THE SENATE forum

forumA publication of the Academic Senate, California State University, FullertonVolume XVI, Number 2, Spring 2001

THE SENATE

Jane Hall

An Interview withDr. Robert Palmer,Vice President ofStudent Services

(Continued on page 13)(Continued on page 17)

Take a Deep Breath:It’s (Usually) OK;

and University ResearchHelped Make that True

Dr. Hall is a professor in the De-partment of Economics, immedi-ate past Chair of the AcademicSenate, 2000-2001 UniversityOutstanding Professor, and iscurrently on sabbatical some-where “down under.”

One of the things that an aca-demic career lets you do is dedi-cate sustained periods of time tounderstanding a question thatgrabs your imagination. If you

are really lucky, you might come up with some interestinganswers and, better yet, the answers might also be useful. Theanswers, and reaction to them, might also suggest other ques-tions and you might find yourself, two decades later, with noend of questions in sight. If your work becomes known out-side the academic arena, you might be asked to advise variousinstitutions – private and public – on how to solve some thornyproblem. This is what has happened to me, starting with afew innocent questions about the economics of air pollution.The story that follows has two threads: how and why the air hasbecome so much cleaner, and the critical role that applied research atCalifornia universities has played in that amazing achievement.

BackgroundSouthern Californian’s live in the epicenter of air pollution.We have the dubious distinction of being the only regionin the nation designated by an act of Congress as having“extreme” pollution. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s thepolluters’ mantra was – “There is no proof that ozone is aproblem, and even if it were we don’t know how to fix it, andeven if we did, regulation would devastate the economy, theautomobile industry, and energy supplies.”

Dr. Palmer earned a Bachelorof Science degree in Education,a Masters of Science degree inCollege Student Personnel Ad-ministration from Indiana Uni-versity at Bloomington, and aPh.D. from the State Universityof New York at Buffalo inHigher Education. To augmenthis formal education, he alsoattended the Institute in CareerCounseling and Placement atAlabama A & M University andthe Institute for EducationalManagement at Harvard Uni-

versity. Bob came to CSUF from the State University ofNew York at Buffalo. During his 25 tenure there he heldvarious administrative positions including Associate VicePresident for Academic Affairs, Associate Provost, and VicePresident for Student Affairs. He also held the rank ofUniversity Professor and taught in the Graduate Schoolof Education.

Senate Forum: YOU HAVE BEEN ON CAMPUS FOR THREEYEARS NOW. WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE AC-COMPLISHMENTS OF STUDENT AFFAIRS DURING THISTIME?

V.P. Palmer: It has been three years of excitement and accom-plishments in Student Affairs! We orchestrated a completerealignment of services, hired new, highly qualified staff, andgenerally created a renewed sense of purpose and direction.Major division-wide accomplishments include the hiring of afull complement of Assistant Deans for Student Affairs, therevitalization of the University Learning Center, and the ini-tiation of several construction projects, (Student Housing andStudent Health & Counseling Center addition, Child CareCenter, and most recently, a Recreation and Fitness Center).

Dr. Robert Palmer

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From the Editor

A Funny Thing Happenedon the Way to the Forum.

Sorel Reisman

Morteza Rahmatian

The Never Ending Gap

(Continued on page 11)

Dr. Rahmatian is a Professor in theDepartment of Economics, and a

member ofthe Execu-tive of theA c a d e m i cSenate.

It has beenknown forthe past sev-eral yearsthat the aver-age salarypaid to CSUfaculty issubstantially

below the salary paid in comparable in-stitutions. In recent years CSU and CFAhave been hard at work to close this gap;nevertheless the gap remains and is in-creasing over time. Furthermore, factor-ing in the high cost of living in some partsof California compared to other states,the “real” salary gap is even wider.

For example, CSU’s 11,084 professorsearn 8% less than do their counterpartsat 20 comparison institutions, accordingto figures recently released by the Cali-fornia Post-Secondary Education Com-mission (CPEC). Out of schools thathave similar curricula or recruitment ef-forts, California State University ranks17th in pay for beginning professors.

Each year, CPEC calculates a “parity fig-ure,” a projection of the amount that CSUfaculty salaries would have to be in-creased to keep compensation at paritywith those of comparable institutions.Through much of the 1980s the legisla-ture approved salary increases at the par-ity. However, the last time that the legis-lature voted a salary increase equal toCPEC’s parity figure was 1990-1991.Then, from 1991-1992 through 1995-1996, there were three fiscal years withno increase and two with very small in-creases (an overall average of 2.75% peryear). Despite the booming economy of

the late 1990s and the State’s budget sur-pluses, the CSU trustees have consis-tently refused to request and the legisla-ture has consistently refused to raise thesalaries to parity. CSU salaries havelagged behind those at comparable insti-tutions, and on average, CSU facultymembers now earn less, in constant dol-lars, than in 1989-90.

This persistent salary disparity makesmore difficult the recruiting and reten-tion of new faculty members who mustface extraordinary housing costs. CSUfaculty members understand why theyreceived no increases when the State’sbudget was in peril but cannot understandwhy, in a time of budget surpluses, theyare treated with disdain when it comes tothe CPEC parity figure. The fact that theCSU success rate in hiring has droppedfrom 79% in 1996-97 to 69% in 1999-2000 reflects, in part, these increasedpressures.

This issue of the Senate Forum is packedwith information and articles that I hopewill keep you reading well past the endof the semester. Perhaps you will smile abit while you are flying away to someremote location to spend the summerwriting, teaching, traveling, or just relax-ing. Or perhaps some of the articles willraise your blood pressure a bit, and causeyou to think that when you get back inAugust, maybe you should get involvedin activities that can improve CSUF orthe community at large.

There certainly is no shortage of causesas the articles in this edition of the Fo-

rum illustrate. Political issues such asPresident Dubya’s anti-citizen positionson pollution and ergonomics (and whoknows what else by the time you getback) offer opportunities for participa-tion. Faculty governance, FMIs, and sal-ary inequities offer others. Or, if you areconcerned about the quality of instruc-tion, there are many matters that relate tothe ongoing issue of assessment. Whatabout the increasing role, status, and im-portance being given to part timers, evenas many of us seem to be abandoning ourown service responsibilities? Finally,CSUF’s incredible technical infrastruc-ture places us in an enviable position rela-

tive to most other American universities.The research and teaching opportunitiesthat our facilities offer are limited onlyby our own creativity. There is no ex-cuse for any of us to not pursue a com-plete program of avant-garde teaching,research or service.

____________

This is the last issue of the Senate Forumthat I will edit. I will miss the fantasticpower that this position has given me. Ithas been amazing how my presence atevents, as editor, has struck fear in thehearts of colleagues who promise articlesfor the Forum, regardless of thosepeoples’ positions in the campus’ social/professional hierarchy. It has been a realexperience entering large meeting roomsand watching people, from assistant pro-fessors through to vice presidents, scur-rying away from me, avoiding eye con-tact with me, just because their promised


John Olmsted

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Dr. Olmsted is chair of the Depart-ment of Chemistry and Biochem-istry and is co-director of thedepartment’s NSF grant in the Re-search Experience for Under-graduates program. A long-timemember of the Academic Senate, hepresently serves on the Planning, Re-sources, and Budget Committee,the University Honors Board, andchairs the Outstanding ProfessorCommittee. After assessing theoptions, John has chosen to FERPbeginning in 2001-2002.

These days, talk of assessment seems to be everywhere. Onemight even observe that it could become pre-eminent.Everybody’s doing it – correction: talking about the need forsomebody else to do it. Chancellor Reed and the Trusteesdemand that each campus be accountable and assess its pro-grams. WASC asked that we describe how we go about as-sessing ourselves. Statewide conferences of CSU DepartmentChairs (Chemistry, English, and no doubt others), “encour-aged” by financial support from the Chancellor’s Office, con-vene to plan how to assess departmental programs. CSUFadministrators and faculty devote long hours collecting dataand establishing targets, including deadlines to accomplishassessment.

Nor is Cal State unique in embracing assessment. I recentlyattended a mini-conference in Washington, DC, convened fora decennial assessment of a National Science Foundation pro-gram that supports undergraduate research in Chemistry. Asignificant portion of the discussions concerned the most ap-propriate way to assess the success of these programs: assess-ment of assessment.

Well, why not? Assess the assessment. It may not have theappeal of “Begin the Beguine,” but it sounds too good to passup. Here, then, is one faculty member’s view of this latest craze.

Is assessment a bad idea? Of course not. For a variety ofreasons we need to determine how well we are accomplishingour missions: to justify our requests for resources, to validateour work, to identify and address weaknesses. Unfortunately,none of the designs for assessment that I have seen will dothese things. Worse, unless we are vigilant, attempts at as-sessment will erode our missions rather than support them.

Assessing Assessment –An Iconoclast’s View


Dr. Reisman is a professor in theDepartment of Information Sys-tems & Decision Science, andAcademic Technology Coordina-tor in the Faculty DevelopmentCenter. He is a member of theSenate and editor of the SenateForum.

At the Carnegie Symposiumheld on February 26, I had theopportunity to chair a breakoutsession entitled, “How Should

Students Evaluate Online Courses?” To be honest, the rea-son the session was held was because I had an earlier op-portunity to see the program and note the absence of thetopic from the proposed discussion. This really wasn’t sounusual considering that despite the great gains our cam-pus has made towards using the Internet in instruction,mostly through individual instructor’s efforts, the effect ofthis instructional mode has not made its way into most cam-pus plans, practices, or procedures. Even while the Aca-demic Senate struggles with issues that relate to online in-struction, there have been only slight changes in the day-to-day operation of the departments and colleges regard-ing the phenomenon of Internet-based instruction.

