In today’s Academic Senate meeting, important topics of discussion included the announcement of a change of carpeting in Bizzini Hall over the upcoming summer, a proposed $15.00 increase to student fees to bolster ASI’s budget, and the implementation of a pilot writing assessment program.
Carpeting to be Changed over the Summer
Julia Reynoso, the Associate Vice President of Capital Planning and Facilities Management, announced at the beginning of the session that Bizzini Hall will have its carpets changed during the upcoming summer semester.
Reynoso said that they plan to announce dates and times for town halls where faculty can raise concerns about how the quarantine of the building over the summer will disrupt their classes or inconvenience them. 
Reynoso says that she will then work the staff in Capital Planning and Facilities Management to address these concerns.
Some concerns already being raised by faculty included the disruption of all academic activities that were planned to take place in the building.
Another issue raised was that faculty will have to clear out all of the items in their offices and therefore they need to find a means to store said items.
Faculty that are concerned about how they might be affected by these renovations should reach out to Capital Planning & Facilities Management.
Objections to Title V
Faculty and students alike have been raising concerns about new General Education requirements that are soon to be enforced by the administration, which are packaged into a policy referred to as Cal-GETC or Title V.
At the meeting, ASI President Adrian Sanchez announced that ASI had voted to publicly denounce the implementation of Cal-GETC.
When pressed for the reason why, Sanchez explained that the decision was informed by ASI noticing that faculty were not in full support of the new policies.
It was their stance that if the policy did not have the full support of the faculty, then the administration should refrain from implementing it until it has been reworked.
Dr. Ann Strahm, serving as a representative for the CFA for this Academic Senate session, announced that the CFA plans to host a rally on the Stan State quad to object to Cal-GETC.
This is being referred to as the “Save Our Curriculum” rally, and it will take place on Wednesday next week at a time yet to be decided on.
Proposed $15.00 Student Fee Increase to Supplement the ASI Budget
ASI President Adrian Sanchez and ASI Vice President of Finance Miranda Gonzalez gave a presentation to the Senate to argue for the importance of voting “Yes on 15” in the upcoming ASI elections, which would authorize charging students an additional $15.00 per semester to support ASI.
According to their presentation, this additional fee would increase ASI’s budget significantly.
Sanchez and Gonzalez say that, with this fee increase, ASI would be able to provide additional services. These additional services include providing students with legal aid, supplementing students’ daycare fees at the Childhood Development Center, providing free meals on Stockton Campus, and more.
ASI reports that if this increase is not approved, then they will have to eliminate a number of scholarships that their budget provides students with and also cancel the annual Warrior Day Festival.
This will be an item that students will be able to vote on in the upcoming ASI elections.
Online voting for the ASI elections open on April 10th at 8 a.m. and close on Aprill 11th at 6 p.m.
There are also a number of in-person polling locations on both Turlock and Stockton Campus on both April 10th and 11th. These locations can be found on their website.
Pilot Writing Assessment Program to be Voted on Next Academic Senate Session
Senators discussed and familiarized themselves with a new pilot writing assessment program that is being proposed, which would evaluate students’ writing near or at the time of graduation to look for satisfactory proficiency in writing in the English language.
UEPC Chair and Senator Dr. Koni Stone presented this item. Senator Stone explained that this new program is needed because the previous writing assessment program was discontinued in the Spring of 2020.
The university’s accreditors, however, require that the university has a writing assessment program.
Therefore, this pilot program aims to work with a number of volunteering departments across Stan State’s colleges to answer questions about the criteria with which the program should evaluate students’ writing.
Senator Stone gave the floor to Rachel Grimshaw, a lecturer who is intimately involved in the design of the pilot program.
“It is set up to be support-driven and not evaluative in any way,” Grimshaw said. “This proposal is designed with the Writing Across the Curriculum framework.”
Grimshaw elaborated that this means that they value individual departments’ abilities to designate what the criteria for success in their discipline’s writing assessments looks like.