programs are not affected. They would, however, want to ensure that no new students were admitted to a program that was on the brink of suspension.

The committee was so heated about these issues that they were not able to get any further on the agenda. The meeting was adjourned by Chairman Land. The Senate will meet same time, same location next week to pick up where they left off.