An example that I can cite based on my own use of theInternet in my teaching includes the complete absence of acentrally coordinated Web-based source of detailed infor-mation regarding online courses for students who are curi-ous about the so-called “distance learning” courses shownin the catalog. Another example is the absence of spaceutilization planning, particularly computer laboratories,given the opportunities that exist for us to capitalize on theminimal onsite classroom needs of distance learningclasses.

I have been teaching (almost completely) online coursessince last summer and have had a few disconcerting expe-riences with university policies that do more to discouragethan encourage faculty from going online. For example,because we have not given any thought to developing in-stitutional policies and/or methodologies for “testing” stu-dents enrolled in online courses, as instructors our onlyrecourse, aside from trusting them completely, is to bringthem onto campus for term tests and for final exams.

Assessing OnlineInstruction

Sorel Reisman


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Dr. Blackburn has been Director Of Ad-missions And Records since 1986. He hasbeen a member of the Academic Senate andserved on theStandards and General Edu-

cation com-m i t t e e s .Blackburn’sp r i m a r yacademicareas of en-deavor arethe market-ing of highereducationand enroll-ment man-agement.

Professor Shapiro has documented andraised a challenging and important issue.The growing gap between male and femaleenrollment at Cal State Fullerton and else-where is a striking phenomenon. Why is

Reactions to “Are Male Students Now anUnderrepresented Minority at Cal State Fullerton?”

it that there six women to every four menenrolled at a comprehensive universitywhich is located in an area where womendo not decidedly outnumber men in thelarger society? As Shapiro as indicates,this growing gap is not unique to Fuller-ton. My “enrollment colleagues” aroundthe nation occasionally report being some-what confounded by the gender relatedenrollment shift that seems to have begunin the late 1970’s and continues.

At least one public selective universityattempted an intervention in the “gendergap” trend. Several years ago, the Uni-versity of Georgia engaged in an “affir-mative action” program wherein menwere admitted via different and arguablylower admissions standards. The threatof litigation brought that experiment insocial engineering to a halt. Women cur-rently make up just over 60% of the CalState Fullerton enrollment. Fifty-eight

Jim Blackburn

percent of the Fullerton undergraduatesare female. Among urban CSU cam-puses, only Hayward, Los Angeles, andDominguez Hills exceed Fullerton in thepercentage of female undergraduates.UC campuses report female majorities of51% - 57%, and there are several CSUcampuses which still report male majori-ties, e.g. San Luis Obispo and Pomona.

As reported by Mark Shapiro, the mereact of delving into the possible reasonsfor the relative decline of males amongthe student body often engenders “rathersharp responses.” The mere mention ofa concern for the shift can cause some totry to divert the issue to the long-stand-ing male imbalance among universityfaculty. Other critics suggest that thosewho even raise the issue are “closet malechauvinists.” There is no evidence thatthe limited presence of female professors


Are Male Students Now an UnderrepresentedMinority at Cal State Fullerton?

Mark H. Shapiro

Dr. Shapiro is professor and chair of thePhysics Department and a member of the

AcademicSenate.

In June, 2000I wrote anarticle formy onlinejournal ofcommentaryon educatione n t i t l e d ,“ W h e r eHave Allthe BoysG o n e ? ”

which examined the sharp decline in thepercentage of male high school studentsin the United States who enroll in college.

Nationwide the percentage of males amongall college students has declined to about 40%.

At the urging of the Sorel Reisman, theSenate Forum editor, I have expanded myoriginal article (http://members.home.net/mshapiro2/comments-6-30-00.htm) to in-clude a discussion of enrollment trends formale students here at Cal State Fullerton.

When it first came to my attention thatthe percentage of males enrolled at Ful-lerton had dropped to 40%, I thought thatthis was just a peculiarity of the particu-lar demographics of an urban, compre-hensive university that caters to studentsfrom low to moderate-income families -many of whom are older, returning stu-dents. However, last summer I attendeda meeting of the Council on Undergradu-

ate Research (a professional organizationthat attempts to encourage scientific re-search in predominantly undergraduateinstitutions of higher education). Dur-ing a lunchtime conversation with somephysics colleagues who mostly hailedfrom private liberal arts colleges, I wassurprised to find that the enrollments atthese institutions also were about 60%female and 40% male. A little furtherchecking revealed that the 60-40 ratioholds nationally with little variationacross all types of colleges and universi-ties. According to data collected by theNational Center for Education Statistics,the ratio is pretty much the same in pri-vate and public institutions, 2-year and 4-year colleges, and research universities.


5

Dr. Buck is a professor in the Department of Politi-cal Science, past Chair of the Academic Senate, and amember of the CSUF and Statewide Academic Senates.

For the past year I have been studying shared gover-nance in the CSU. This study was undertaken by theCSU Senate and the Chancellor’s Office because of theirjoint desire to explore ways in which system-wideshared governance might be made to work better.

It cannot be stated too often that both state law and trusteepolicy supports shared governance. The Higher Educa-tion Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA) states:

The Legislature recognizes that joint decision-making and consultationbetween administration and faculty for academic employees is the long-accepted manner of governing institutions of higher learning and is essen-tial to the performance of the educational missions of such institutions….

Trustee policy states:

It is the intention of the board tomaintain its efforts to promote col-legiality and to support the continu-ing efforts of the Academic Senateto preserve collegiality in the CSU.

A key element of this study is a surveyof faculty, administrators, and trustees inthe CSU in which respondents wereasked about the strengths and weaknessesof shared governance. While the focus ofthis study was on improving shared gov-ernance at the system level, much of whathas been learned is applicable to indi-vidual campuses, or wherever else sharedgovernance is practiced.

Shared governance: Who shares? Who governs?Vince Buck


Dr. Junn is the Director of the Faculty DevelopmentCenter and a member of the Academic Senate.

“The primary mission of the CSU centers on undergradu-ate teaching.” “Learning is preeminent at Cal State Ful-lerton.” Do these phrases sound familiar? What do theymean to you? When I first became Director of the Fac-ulty Development Center, I asked myself these questionsas I worked to develop and implement programs thatwould provide meaningful support to statements suchas these. I asked myself, what would a campus looklike if these statements were indeed true?

We currently have 877 full time faculty and another 1,102 part time faculty on ourcampus teaching over 28,000 students. Many of our colleagues across campus, whethernew or senior, are well known for their excellent teaching and their tireless dedica-tion and fondness for our students. So, how can CSUF and the FDC better support,recognize, and enhance teaching and learning for all our faculty?

I am very pleased to report that last year alone, over 600 faculty have taken advan-tage of or participated in one or more of the myriad programs, services, and re-sources we currently offer to support faculty in enhancing teaching and learning.Although the FDC is only three years old, we have begun to make significant progressin providing support for teaching and learning. Some of these programs and re-sources are listed below. Finally, as Director, I am constantly on the lookout for newideas and programs, so don’t hesitate to contact me if you have additional ideas orwould like to become more involved with our programs.

Toward Supporting Teaching and Learning at CSUFEllen Junn

Teaching and Learning Programs

Teaching and Learning CertificateProgram (TLAC)—A year-long seriesof 11 topical workshops on teaching andlearning issues that culminate in the TLAcertificate, with an emphasis either in Stu-dents and Student Learning, or Teachingand Technology. Last year, 42 facultyregistered for the certificate program and27 faculty completed the certificate in itsfirst year. This year, another 85 facultyregistered for TLAC.http://fdc.fullerton.edu/learning/TLAC/teaching_certificate00.htm.

Carnegie Scholarship of Teaching andLearning Program (CASTL)— CSUFjoined the CASTL program with 33Carnegie Faculty who have participatedin microteaching. See the article in thisissue of the Senate Forum. For a list ofthe Carnegie Faculty and more informa-tion, see:http://fdc.fullerton.edu/learning/CASTL/default.htm.


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Dr. Segal is a professor in the Depart-ment of Psychology and Director of theTwin Studies Center. She is a memberof the Faculty Mentor Program andhas served on the Humanities and So-cial Sciences Scholarship and AwardCommittee and Gerontology ProgramCouncil. Dr. Segal is the author ofEntwined Lives: Twins and What TheyTell Us About Human Behavior (2000)and senior editor of Uniting Psychol-ogy and Biology: Integrative Perspec-tives on Human Development.

I first became interested in twin studiesbecause I am a twin. My twin sister Anneand I are fraternal twins. We share onlyhalf our genes by descent, so we are re-lated genetically in the same way as or-dinary brothers and sisters. I was alwaysfascinated with the observation that welooked and behaved so differently despitebeing raised in the same home, attendedthe same school, and had many of thesame friends. As a small child I intuitedthat there must have been some very ba-sic differences between us, somethingthat we did not acquire from our envi-ronment. This was surely the source ofmy interest in nature-nurture questions,- i.e., how genes and experience interactto produce behavioral outcomes.

California State University works to in-sure that our students receive excellentclassroom and laboratory instruction.

Nancy Segal

Twins


About a year and a half ago, under the direction of Ellen Junn, the Faculty DevelopmentCenter launched its Teacher/Scholar in Residence Program (TSR). In this new pro-gram, one mid-career faculty member was selected from each of the seven colleges toserve a two-year appointment as Teacher-Scholars in Residence. As TSRs, experiencedfaculty worked on a project of their choice and advised the director of the Faculty De-velopment Center and the Vice President for Academic Affairs in developing additionalprograms to support teaching and learning. The founding TSRs selected were: AbelZeballos (ART), Eric Solberg (CBE), Shahin Ghazanshihi (ECS), Norm Page (COMM),Lynda Randall (HDCS), Kay Stanton (HSS), and Ken Goodhue-McWillams (NSM).

