After a two week break, the Academic Senate resumed today, discussing many reading items leaving no time to get to the discussion items.

The meeting began with announcements, including Speaker Arya Alami sharing information about a teach-in taking place tomorrow. Speaker Alami also called for all the committee to do written reports to save time as today’s meeting agenda was expansive.

After removing committee reports from the agenda, the Senate moved straight into second reading items.

The first item discussed was the Banking of Weighted Teaching Units (WTUs) policy. If passed, this policy would allow tenure-track and tenured faculty to save excess WTUs to reduce their workload in the future.

This reading item sparked significant discussion.

“I’d like to speak against this,” Senator David Martin said.

Senator Elaine Peterson spoke in support of this policy but raised some concerns and suggested amendments to be made.

“I think we should add some minor friendly language to make this policy better,” Senator Peterson said.

Throughout the discussion many senators proposed friendly amendments to adjust wording leading to the adoption of two amendments before the item was brought to a vote.

The Banking of Weighted Teaching Units (WTUs) policy ultimately passed with 25 yes, 6 no and 6 abstentions.

Following this, the Senate moved to the next item: calling for an amendment to the Constitution of the General Faculty to create the Graduation Writing Assessment Subcommittee (GWAC) under the UEPC.

The GWAC would be responsible for evaluating students’ writing across all academic departments and programs at or near graduation. The goal of this policy is to help departments align disciplinary writing practices with campus expectation and external accreditation standards.

With no major concerns or questions raised, the reading item was sent to a vote and passed with 33 yes, 0 no and 3 abstentions.

The third and final second reading item from today’s meeting was calling for an amendment to revise the Stockton Council Charge.

This policy will expand the definition of membership to include representatives of each degree programs, certificate programs, credential programs, minors and concentrations offered at the Stockton Campus.

Some concerns were raised about this amendment and the wording, leading to a vote on a friendly amendment, which passed with 19 yes, 10 no and 7 abstentions.

The amended policy was then brought to a final vote and passed with 28 yes, 3 no and 3 absentations.

Following the second reading items, the Senate moved onto the first reading item of the meeting, which called for revisions to the baccalaureate degree requirement policy.

This item sparked discussion among senators, with some in some expressing support while others raised concerns about the wording and called for revisions.

Ultimately, the back and forth discussion ran over the allotted meeting time, bringing the meeting to a close before further action could be taken.

Contributors to this article: Emaan Nawabi