At today’s Academic Senate meeting, Senate passed three items—a resolution affirming the university’s commitment to fostering an inviting culture for people of all backgrounds, another that called for the campus to support, advocate for and protect undocumented students, and a third which served to add a baccalaureate degree requirement that would adequately replace the general education areas removed by Cal-GETC, such as the First Year Experience and courses in the arts and humanities.
Senate Passes Commitment to Embed DEI Practices into Campus Culture and Routine Functions
The Speaker of the Faculty, Dana Nakano, brought this resolution to the floor in response to the federal government’s recent executive orders calling for the withholding of funds for colleges and universities that retain their DEI programs.
“The purpose of this resolution is really in light of what we’ve heard from the federal government, specifically from the Department of Education, about the cutting of tax funding from programs like DEI,” Nakano said. “What this resolution really is calling for is to find creative ways to implement these values at the core foundation.”
Nakano says that the services that DEI initiatives and offices provide should be “part and pracel of what we do” without the need for an office named DEI.
There were shared concerns among faculty about the financial penalties that Stan State may face.
One of these faculty members was Senator Emma Joy Jampole who felt the attack on DEI has been “rather broad,” stating the removal of government web pages containing the word “gay” or that contained photos of Native American military service members.
CFA Chapter President Dave Colnic clarified the legality of executive orders to the body.
“DEI has not been made illegal,” he said. “It is an executive order, but it has not been made illegal.”
Colnic says that it is up to the cooperation of shared governance between faculty and administration to push for our government representatives and our university leaders to remain firm on their commitment to values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The resolution passed with 42 in favor, none against and three abstaining.
This is notably not a Sense of the Senate resolution—a type of item that serves to issue a statement to the campus community on behalf of the faculty.
Instead, this item is actual policy, and Speaker Nakano says that prior negotiations have been made with the Provost and the President to ensure the language in the resolution was suitable to be signed by Rios-Ellis.
Senate Calls for the University to Protect, Support and Advocate for Undocumented Students
This Sense of the Senate resolution, titled “Institutional Support and Advocacy for Undocumented Students,” was introduced by Senator Steven Filling.
The resolution calls for the university to invest all available resources into protecting undocumented students and for faculty to make affordances for all undocumented students and the difficulties that may arise from their status. It also calls on faculty to withhold information about undocumented students from outside bodies.
Filling also commended the University Police Department (UPD) on their commitment to not cooperate with ICE, and the resolution also pushes for the development of a contingency plan alongside UPD in the case of ICE taking forceful and direct action against the university.
The resolution passed unanimously with 44 in favor and none against or abstaining.
New Baccalaureate Degree Requirement Resurface Battle Over the Humanities’ Place in General Education
This resolution was discussed previously in December of last year, and was sent back to committee for revision by a majority vote.
As the resolution was written in December, the requirement only mandated students to take one unit of either a university-preparation course like the First Year Experience, or an arts course, or a language course.
Now, the requirement calls for students to take at least one course from two distinct sections, one course from the “Student Success Skills” area and another from the “Lifelong Learning Skills” section.
“Student Success Skills” covers courses that prepare students for university life, while “Lifelong Learning Skills” includes three areas of study—Artistic Practice, Language Acquisition, and Humanistic Inquiry.
This requirement serves as a replacement for Cal-GETC’s elimination of courses related to these two areas from the CSU’s general education curriculum.
However, there was much debate over the necessity of making it a requirement for students to take these courses.
Senator Elaine Peterson, a professor of Economics, disagreed with the foundation of the resolution that assumes that all students need these courses as part of their education.
Dr. Peterson worries that piling on a larger course load than other campuses makes us unattractive in comparison to our competitors.
Dr. Jeffrey Scales, a professor of Biology, advocated that students should have more flexible pathways.
“I think these are important classes, but I think that requiring them can put undue stress on students and what they need to accomplish,” he said. He believes that it is part of advisors’ responsibilities to guide students towards these courses for their electives.
Senator Jennifer Strangfeld, a professor of Sociology, contended with these ideas, citing that research indicates that even transfer students coming from a community college find more success in university when participating in something like the First Year Experience and taking courses in the arts or the humanities.
Strangfeld made a rebuttal against other faculty’s criticisms of the resolution, stating that if we believe these courses are important, then they should be a requirement for students, just as other courses are a requirement of general education.
Senators Keith Nainby, Artur de Silva, Ayat Hatem and others, alongside ASI President Miranda Gonzalez, also voiced their support for this resolution.
The resolution passed with 24 in favor, 15 against, and 4 abstaining.