Microteaching. The TSR program officially began with participation in microteaching.The microteaching model was developed in the early and mid-1960s by Dwight Allenand his associates in the Stanford Teacher Education Program. The Stanford modelemphasized a teach, review and reflect, and re-teach approach using actual students. Asimilar model, called the Instructional Skills Workshop, was developed in the early1970s by British Columbia’s Education Ministry as a five-day training support programfor college faculty. While there are significant differences between the two models,they both attempt to enhance teaching effectiveness and to promote collegial discussionabout teaching performance. For our campus, the microteaching model was adapted asa one-day experience with each TSR presenting two, ten-minute micro lessons in astructured, collegial model.

Although many ideas were generated for the group project, the TSRs decided to focuson extending the micro lesson concept to CSUF faculty. With leadership from EllenJunn, the TSRs successfully applied for admission to the Carnegie Academy for theScholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) program. As a result, last Fall, theFDC recruited a total of 23 faculty volunteers to join our CASTL program to participatein a one-day microteaching event. Preliminary data were gathered regarding the par-

Norm Page and Eric Solberg

CSUF’S Carnegie Academy forthe Scholarship of Teaching

and Learning Program

Dr. Page isa Professorin the De-par tmentof SpeechCommuni-cation. In

addition to being a Teacher/Scholar inResidence, he is a member of the Aca-demic Senate and serves as the campusliaison for service-learning to the Col-lege of Communications .

Dr. Solberg is a Professor of Eco-nomics. He is currently serving asCoordinator of Gerontology Aca-demic Programs.


Photo by Michael Keel

7(Continued on page 9)

Mike Parker

Dr. Parker is Chief Information Technology Officer, anda member of the Academic Senate. Dr. Parker wishesto acknowledge the assistance of the following peoplein the preparation of this article: Dick Bednar, AmirDabirian, Susan Kachner, Susan Lasswell, ChrisManriquez, and Mike Marcinkevicz.

Six years ago Orange County was emerging from a bigslump, and Cal State Fullerton’s budget had yet to makea comeback. At that time there were fewer than 1000student workstations, and faculty and staff workstationswere a hodgepodge. There were no computing stan-dards, no help desk, and personal computer network-ing was terrible. Many workstations were out of dateand many staff and faculty had no workstation at all.

Productivity software (e.g. - Microsoft Office) was also a mishmash of releases froma variety of companies. Sending and translating files was an exasperating task ex-cept among some Mac users. But, because of the budget tragedy, some people feltthat President Gordon might not be able to fulfill his information technology (IT) visionof a common network with standard workstations and software for all faculty and staff,even extending into an expanded student computing laboratory resource.

Titan Technology 1995 to 2007

Jumping six years ahead to the present,we can say that the president’s vision wasachieved. This Spring the second com-puter rollout to faculty and staff will becompleted and we will have installedmore than 3000 computers (includingpart-time faculty and staff offices). Forstudents, we will have grown from 1000college lab workstations to almost 1500,and from 80 to 240 computers in TitanLab. We have now network accessspeeds 50 times faster than the 28Kmodem’s of the late ‘90s, and these canbe increased indefinitely as needed. Fiveyears ago the ISDN phone system re-placed the old dial tone system, and to-day we have a computer telephony inte-grated (CTI) system that includes ourcampus phone directory and enables di-rect phone dialing from our workstations.

Looking back, these changes occurred inonly six years. So it seems interesting toask what the campus information tech-nology capabilities will be like six yearsfrom now? Will we see great changesahead? What are the most likely techno-logical trends and where are they likelyto take us? We have come to terms withthe changes of the recent past; will newchanges be harder to live with? Severalof the IT staff got together recently tospeculate on answers to these questions.

Lets examine some general “surprise-free” changes expected by the computerindustry, and then in particular at how thework of students, staff, and faculty mightchange as a result. By 2007, the nextbatch of “old rollout computers” willhave been manufactured in 2004, and ourpresent “new 2001 models” will havebeen permanently retired. Personal com-puters will probably run, on average,about five times faster than they do to-day – perhaps with microprocessorspeeds of 5 GHz (Gigahertz). The bat-tery life of appliances and laptops (oreven tablet computers) will extend eas-ily through a long day because further

Colleen Wilkins is a Safety Officer forEnvironmental Health and InstructionalSafety and has held this position since1993. In addition to Occupational Safetyduties, she has been a committee mem-ber for a CSU systemwide EmergencyPreparedness Workshop for 5 years andis involved in the Orange County Emer-gency Management Organization. MsWilkins participated in the WASC ac-creditation and was a recent Titan Ex-cellence award winner.

“Ergonomics n pl: The applied scienceof equipment design in order to reduceoperator fatigue and discomfort(Webster’s II New College Dictionary,1995).” As this definition suggests equip-ment and tools should be designed withthe end user in mind, that each individualis built differently, and therefore requiresmodifications in design suited just forthem. Traditionally, industry has tried tofit the worker to the machine or the task.

Nomos Ergo – Painless Computing

Ergonomics is not a new-fangled 20th

century term. It is a Greek word for “thelaws (nomos) of work (ergo).” Sincehumans have been using tools they havehad to contend with the following ergo-nomic hazards:

• Repetition – repeating the same motionsevery few seconds, or steady use of adevice.

• Force – lifting more than 75 poundsat any one time, pushing or pulling withmore than 20 pounds of initial force.

• Awkward postures – repeatedly raisingor working with the hands above thehead or working with the back, neck,or wrists bent.

• Contact stress – using the hand or theknee as a hammer.

• Vibration – using equipment or toolsthat typically have high vibration levels;examples are chain saws, jackhammers,or percussive tools such as nail guns.

Colleen Wilkins


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Dr. Nanjundappa is a professorin the department of Sociology,and president of the CSUF chap-ter of the CFA.

There are several reasons part-time faculty should be includedon the Academic Senate at Cali-fornia State University, Fuller-ton. First among these is themaximization of quality educa-tion. To the extent the Senatemakes policy that influenceslearning in the classroom, ignor-

ing the input of more than half of the faculty results in thedelivery of a curriculum uninformed by part-time experienceand expertise. Can we assume part-time faculty have no con-tribution to make to the improvement of the university’s mis-sions and goals? The obvious answer is no.

Next is the issue of academic justice. Excluding a majority ofthe faculty from the decision-making process that affects thetreatment of part-timers runs counter to every democratic prin-ciple America has attempted to embody. Changing the SenateConstitution to allow part-time faculty representation does notmean proportional representation. However, such representa-tion would mean that the voice of part-time faculty would beheard in the Academic Senate, and their expertise and experi-ence could contribute to the shaping of university policy.Moreover, what kind of message do we send to the studentswhen they realize that it’s ok to exclude such a large percent-age of the faculty from faculty governance? Furthermore, ifadministrators and students have a right to Academic Senatemembership, and they should, what possible justification ex-ists to deny membership to part-time faculty?

The question of collegiality also needs to be raised. Part-timefaculty do not want to remain stealth professors, to be seenonly when entering and exiting, or heard only when in theclassroom. While some have demanding schedules that in-clude teaching on different campuses and others have non-teaching day jobs, most part-time faculty would welcome theopportunity to be received as both colleagues and contribu-tors to campus life. Many part-time faculty already performabove and beyond the requirements of their contracts by serv-ing on thesis or FMI committees, by publishing, by givingtalks at scholarly meetings or in the community, as well asfulfilling other tasks. As members of the Academic Senate,

Should Part-Time Faculty Serve on the Academic Senate?

If you support the importance and value of the tenure systemin higher education, then you must be against turning the re-sponsibilities of tenured faculty over to part time employees.As our economy continues to churn, the institution of tenurewill be increasingly threatened by the community at large, asan anachronism in a highly competitive labor market. Increas-ing the number and responsibilities of part time employeesneeded to “augment” the decreasing ranks of tenured facultywill eventually provide the opponents of tenure with the evi-dence they require to completely eliminate the tenure system.

According to the AAUP, 47% of all faculty are part-time;non-tenure-track positions of all types account for morethan half of all faculty appointments in American highereducation. This trend is likely to increase as administra-tors argue that there are not enough full time faculty todeal with the crush of Tidal Wave II students. Exacerbat-ing the pressure of sheer numbers in the CSU are trusteeswho demand that we grant more degrees to more studentsin shorter and shorter periods of time. Notably absent fromtheir list of demands is a requirement to improve or evenmaintain some degree of quality in what the institutionsare expected to do. The infrequent times that the qualitydoes get mentioned, it too is in terms of largely irrelevantnumerical measures that are more related to turning outdiplomas than to the quality of teaching and learning. Re-search is not even on their ‘radar screens.’

So what is our institutional response to this? Hire more parttimers. And let’s be honest, in strictly economic terms, thismakes a lot of sense for higher education which never gets thebudgetary allocations that we all feel it deserves. So increas-ingly, the institution has to do more with less. How? Throughthe employment of migrant labor. Sounds politically incor-rect, doesn’t it? But what else can you call a group of workersthat is often labeled “freeway fliers?”

