By: Ava Uhlack, Feb 11, 2025
The Academic Senate revisited the topic of general education requirement shifts during its first meeting of the semester Feb. 5, voting against the president’s response to the proposed GE update that was presented by faculty during the last Academic Senate meeting.
University President Soraya M. Coley’s response consisted of multiple modifications to the GE curriculum outside of what the Academic Senate’s original proposal entailed, according to the memorandum sent by Coley to the Academic Senate Chair, Rita Kumar Jan. 17.. The modifications included keeping AI History as an option for the GE Area 4A.
During the discussion portion of the meeting minutes, senators from the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences delivered statements of appeal, asking for support from other senators to vote against the acceptance of Coley’s response.
“We’ve known that this was coming for two years,” said Jessie Vallejo, an associate professor of ethnomusicology. “We’ve had two years where we’ve been trying to work with the administration to come up with a creative response. We have presented responses that do not put any programs at risk. There is no justifiable reason as to why the faculty governance would just be completely ignored.”
Vallejo finished her dialogue with a quote from Aristotle: “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
Faye Wachs, a professor in the sociology department, was another one of the more vocal CLASS senators during the pre-vote dialogue.
“By not being exposed to these classes, they are being denied the opportunity to find what they’re passionate about,” said Wachs. “We’ve got lots of students that started out in other majors. For our lecturers, they’re losing their jobs or being offered much lower entitlements with no warning.”
Although the Academic Senate did not vote to accept the president’s response to the committee, according to Kumar, the vote does not have any effect on the proposal. Things will move forward as Coley had outlined in her memorandum. “The list of courses grandfathered into GE Area 4A will include only those that are still actively offered as GE Area D3 courses.”
The meeting also featured a tribute to Alex Small, a professor and chair of the physics department who died from brain cancer Dec. 7. Colleagues were invited to speak in honor of Small, and a couple speakers mentioned The Alexander R. Small Student Development Fund for Careers in Industry, which aims to provide funds to introduce students to different career opportunities in the physics field, according to the fund’s webpage.
“It has already raised more than $20,000 for internships and connection opportunities to help students bridge to the next step,” said Matthew Povich, the interim chair and a professor from the astronomy and astrophysics department. “Alex’s future was tragically, unfairly stolen from him. But his work continues to secure the future for our students.”
Following a poem made by Dewey Hall, an English and modern languages professor, was a moment of silence and a two-minute intermission to allow for the transition to the business items of the meeting agenda.
Five new minors were also presented during the meeting, including marketing analysis, exercise science, advanced physical activity, public health and sport and social justice. Due to it being the first read, however, they will not be voted upon until the next Academic Senate meeting session March 5.
In the last 20 minutes of the meeting during the discussion portion of the meeting there was a presentation about the Lanterman project by Anthony Orlando, an associate professor of finance, real estate and law, as well as the faculty representative appointed by the Academic Senate for the Lanterman project.
Orlando detailed updates about the project’s timeline both past and present as well as the next steps for development. More details about the Lanterman project can be found here.
The next academic senate meeting is to be held March 5. The meeting is open to the public and the community is encouraged attend.
Feature image courtesy of Academic Senate
