The Academic Senate held the second meeting of the Spring 2019 semester. The meeting discussed the expiration of Blackboard this semester, the time certain instructional materials accessibility policy, the revised Fall 2018 University Educational Policies Committee (UEPC) General Education Area and Outcome Alignment, and the elevation of exercise science to a full degree program.
Dr. Betsy Eudey, UEPC Chair and Professor of Gender Studies, mentioned the university’s subscription to Blackboard ends this semester and choice must be made to either “maintain Blackboard or switch to Canvas.” Eudey went on to explain that there will be  survey posted on Blackboard Sunday, Feb. 17, to receive feedback of the service. Eudey also encouraged anyone who uses blackboard to provide data.
Marvin Williams, Director of Disability Resource Services, explained the Instructional Materials Accessibility Policy, which states that faculty must submit text/other course material requirements to their department at least 90 days prior to the start of the semester. The academic departments will send Disability Resource Services listings of all course materials for each course at least 70 days prior to the start of the semester.
This is due to the rise of  the university has not been able to meet the DRS’s deadlines. According to Eudey, only 30 percent of the faculty turned in their list of texts and materials on time. Eudey said “not meeting policy is not meeting federal law.”
Williams went on to describe the time sensitive process to modify the materials in order fulfill requirements made by the Americans Disabilities Act and said it took around 17 days just to ask publisher permission to modify their works. Williams stated “we read every page and every word” when converting the texts to pdfs. This is why the department needs these texts ahead of time.
Dr. Ann Strahm, State-Wide Academic Senate (SWAS) and Professor of Sociology, argued that faculty responsibilities have increased along with their workload and that might be reason why.  
Eudey added that list must be entered into the Barnes and Noble database of the bookstore on campus to meet federal law. Dr. Keith Nainby, Chair of the Communication Studies Department, said “the bookstore has lied to students” in the past and was surprised that “we rely on them to fulfill federal requirements.”
One of the following reading items of the senate meeting was the debate on whether to change the existing General Education Area anchor outcomes. Specifically, changing the A3 GE area to focus on critical thinking requirements and to remove the information literacy as an anchor outcome.
Both Philosophy and Communication studies oppose the inclusion of the anchor outcome and claimed that information literacy is a different skill set from critical thinking. They agreed that information literacy fit the A1 and A2 GE areas.
Nainby, remarked “why are we making such a fuss.” The Academic Senate voted in favor of the review the GE area.
Another reading item of the Senate meeting was the elevation of Exercise Science to a full degree major. Dr. Erin Hall, stated that the change “provides a clear path,” for students that pursued a Kinesiology B.A. The Academic Senate voted in favor to elevate the Exercise Science concentration.
The meeting ending with beginning thoughts of the president’s role in Retentions, Promotion and Tenure information (RPT) decisions.
This article has been updated to modify the headline and correctly attribute the Senators with their titles.