When you consider that it costs the “system” at least$60,000/year including benefits for a new assistant pro-fessor, the math is simple. One tenure track assistant pro-fessor teaching 8 sections (6 is more likely), costs about$7500/section, - twice as much as the cost for a part timer.Examined another way, for the same money taxpayers canget twice as many sections taught by part timers as by ten-ure track faculty. And since we are primarily a teachinginstitution, it doesn’t matter to the System whether or notwe do research. It only matters to us, as we incestuouslygrant or deny tenure to one another.

YESG. Nanjundappa

NOSorel Reisman - Editor

(Continued on page 14) (Continued on page 14)

9

ticipants’ perceptions of themselves asteachers. Across the day, in groups of four,each participant delivered two micro les-sons, with structured feedback from theothers in the group facilitated by the TSRs.At the day’s end, Carnegie Faculty agreedoverwhelmingly that the experience was ex-cellent, enlightening, affirming, and signifi-cantly advanced our campus dialogue aboutthe value of teaching and learning. Althoughspace does not permit reporting of all of theresponses, the following excerpts are typical:

“I learned details about my teach-ing style that only colleaguescould bring to my attention”

- Mark Gillogly, Sociology.

“The microteaching experience isworthwhile because it creates colle-gial discussion and metacognitionabout the teaching/learning process.. . The program has touched me, andI have grown.”- Judy Smith, Special Education.

“The Carnegie program was es-pecially meaningful for me in that,within a non-threatening atmo-sphere, peers outside my disci-pline (just like non-major stu-dents) offered support, advice andreaffirmation. I had to be surethat I could reach people from avariety of backgrounds”

- Jack Bedell, Sociology.

“The CASTL experience was intel-lectually stimulating and veryworthwhile. To critique the lessonsof fellow faculty members in a con-structive manner, and to have myown lessons critiqued, opened thegroup up for discussion about thequalities inherent in good teaching.”

- Terry Saenz, Speech Communication.

Because of the success of our Fall, 2000CASTL Program, the FDC issued a sec-ond call for CASTL Faculty this Spring.On April 7, 2001, another group of 16 fac-ulty participated in microteaching andjoined as the newest group of CarnegieFaculty. Included in this group were some

who wanted to participate for a secondtime. Why? Because they felt that the firstexperience was so rewarding.

AAHE Presentation. Last month, EllenJunn and three of the TSRs were person-ally invited to present an account of ourcampus’ micro lesson experience at a spe-cial session of the AAHE conference, “Col-loquium on Campus Conversations” inWashington, D.C. CSUF was the onlyCSU invited to formally present at thisspecial pre-conference (currently, sevenother CSUs have joined the CASTL Pro-gram). The TSRs and Ellen Junn gave amultimedia, presentation entitled,“Microteaching as a Model for Promotingand Peer-evaluating Teaching Effective-ness.” Eric Solberg (Economics) and KayStanton (English and Comparative Litera-ture) demonstrated micro lessons, whileNorm Page (Speech Communication)served as facilitator. Although she wasunable to attend the conference, LyndaRandall (Secondary Education) contrib-uted substantially to the presentation.

The Future. All CSUF faculty, regard-less of experience, are invited to partici-pate in this exciting new program.Microteaching opportunities will be of-fered as part of our continuing CarnegieTeaching Academy Campus Program.Another call for interested faculty will oc-cur this August. In addition, our CarnegieProgram will be expanded to include notjust microteaching, but will also offer anumber of additional tracks. Watch theFDC website, email alerts, and flyers formore information later this summer.

As two of the founding Carnegie faculty,we can say that after certification, partici-pants will be able to state with pride: “Iam a better teacher because I am a mem-ber of the Carnegie Faculty at Cal StateFullerton.” They will become a part of thedeveloping culture of teaching and learn-ing at CSUF. We invite you to join us!

(Continued from page 6)

CSUF’S Carnegie Academy for the Scholarshipof Teaching and Learning Program

Titan Technology1995 to 2007

electronic miniaturization will enable de-vices to run with less power, and becausebattery technology is likely to improve.

Computer network bandwidth will be lessof a consideration in the future. Manyhome computers will have access tospeeds far beyond today’s modems. Otherappliances such as handheld computersand cellular phones will have morphedinto a new type of personal digital assis-tant. (These appliances will not have thebandwidth of “regular” computers, butthey will have some remarkable conve-niences such as speech recognition andtouch pads that will make it easy to con-trol them using voice commands.) Al-though software never keeps up withhardware, computer interfaces will beeasier to use, and the Internet will havebecome quite sophisticated. Not onlywill pages full of animation be common,but improved search engines will makeit easier to find what we want.

Users are likely to have customized“agents”— software that looks for thingsof special interest when the appliance isidle, and then provides them whenneeded. For example, airline flight chartsand ticket prices for frequent destinations,music downloads of favorite artists, topi-cal information about hobbies and inter-ests will all show up as readily as e-mailand phone calls do today.

The campus Web portal will not resemble theWeb pages of today. Currently, campus Webpages present all kinds of information to ev-ery user, and the experience is like trying todrink from a fire hydrant of information. Theportal of the future will automatically custom-ize itself to the particular needs of each user— whether faculty member, student, staffor community supporter.

Student Life

So what will the life of a student be likesix years hence? Imagine Soraya, a fresh-man who, like her friends, has had a spe-



10


TwinsThis goal places high demands on fac-ulty time and efforts. At the same time,it is possible to maintain an active re-search program that includes time formanuscript preparation and conferenceattendance. I have always found that re-search activities improve classroom in-struction by enhancing the meaningful-ness of the material. In other words, shar-ing research experiences with studentsacquaints them with the research processand expands their vision of academicopportunities following graduation. Stu-dents can make wonderful assistants andare always thrilled when their effortseventuate in co-authorships on papers andpresentations. Perhaps I have just beenlucky because twins appear to engage theinterests of everyone. Students may havetwins as relatives, may have twins asfriends, or may know twins from theirneighborhood. In addition, twins andtheir families have always been very will-ing research participants, often calling meto request being part of a project! Assuch, I have never lacked for assistanceor for subjects.

Twins offer scientists a naturally occur-ring research design for probing the ge-netic and environmental origins of intel-lectual traits, personality characteristics,and other features. I have also found thatbeing a twin helps to secure participantsbecause it establishes an instant rapportwith families.

My research program includes twin andadoption studies designed to address theunderpinnings of a range of human be-havioral and physical traits. Methods andconcepts drawn from behavioral-geneticand evolutionary psychological theoriesare applied in this work. Two studies arecurrently ongoing. The first is a study ofbereavement issues specific to survivingtwins and their families. Separate surveyscovering twin loss during childhood andadult years are distributed to participantswho come from the United States andabroad. The second study relies on aunique research design called “virtualtwins” (VTs). VTs are rare siblings that

are not genetically related, but resultwhen infants are simultaneously adoptedinto the same family or when familiesadopt an infant soon after delivering abiological child. A key benefit of usingVTs is that they offer a direct estimate ofthe extent to which shared family environ-ments affect human developmental traits.

Graduate students enrolled in my semi-nars are exposed to recent work concern-ing behavioral genetic and evolutionarypsychological analyses. Several studentshave gone on to complete MA papers thatapply these themes in various twin stud-ies. One such project involves the loss ofa twin. It seemed to me that that studyingbereavement in identical and fraternaltwins provided another approach to ques-tions surrounding genetic and environmen-tal influences on human social behavior.

I first began a twin loss study at the Uni-versity of Minnesota where I was a post-doctoral fellow and research associate,prior to coming to CSUF. A major find-ing is that surviving identical twins showhigher grief intensity than surviving fra-ternal twins, although there is clearlyoverlap. A second finding is that twins(regardless of twin type) experiencegreater grief intensity for their deceasedco-twins than they do for most other de-ceased relatives. One of my graduate stu-dents, Sarah Ream, found that the levelof grief intensity persists for longer peri-ods among surviving identical twins thanfraternal twins. Another graduate student,Lauren Sussman, is currently working ona thesis to compare bereaved identicaland fraternal twins’ responses to scaleson the Grief Experience Inventory. I havealso completed a paper (under review) oncoping with twin loss in conjunction withDr. Shelley Blozis, a former CSUF gradu-ate student and assistant professor at theUniversity of Texas, Austin.

An offshoot of twin research on bereave-ment has been my work on the geneticand environmental bases of suicidal be-haviors. I have found greater concordancefor suicide and suicidal attempts amongidentical than fraternal twins, consistentwith genetic influence. Subsequent stud-ies conducted with colleagues have re-

vealed that surviving identical twinswhose co-twins suicided show a greaterfrequency of suicidal attempts than sur-viving fraternal twins.

My work on twin relationships and twinloss has been applied in a variety of legaldecisions. I have served as an expert wit-ness on cases involving twins’ wrongfuldeath, injury and custody. The use of twinresearch findings in a legal context hasbeen fascinating, as well as controversial.This topic and others including ethics ofseparating conjoined twins, legalities oftwins’ classroom placement decisions,and implications of sexual reassignmentof an identical male twin will be dis-cussed at a symposium I am hosting atthe International Twin Congress, in Lon-don, June, 2001.

Twin research also addresses the psycho-logical and social circumstances raisedby the unusual family relationships re-sulting from assisted reproductive tech-nologies (ART) and those that could po-tentially arise from adult human cloning.I have considered these issues in an in-vited paper in Jurimetrics, a journal cov-ering issues involving law, science andtechnology. I was also fortunate to havehad the opportunity to share these ideaswith students and faculty at a ChapmanUniversity-sponsored conference held atCSUF on cloning in 1999, and anotheron the Human Genome Project sponsoredby students in the Psychology Department.

