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Senate agenda for Wed Feb 13th 2019

SENATE MEETING AGENDA 

3:00 – 5:00 P.M. Location: EMU 145 & 146 (Crater Lake rooms) Livestream here.

3:00 P.M.    Call to order

  • Introductory Remarks; Senate President Bill Harbaugh
  • University update: President Mike Schill

3:29 PM    Approval of Minutes

3:30 PM      Business/ Reports:

  • Discussion: CAS Reorganization task force; Karen Ford (3:30) Task force info here
  • Discussion: US18/19-11: Requiring CANVAS for Core Education courses; Chris Sinclair. (Briefly: “At a minimum, the LMS site for a core ed class shall include information about what requirements the course satisfies, any Methods of Inquiry covered by the course, a course syllabus, any significant assessments, and students’ current performance in the course.”)
  • Discussion: US18/19-10: Academic Continuity Plan policy proposal; Frances White (Anth), Scott Pratt (Exec Vice Provost). (The need for such a policy became apparent during the Dec 2014 GTFF strike when there was a certain amount of chaos about who was responsible for assigning grades etc. However this policy is also designed to apply in the event of an earthquake, etc. It establishes “emergency grades”, gives the surviving members of the Senate’s Academic Council authority to decide when they can be used, and lays out how and if they can be replaced with regular grades.)
  • Vote: US18/19-09: Process of Undergraduate and Graduate Council approval when courses are not finalized; Frances White. (Discussed this last meeting, I don’t believe it is controversial.)

4:49 PM    Open Discussion
4:50 PM    Reports

  • Oregon Legislative updates: Robert Garral OtP.

4:58 PM    Notice(s) of Motion
4:59 PM    Other Business
5:00 
PM    Adjourn to Faculty Club, all invited!

7 Comments

  1. Dog 02/13/2019

    well I guess this eliminates all occupants of PLC as surviving members to give grades, I mean really, who is going to give a shit about grades during the next Big One?

    There won’t be a University of Oregon still standing …

    And on the LMS issue, “students current performance in the class” — this is actually hard to do in a sensible manner in Canvas …

  2. Dog 02/13/2019

    And hey, there is actually useful info in the Senate notes, some of which should have been published here as there was a thread
    on this issue last week.

    In the Jan 16 notes, Shill says there has been a NET increase in Tenured Faculty at the UO of 72 over the last 4 years. Modest,
    but nonetheless going in the right direction – so if we can just continue to reduce our student enrollment we will once again return to a favorable TTF to student ratio …

    • woof 02/13/2019

      On the Internet, on one knows if Dog is joking.

  3. oldtimer 02/13/2019

    Yes, right direction. Would be nice to know details of funding. One of the sleights of administrative hand is to pull all positions in centrally, and then use the gap in salary between retiring fulls and new assistants to help funding more faculty hires, instead of feeding that gap back into the salary pool in a sustainable way.

  4. curious duckling 02/14/2019

    Can somebody please provide an intellectual justification for requiring the use of LMS for core ed courses? “1.3 WHEREAS Other major universities (e.g. Washington State University) require LMS use for all courses” sounds a lot like, “but Mom, all of my friends are doing it!”

    • heraclitus 02/14/2019

      That’s a fair question, but it would also be good to hear an intellectual justification for _not_ using the LMS for pretty much any course. I’m no more a fan of Canvas than I was of Blackboard, but the basic functions it provides (above all helping students keep track of assignments and grades) seem like something they have every right to expect from their teachers.

      • Old Gray Mare 02/15/2019

        And that can be done perfectly well without the LMS. Return assignments in a timely manner and teach the class to multiply percentages. How hard is that?

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