Another current research passion con-cerns social relatedness in identical andfraternal twins meeting for the first time.I am finding that these identical twinsexperience greater initial and currentcloseness and familiarity than do frater-nal twins. This is not surprising and, infact, mirrors what we know about rela-tions between twins raised together.However, to observe immediate rapportbetween people meeting for the first timeis striking. I believe it suggests new theo-ries about the basis and progress of otherhuman relationships. Specifically, mydata support research showing thatfriends and significant others do not be-come more similar with time; rather, their


11



A Funny Thing Happenedon the Way to the Forum.


article was two weeks late. I will missnot getting replies to emails and voicemessages from people whose promisedarticles were late. I will miss the terrorin their eyes that I see when they inad-vertently glance in my direction. And Iwill miss their creative stories about whytheir articles are not yet complete, but willbe in the email “by tomorrow.”

But really I will miss having the oppor-tunity to be the first one to read the ar-ticles when they finally arrive. And al-most without exception, they all do ar-rive. I have constantly been impressed atthe content and quality of the submis-sions, and how little editing I have to doto finalize them. This is in striking con-trast to those I receive as a reviewer ofpapers for the many international jour-nal editorial boards on which I serve. Butmost of all, I have always been surprisedat how interesting I have found every ar-ticle that I have received from our col-leagues at CSUF. Putting the Forum to-gether is a bit of a chore, but interactingwith all the contributors has been a won-derful experience, bringing me closer tomy colleagues in ways that would havebeen unimaginable to me before I had theposition. But make no mistake. I kind ofliked the fear-factor too!

___________

And finally, and really finally, ProfessorHarriet Brown is back, after almost 2years of absence from doing whateverHarriet does. It could be that this will bethe last time she contributes to the Fo-rum. On the other hand, it could be thatit won’t be. Who knows?

the notion of “deferred gratification.” Itis probably an accepted fact that today’steenagers and young adults are often notgiven to patient waiting for economicrewards. The traditional method for pur-suing a college degree was largely a mat-ter of deferring such immediate financialrewards as a job that provides disposableincome, in hopes of a better life later.Earlier generations of students livedrather modestly while attending college,and temporary genteel poverty was ac-cepted as a price for possible entry intothe middle class. It is possible that malesare less apt to defer economic gratifica-tion than their sisters. It is also possiblethat the higher paying “no college re-quired” jobs/careers are less available towomen than men. Despite a lot ofprogress, there are still more male thanfemale electricians, plumbers, “dotcom”workers and mechanics. [Editor’s note:Since this article was submitted, the num-ber of “dotcom” workers of any gendeshas decreased significantly!]

In any event, it is reasonable to picture ayoung man asking, “Why should I go tocollege for 5-6 years to become a teacheror civil servant when I can make as muchor more money by pursuing a trade anddo so much more quickly?” Males of mygeneration would have viewed that ques-tion as being somewhat rhetorical. Men,who did not go to college ran the risk ofbeing drafted and paid $85 a month tolearn a trade that might not have beenterribly marketable. The absence of con-scription and a robust economy provideoptions to young men (and women) thatwere not routinely available a few yearsago. Most importantly, it is the least“well-to-do” high school seniors who aremost likely to avoid college for economicreasons. Latinos and African–Americansare certainly over-represented among theleast affluent of southern Californians andthe Nation in general.

Possible causes related to academic/ad-missions policy. Non-economic causes

causes men not to enroll at a particularuniversity. As to the “male bias” chargementioned above, there is no reason tobelieve that being concerned that a cam-pus does not resemble the larger societyis evidence of some sort of unacceptablebias. If that were the case, those of uswho work for greater ethnic diversitywould have long since been justifiablylabeled as intellectual pariah.

Possible economic explanations. As issometimes the case in other endeavors,some of the possible answers to Shapiro’squestion may lie in the economics of thecurrent era. More than a few wealthy stu-dents attend Cal State Fullerton, but thecampus is to no small degree populatedby students, who come from the middleand lower socio-economic strata of south-ern California. This being the case, thecollege going patterns of CSUF studentsare likely to be impacted rather quicklyby changing economic circumstances,i.e.- the recent boom in the job market orthe recession of the early 1990’s.

It is possible that the fairly recent increasein Hispanic male/female gender gap issomewhat the result of the improvedeconomy of the late 1990’s. Since theFall of 1996 the number of enrolled fe-male Chicanos and other Hispanics at CalState Fullerton has increased at a rate thatis over three times that of the increase inmales who identify themselves as beingethnically Latino. There are several asyet unproven hypotheses for this “gen-der different” behavior. The improvedeconomy may have made it possible formore Hispanic women to attend college.The improved job market may also havedrawn more Latinos and others to thecurrently healthy job market, e.g. the con-struction trades. The economic tempta-tion of full time, high paying employmentmay cause young men to postpone oreven forego college attendance.

A related economically based possibleexplanation for the growing gender gapin the CSUF student body and others is

Reactions to “Are Male Students Now anUnderrepresented Minority at Cal State Fullerton?”

Reactions to “Are Male StudentsNow an Underrepresented Minority at Cal State Fullerton?”

for changes in the gender gap of CSUFstudents may include the much-publi-cized demise of affirmative action admis-sions at the University of California.Some Hispanic students may haveavoided local UC campuses and insteadattended Cal State Fullerton. The CSUadmissions standards make it possible fora student who has earned good highschool grades to be admitted regardlessof test scores, and it is no secret that fe-males often earn high school grades thatare higher than those of their male class-mates. It would be interesting to investi-gate UC enrollment patterns over the last15 years and determine if the same gen-der gap has existed and if the same trendhas been evident. It would also be inter-esting to know if the gender gap in highschool performance is related to familyincome, i.e. whether or not economicallydisadvantaged females perform decidedlybetter in high school than their male coun-terparts. Southern California Latino andAfrican- American families are more likelyto be poor than whites. So, the CSU’spolicy of admission based on high GPAmay facilitate the enrollment of femaleswho may perceive that they are now lessadmissible to the University of California.

At about the same time that the Univer-sity of California was retreating (or be-ing driven) from its long-term commit-ment to affirmative action admissions,California State University began seriousanti-remediation efforts. Under currentCSU policy, campuses are directed toblock the further enrollment of studentswho do not become remediated by theend of their first year of CSU enrollment.Early data have not yet been carefullystudied and reported, but it seems likelythat poor high school performance leadsto poor performance on placement testsand more need for remediation. Sincemales often earn lower grades in highschool, it is also possible that they do lesswell in the university’s remedial courses.The latter would of course lead to a higherrate of ineligibility due to not havingcompleted remediation requirements. Itseems obvious that more needs to be


12

known about this possible barrier to thecontinued enrollment of students. Doesthe CSU anti-remediation policy result inthe reduction of a disproportionate num-ber of males among enrolled students?

Possible explanation related to marketconditions. Knowing more about thegender gaps, if any, of competitor insti-tutions would be useful in our efforts tounderstanding the growing imbalance innumbers between men and women. Suchknowledge might make it possible to re-fute the following friendly suggestionthat it may be that well-qualified malecollege prospects are still drawn in dis-proportionately large numbers to thephysical sciences and engineering. If thatis the case, CSUF’s “market position”with regard to those curricula may be acause for the university’s increased gen-der gap. It is axiomatic that males havetraditionally been more likely to be sci-ence and engineering majors than fe-males. Cal State Fullerton has good andeven excellent offerings and track recordsin some areas of science, mathematics,and engineering. Unfortunately, theuniversity’s market share of studentsmajoring in those curricula may be smallwhen compared to the science and engi-neering market share of nearby universi-ties. Since 1996, CSUF enrollment inmathematics, science and engineering hasincreased less than most other segmentsof the university, but the male increasein those disciplines is greater than thefemale increase. It may be that increas-ing Fullerton’s market share of scienceand engineering students would help nar-row the gender gap.

It may be that Fullerton’s strong marketshare in business and economics (CBE)may have helped keep the male/femalebalance more nearly level. Historically,males tended to gravitate towards busi-ness or economics as majors. In recentyears, more females have chosen businessmajors. In 1996, there were 5% more menthan women in the College of Business andEconomics. Today, there are nearly 100more female CBE majors than male.

Cal State Fullerton’s market share in cur-ricula provided by the College of HumanDevelopment and Community Service(HDCS) has been on the rise. OverallHDCS’ enrollment has increased by al-most 50% since 1997, while total univer-sity headcount has increased about 18%.An unintended outcome of HDCS’growth is its impact upon the campusgender gap. HDCS is and has been about82% female, and this circumstance mustsurely impact the overall Cal State Ful-lerton gender gap.

Concluding Questions. In that I believethat Cal State Fullerton’s enrollmentshould “mirror” the communities that weserve, it would be well if achieve some-thing of a gender balance among the stu-dent body. If the current gender basedimbalance is due to a redistribution ofstudents among our curricula, the right-ing of the gender imbalance requiressome specific actions. As a university,we may want to attract more students(male and female) to the natural sciences,mathematics, engineering, etc. In doingso we might enroll more males and pro-duce more female scientists as well.

If it can be determined that males are sim-ply avoiding higher education and suf-fering economic or intellectual stagna-tion, then another course of action maybe indicated. The university should per-haps consider efforts to provide moremale role models and attract more mento less traditionally male disciplines andcareers, e.g. teaching, public service, etc.

We still do not know with any precisionhow the university became a place wherethere are 50% more women than men.Until we can answer that question, we areunlikely to know what the problem(s)may be and what the options for solutionmay be. It is, of course, possible that thereare no problems, but Professor Shapirohas done a good thing in drawing out at-tention to an important and long-termphenomenon.

Nonetheless – and quite astonishingly -last year, for the first time since recordshave been kept, our region had no healthadvisories or alerts. Although there werealmost 120 days above the State health-based ozone limit, there were nearlydouble that in 1976. Southern Californiahas made more progress over the past 20years than any other region in the coun-try. Moreover, of the 20 regions nation-ally that made the most progress, the topfive were all in California.

Does Clean Air Matter?The driving force has been public health.While we are often aware of poor vis-ibility that obscures our view of themountains, adverse health effects drovemost regulation. For fairly small – andcommonly experienced – concentrationsof ozone, respiratory-related school ab-senteeism rises more than 80%. Evenlow concentrations of fine particles con-tribute to higher death rates. Lead re-duces IQs in children. After decades ofsometimes-acrimonious debate aboutwhether pollution is harmful, we nowponder how much is harmful and whichpollutants pose the greatest risks.

As the air has gotten cleaner, the focushas shifted to the question of whethercontrols are “worth it” – what are the eco-nomic benefits of controlling pollution?Public health and economic benefits are,however, inseparable. It is the gains inhealth that generate the largest benefits.Certainly better visibility and protectionof sensitive ecosystems are also impor-tant, but health drives the economics.What benefits have those gains generated?(Inquiring politicians want to know.)

A decade ago we began transdisciplinarywork here and with colleagues at otheruniversities to answer the following ques-tion, “What would attaining the health-based standards be “worth” to SouthernCalifornia?” We began the work withsome trepidation. It was the messiest kindof public policy research, but the regionwas at a crossroad – further controls onpollution would be costly, and resistanceto additional regulation was emerging in

legislation and litigation. The answermight be important. Regulators were run-ning scared. The answer - $10 billion ayear – attracted some attention, to put itmildly. Was a sum this large credible?Consider that this reflects a time – thelate 1980s – when over 12 million peoplewere exposed to more than 200 days ayear when pollution levels were unhealth-ful. Health advisories ran well over 100days each year. In 1990, this resulted in1,600 premature deaths annually, andmillions of lost work or school days,along with a variety of other insults tohealth, such as eye irritation, sore throats,coughs and other respiratory ailments.

Since then we have done similar work inSan Francisco, San Diego and Houston.We’ve learned a lot – health science hasadvanced and we now know that fineparticles are about twice as dangerous asour Los Angeles work reflected. We cannow put dollars on even more health im-pacts, and our modeling approach hasbecome the state of the art. The Houstonwork completed in 1999 – indicatingmore than 400 excess deaths a year and adisproportionate impact on poor neigh-borhoods - pushed Texas to identifywhich controls would generate the great-est health benefit, relative to cost, and toadopt related regulations last April.

In short, no matter how you measure it,there are big benefits to cleaner air.

The Next Big QuestionThe major question now seems to be: arepollution regulations “economy killers?”Again, California provided the litmustest, and California universities – lead byCSUF – provided the answers. If wecould substantially cut pollution here –and ahead of the rest of the country – andhave economic growth that equalled orbettered the rest of the country, then theeconomic cost is clearly not ashowstopper. So, in 1995, members ofthe Institute for Economic and Environ-mental Studies – partnering with col-leagues elsewhere – set out to ask a newquestion: “What happened to the Cali-fornia economy from 1965-1990 as we

regulated vigorously and in advance ofthe country at large?”

The conclusion: in Southern California,incomes grew faster, manufacturing jobsheld up better, and even refiners, hit hard-est by regulation, had higher rates of re-turn here than in the U.S. overall. Jobs grewfaster. Hispanic incomes, in particular,grew faster here. Notably, the trend wasstronger in the 1980s when the extensiveregulations adopted in the late 1970s werekicking in, than in the 1970s. Economicwell-being and environmental improve-ment are complements, not substitutes.

How Did We Get Here?Put another way, why California? Theanswer is complicated, but it comes downto this: we wanted to and we could.Public support for figuring out what todo and then doing it has been consistent,as shown by every public opinion pollsince the 1960’s. Notably, the Los Ange-les Times has been behind the effort fromthe beginning, not only editorially, butalso in committing significant reportingresources to the task of learning about andwriting about smog and its consequences.Governors going back to Goody Knightand continuing (with some lapses, nota-bly under Reagan) to today have takentough stands, appointed able and resil-ient regulatory boards, and generallystayed the course. One essential factorin continued public support and politicalaction was a stream of university researchthat established how smog is created (youcan’t control it until you identify theculprit(s)), how it hurts us, how we canclean it up, and more recently, what thecosts and benefits of cleaner air might be.

Where Do We Go From Here?New cars today are 90% cleaner than 1980cars. Benzene is largely out of fuels. Newpower plants produce less than 1/20th thepollution of older ones. Diesel exhaust isfinally coming under control. Even char-coal for the backyard BBQ is cleaner.

The central issue now is what comes next?

Take a Deep Breath: It’s (Usually) OK; and University Research Helped Make that True

13



Do we have the political will to move for-ward, or will we sit down and rest on ourlaurels? Worse, will we backslide underpressure from Washington, rising energyprices and an economic downtown?

In spite of the unparalleled progress inCalifornia, and the significant improve-ments nationwide, there is still a lot to bedone. Southern California has over 100 daysa year of high ozone levels, and particle lev-els high enough to threaten life and health onalmost half of all days. We have hardly begunto deal with indoor air pollution which con-tributes more to daily exposure than out-door pollution for most people, and hasdevastating effects on the health of womenand children in developing countries.

Environmental justice – the idea that poorerfamilies and minorities should not sufferdisproportionate impacts from pollution –has recently become a significant focus.People living in the highest income areasexperienced lower ozone levels, and thepoorer areas with higher pollution levelswere also minority neighborhoods. Thispattern is consistently repeated in virtuallyevery study. This is an area ripe for further

work. Do we willfully pollute poorer ar-eas more, or do poor people move to pol-luted areas because the rents are lower?Either way, this is a serious equity issue.

The Essential LessonsCalifornia recognized early on that publichealth was at risk, and moved aggressivelyand effectively to reduce that risk. Whathappens next will depend on whether theState continues down the successful pathof the past 30 years. Especially at a timewhen a new federal administration seemsdetermined to sit down on the job,California’s leadership is crucial for thenation as well as the rest of the world.Enormous resources have been commit-ted in the past to persuading Californiapoliticians, regulators and researchers toback off. Fortunately, in most importantregards, these efforts have failed. They willonly continue to fail if we continue to in-vest in research and education, and if thepublic continues to be made aware of therisks posed by a polluted environment.

Universities have been central toCalifornia’s success because the workdone within them provides the technical

Take a Deep Breath: It’s (Usually) OK; and University Research Helped Make that True

basis to determine what to do, and at thesame time informs policy makers and thepublic about the trade-offs inherent incollective action mediated by govern-ment. Cleaner air is a graphic exampleof the importance of the kind of sustainedresearch that can be carried out in uni-versities, of how the ability to pursue thenext question and the one after that canmake a difference.

Ultimately, over time and after the dusthas settled, public will carries the day.We can look ahead to a time when theair is truly healthful, but only if wecontinue the state’s tradition of persis-tence in the face of naysayers. Thisrequires continued support of appliedresearch to inform sound policy deci-sions, and the able cadre of faculty andstudents at CSU and elsewhere whocarry out research directed at solvingCalifornia’s problems. It is also a re-minder that, whatever our field of in-quiry, there are important questionswaiting to be answered, and those an-swers will spawn yet more questions.That is the nature of scholarship andone of its joys.

14


they could provide service on one or more of its committees.As with full-time faculty, that part-time faculty who had thecommitment and the time would run for Senate office.

We need to realize, as well, that part-time faculty representa-tion on Academic Senates of other California State Universitycampuses already exists. The following campuses now havepart-time Academic Senators: Chico (2), Hayward (2),Humboldt (1), Long Beach (2), Maritime Academy (all fac-ulty are eligible to vote and serve), Monterey Bay (1), Pomona(1), Sacramento (4), San Diego (4), San Francisco (9), SanLuis Obispo (1). In addition, it should be also pointed out thatnumerous community colleges, such as Fullerton College, havepart-time representation on their Academic Senates. In otherwords, the concept of part-time faculty representation on fac-ulty governance organizations does not constitute a radicaldeparture for any institution of higher learning.

Should Part-Time Faculty Serve on the Academic Senate?

YES NO


So it appears that the battle for teaching positions has been lostalready, on the basis of economics alone. Now we are walkingdown another path that could potentially be the self-inflictedmortal blow for tenure. Now we talking about inviting our re-placements to serve on the governing bodies where we still havethe ability to influence some of the conditions of under whichwe are employed. And why are we doing this? Because many(most?) of us are too lazy to become involved in the ‘service’ activi-ties that would help rectify many institutional problems, includingthe problem that allows part timers to be hired in the first place.

The more we allow our responsibilities to be abrogated by the‘system,’ the sooner the institution of tenure will disappear. Andwhen it does, with the employment of day labor paid like oldstyle factory workers, on a piecework basis, higher educationwill become a mass production diploma mill devoid of the kindof quality assurance that tenure has historically provided.

cial “gadget” for the last two years, —an all-in-one cell phone, with a per-sonal organizer and a built-in Internetbrowser. It is still her favorite thing,even after two years of use. Becausethe gadget has AORTA (Always OnReal-Time Access) service, the gadgethelps her manage her social life. Sheand her friends have programmed it toidentify and locate each other whenthey are within a quarter mile of eachother. The gadget also locates restau-rants and shops that have things shewants. She simply gives it a voicecommand, and a moment later, optionsappear. She also downloads her favor-ite games, movies, and music, againwith a simple command. Soraya sawnothing special about the process,which, when she selected her classesfrom her gadget while she was at stu-dent orientation, caused a message toappear telling her that her textbookswere being bundled and that she couldpick them up at a special counter inTitan Shops or have them shipped tothe residence hall.

When she accesses Cal State Fullertonon the Web, she gets a customized pagethat focuses on the items newundergrads are likely to want to know,as well as on information about hermajor department. In Titan Orienta-tion she learned how to access manyother student services as well, gettinganswers to most of her questions byasking, and waiting for the answer tobe displayed on the gadget’s screen. (Itwas especially helpful the first weekof classes to be able to look at thescreen and see where she was on cam-pus and what direction to go to findher next class.)

Her parents gave her a debit card inhigh school, and now she has gradu-ated to the new TitanCard, which is herstudent ID as well as being a creditcard, controlled by her mom. But it ismore than that. It sends out a signalthat identifies her to automatic doors,Pepsi machines, book checkout in the

library, and TitanLab computers andprinters.

For some of her classes she brings herthree pound notebook computer anduses it to take notes, wirelessly accesshomework exercises, and do research.At $350 it was too expensive for herallowance, but her parents decided togive it as an early birthday present.She especially enjoys the 3-D appear-ance of the screen and the way she canwirelessly send and receive files withher gadget.

She takes for granted that when she en-ters a department office to get help, thestaff immediately accesses the forms,files, or records needed to help her ap-ply for scholarships, change majors,add or drop classes, make a health cen-ter appointment, or see her advisor.

Improvements for Staff

Most staff take this kind of automationfor granted too. Mr. Winters, a creden-tial analyst, just received a list of fresh-man who, like Soraya, indicated an in-terest in becoming a teacher. Mr.Winter’s desktop PC provides assis-tance that would have seemed prepos-terous a few years ago. When he typeshis password in the morning, a highlycustomized Web page appears on thescreen. It displays the services he usesmost, and brings them to the screen ata single click or voice command. Hehas almost no paper records, forms, ordocuments—just an occasional letteror advertising flyer. His desktop actslike an in-basket, displaying a seriesof things he has to do, automaticallyrouting them to the next appropriatestaff member, supervisor, or studentwhile also saving everything in an eas-ily indexed filing system.

Voice commands bring procedures,manuals, and other needed informationto separate screen windows almost in-stantly. The university master calen-dar notifies him of a training session

and a campus event he might like toattend. The results of needed campusresearch are just a click away, too.Analytical Studies has organized creden-tial data for many years, but now, insteadof having to make a request for informa-tion, everything is provided on line.

Improvements for Faculty

The life of the faculty member will alsobe more convenient. Instructors will usea desktop, laptop, or a tablet computerto automatically connect to a computer/projector when they enter a classroom,bringing to the screen selected files, in-cluding full motion video and the resultsof Internet searches. Voice-to-text aswell as voice commands will make dic-tating and accessing files a breeze. Au-tomated and instant access to studentinformation and other campus docu-ments such as UPS documents, travelforms, and perhaps the online creationof RTP documents will be common.

Faculty who wish to build onlinecourse modules or even whole courseswill find it easier as well. Workingwith the Faculty Development and Dis-tance Learning Center, they will findvirtual application production servicesat their disposal. For example, a mu-sic instructor might create a simulationshowing how Richard Straus, J.S. Bachand George Gershwin might have or-chestrated a theme differently, while achemistry professor might model a se-ries of processes both mathematicallyand visually. An art history professormay be able to instantly find “slides”of any grouping of works, and be ableto zoom in on realistic details as well.

In short, the next six years may well holdmore technology surprises than we haveseen in the last six. And many com-monplace capabilities of 2007 are unan-ticipated in 2001. Some of the capabili-ties envisioned above may not happen,and some that have not been envisionedsurely will. It will be an exciting time.

Titan Technology 1995 to 2007(Continued from page 9)

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Every year most departments in the CSUutilize a tremendous amount of resourcesto carry out their recruitment process.The process is expensive and time con-suming. Towards the end of this process,the top candidates are selected and invitedto the campus for closer observation.Once the candidate meets all the neces-sary requirements the negotiation will be-gin to finalize the offer of employment.Given the CSU salary structure, we areoften unable to attract top candidateswhere they are able to receive up to 25%more salary with a considerably lowercost of living elsewhere.

The faculty in the CSU are aging. Theaverage age of a full time faculty memberin the CSU is currently 51. System-wide,during Fall 1999 over 59% of our full-timefaculty were over the age of 50 and 17.8%were over the age of 60. The average re-tirement age in the CSU system has beenapproximately 63, but with changes in thePERS retirement formula we may see areduction in this age. Overall we shouldsee an acceleration of retirement over theupcoming decade, with more than a thirdof the CSU faculty likely to retire.

At the same time, increasing studentnumbers will necessitate a major expan-sion in the number of faculty. Projectingfrom 1988 to 2010, CPEC predicts a 37%increase in CSU student enrollment, asurge of some 130,000 additional stu-dents, from 349,804 students in 1998 tonearly 480,000 in 2010. During the samedecade, it may be necessary to hire asmany as 14,000 new faculty members inthe CSU: 7,000 to maintain current stu-dent-faculty ratios in the face of a 37%increase in the number of students, andanother 7,000 to replace those who re-tire. If current student faculty ratios areto be reduced, even more hiring will benecessary. The CSU hires tenure and ten-ure track faculty from a national pool, andtherefore faces serious competition forthese new faculty members. The CSUfaces serious constraints on its ability torecruit and retain a faculty of high qual-ity during the coming decade because of:

The Never Ending Gap • The serious and continuing lag ofCSU salaries behind those ofcomparable institutions.

• The expectation of considerablyhigher teaching loads in theCSU than in comparable institutions.

• Extraordinary high housing costs insome parts of California

• Inadequate support for faculty research,scholarship, and creative activity.

If higher education in California and par-ticularly in the CSU is going to maintainfaculty in sufficient numbers to educate theincreased enrollment of students, conductscholarly research, expand the knowledgebase critical to our fields, and conduct theacademic and shared governance work thatis the responsibility of the faculty, signifi-cant changes in institutional resources andfaculty support are clearly necessary.

Greatly increased salaries and expandedfringe benefits such as health and grouplife insurance, leaves, and travel funds toattend professional meetings, housing,parking and moving expenses, must beprovided for faculty members in order tomake college and university teaching at-tractive as compared with business andindustry.

In order to recruit and retain a faculty ofhigh quality, the CSU needs to:

• Improve salaries to be equivalentto those of comparable institutions.

• Improve support for facultyresearch, scholarship, and creativework, including a redefinition ofworkload in support of suchactivities.

• Improve health coverage to takeeffect immediately upon takingon employment.

• Improve family leave to make itcompetitive with that in comparableinstitutions.

• Subsidize housing.• Increase financial assistance with

relocation expenses.• Increase financial assistance to

departments for expenses incurredin the hiring process.


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Editorial/Production Team

Editor-in-Chief:Sorel Reisman,Management Science/Information Systems

Design and Production:Kelly DonovanFaculty Development Center

Photographs:Michael RileyDistance Education

Production Director:Erika BakkenAcademic Senate

Production Assistant:Marilyn MillerAcademic Senate

Editor at Large:Harriet Brown

Editorial Board Members

Jane HallEditorial Confidante - Economics

Edgar TrotterEditor Without Concern - Communications

Vince BuckEditorial Critic - Political Science

Sandra SutphenShadow Secretary - Political Science

Curtis SwansonEditor of Propaganda -Foreign Languages

forumTHE SENATE

In the long run, the quality of higher edu-cation will be threatened by these con-straints. Despite the claims made by CSUto close the gap with a combination ofgeneral salary increase and merit pay, thegap still remains and will tend to becomelarger in the future. This problem is realand can be easily verified by comparingsalaries within CSU and other compa-rable institutions. Thus, we should takethe politics out and concentrate on theproblem in hand.

Our work also included the centralizationof the budget and human resources func-tions across the division, and the develop-ment of a new, comprehensive judicial af-fairs program focused on academic integ-rity. A continued focus on collaborationwith departments and divisions across thecampus has resulted in the opening of anew Honors and Scholars Support Servicesoffice and a record number of enrolled stu-dents for the fall semester each of the lastthree years. Student Affairs has also beengiven the opportunity to welcome the De-partment of Athletics, which joined the di-vision on July 1, 1999.

Senate Forum: IN YOUR PERCEP-TION, WHAT ARE THE PRIMARYROLES OF STUDENT AFFAIRS ON ACOLLEGE CAMPUS?

V.P. Palmer: Student Affairs operationsvary in size and complexity based on thehistory, traditions, mission, and size of theinstitution. Generally speaking, the mis-sion of Student Affairs encompasses thedual paradigms of student services and stu-dent development. Student services ad-dress the programs and activities that sup-port the academic enterprise, and studentdevelopment involves those interpersonaland affective strategies through which stu-dents learn. Student services and studentdevelopment, when properly designed tocorrespond with the institution’s missionand goals, reinforce and extend theuniversity’s influence beyond the class-room. As a result, these experiences andopportunities become an integral part ofthe educational process for students.

With a diverse and comprehensive set ofresponsibilities, the Division of StudentAffairs here at CSUF contributes to thecampus community a special perspectiveabout students, their experiences, and thecampus environment.

As a resource for students, administra-tion, faculty, staff, alumni, and thebroader community, Student Affairs pro-vides a wide variety of services whichinclude problem solving, research assis-tance and consultation.

An Interview with Dr. Robert Palmer, Vice President of Student Services

Senate Forum: HOW IMPORTANT IS ITFOR THE DIVISIONS OF STUDENTAFFAIRS AND ACADEMIC AFFAIRSTO WORK TOGETHER IN A COL-LABORATIVE WAY? WHY?

V.P. Palmer: It is extremely important forStudent Affairs and Academic Affairs to worktogether. Institutions of higher education havetraditionally organized their activities intoacademic affairs, which deals with cognitivedevelopment through the curriculum, library,classrooms, and labs. Student Affairs usesthe co-curriculum and student activities toaddress personal development.

The truth of the matter is that cognitivedevelopment and personal developmentare interlocked. Preparing students to beproductive, contributing members of so-ciety requires that they develop both cog-nitive and affective skills. In fact, it is dif-ficult to classify many important life skills,such as leadership, creativity, citizenship,ethical behavior, or self-understanding, aseither cognitive or affective.

Student Affairs professionals are workingwith appropriate academic affairs person-nel to make seamless the inside and out-side class activities of students. We areworking to bridge organizational bound-aries and forging collaborative partnershipswith faculty and others to enhance studentlearning. The work of the assistant deansfor student affairs in the various colleges,the Fullerton First Year Program, and theinterface of Career Planning and Placementwith academic departments, are a few ex-amples of collaboration between academicand student affairs. I think these thingscan happen because of the good relation-ship that I enjoy with the Vice Presidentfor Academic Affairs and the academic deans,and because of the excellent work our staffdoes at reaching across divisional borders.

Senate Forum: CSUF HAS BECOMEQUITE ADVANCED IN TERMS OF ITSTECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE.HOW IS STUDENT AFFAIRS TAKING AD-VANTAGE OF THIS IN ORDER TO PRO-VIDE MORE AND BETTER SERVICES TOOUR STUDENTS?

V.P. Palmer: Student Affairs has takenadvantage of the technology more or lessin every single unit. The University Learn-ing Center and Career Planning and Place-ment might be worth mentioning here.

The Career Planning and Placement Centerhas created a job posting system in which over8,500 students have registered. About 30%of our approximately 8,000 seniors have reg-istered on this system. The system allowsstudents to check job postings and submit re-sumes to employers electronically in a pass-word-protected environment anywhere theyhave Internet access. It also allows us to sendpersonalized messages to groups of studentsto alert them to relevant career programs andspeakers, or to remind them about criticaldeadlines for particular employers. In this wayit helps us deliver a more personalized ser-vice, which has also increased demand forface to face career counseling. It is reward-ing to see how students have responded tothese messages with both expressions of ap-preciation and extensive questions concern-ing their individual career issues.

At the University Learning Center we havebecome part of the technology infrastructure,adding our own server to the University, pro-viding students with up-to-date computers onwhich to work and to access the Internet andwith tutors who can help students establishand increase their computer literacy skills.Recently, we have used the infrastructure toprovide on-line tutoring to business studentsat our Mission Viejo campus. UsingNetMeeting and a computer camera, we canoffer one-on-one, real-time tutorials to thesestudents. We plan to expand this service,making on-line tutorials available to studentsacross campus. Finally, we have an always-expanding Web site through which studentscan learn about our facility and reach a vari-ety of links, many of which are aimed at as-sisting with spoken and written English.

Senate Forum: THERE HAS BEEN TALKAND INTEREST ABOUT PROVIDINGOUR STUDENTS WITH FINANCIAL AS-SISTANCE OR FAVORABLE PURCHASEPLANS FOR COMPUTERS. ARE YOU


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INVOLVED WITH THESE ACTIVITIES,AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTSABOUT SUCH INITIATIVES?

V.P. Palmer: I have been approached by theleaders of Associated Students about the pos-sibility of working together on a laptop lend-ing program. I support any efforts to provideaccessible technology hardware and softwareto our students, particularly because a num-ber of them find it challenging to afford thelatest technology on their own. I know thatthe leaders of Associated Students are look-ing into the lending program and will be bring-ing forward a proposal for us to discuss. Asfor other initiatives regarding financial assis-tance for students wishing to purchase com-puters, I am not aware of such initiatives butwould be more than willing to discuss such aplan with anyone who might be interested. Iwant to explore any possibility of providingaccessible technology to our students, as thereis clearly a need for such resources.

Senate Forum: WHAT DO YOU THINK ARETHE THREE BIGGEST CHALLENGESFACING TODAY’S COLLEGE STUDENT?HOW CAN THE UNIVERSITY HELP ASTUDENT MEET THESE CHALLENGES?

V.P. Palmer: The biggest challenge for stu-dents is getting it all done: balancingschool, work, community, family, intern-ships, leadership opportunities, and co-curricular activities. Yet we know that stu-dents who get involved in a broad rangeof opportunities while a student get the fullvalue of what we offer at Cal State Fullerton.

The professional work environments towhich our students aspire are changing atan accelerated pace as technology and glo-balization require more advanced skills toremain competitive. Students need tomake a more extensive investment thanjust the minimum required for graduationto become confident leaders, while devel-oping the technological, analytical, andinterpersonal skills required of professionals.

For example, opportunities such as intern-ships, leading a student organization, in-tercollegiate athletics, or community ser-vice often are cited as the highlight of an


undergraduate education when conversingwith successful alumni. Employers areconstantly seeking such experiences asthey look for future leaders in their orga-nizations. With so many competing de-mands for their time, it is essential that wehelp students take advantage of these manyexciting opportunities to learn and lead inthe rich multicultural environment the Uni-versity provides – both inside and outsideof the classroom. Supporting students tomake this valuable long-term investmentwhen there are so many attractive short-term alternatives is one of our major chal-lenges and responsibilities.

Senate Forum: IF YOU WERE TO OB-JECTIVELY RATE THE DIVISION OFSTUDENT AFFAIRS AT CAL STATEFULLERTON, WHAT GRADE WOULDYOU GIVE? WHY?

V.P. Palmer: I would give the Division ofStudent Affairs a “B+” at this stage of ourevolution, but if you allowed extra for greatinnovation and creativity this grade wouldbe an “A.” We are not where I know wecan be, but we are a lot further along thenwe were three years ago, at that time Iwould have given us a “C-.”

We have always had outstanding profes-sional and support staff, but efforts of thedivision in the past were fragmented. Weare improving as a Division because wehave learned to work together in a spirit ofcooperation and collaboration, thereby cre-ating a synergism among and between thevarious units within the division.

I am proud to be working with a group ofpeople who are extremely dedicated to thetask of serving students and I appreciatethe excellent contributions made by theDirectors and staff in each department. Ibelieve that the Division of Student Affairsat Cal State Fullerton is among the best inproviding quality student services, excel-lent educational programs, and innovativeapproaches to meet the needs of students.Our people are clearly our greatest asset.

Senate Forum: LAST JULY, YOU WEREASKED TO OVERSEE INTERCOLLE-

GIATE ATHLETICS ON OUR CAM-PUS. WHAT HAVE BEEN THE AC-COMPLISHMENTS AND THE CHAL-LENGES FOR OUR ATHLETICS DE-PARTMENT HERE AT CSUF?

V.P. Palmer: Intercollegiate Athletics cancontribute a great deal to the nature andquality of campus life, not only for the stu-dent athlete, but the whole campus. Bydeveloping teams that are competitive inour conference (Big West), we can helpenhance the image of CSUF both locallyand nationally. Further, we can developgreater pride and involvement among theUniversity’s students, faculty, staff, alumni,and community members. Over the lastyear or so we have had significant success.In 1999-2000 the men’s baseball andwomen’s softball teams won conferencechampionships and advanced to the NCAAplayoffs. The baseball team hosted its in-augural NCAA Regional and advanced tothe finals, while the softball team traveledto the NCAA Regional at Fresno. CSUFsent four individuals to the NCAA Wres-tling finals in St. Louis and three women’sgymnasts participated in the NCAA Re-gional. This year the entire gymnast teamwill compete in the NCAA national cham-pionship. The 2000 national rank men’ssoccer team won the divisional champion-ship and advanced to the NCAA tournament.

Not only are we becoming more competi-tive but we are also proud of the academicimprovement of our athletes. The NCAA’s1999-2000 published graduation rate forall CSUF student athletes was more thandouble the 1998-99 rate; more studentswere involved in the NCAA Life Skills Pro-gram; and there were increased opportunitiesfor academic mentoring for student-athletes.

We have made great strides in improving ourfacilities. The baseball and softball stadiumimprovements are nearing completion and therenovation of the Titan House for AthleticAdministration offices has been completed.

We are committed to building a first-rateintercollegiate athletic program. I think a


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university that aspires to be among the bestcomprehensive universities in the countrydeserves nothing less.

Senate Forum: HOW DOES THEPROGRAMS AND SERVICES THATSTUDENT AFFAIRS PROVIDES FITINTO THE MISSION OF CAL STATEFULLERTON, WHERE “LEARNINGIS PREEMINENT?”

V.P. Palmer: The Academic Mission ofCSUF is, of course, preeminent. Weknow that colleges and universities or-ganize their primary activities around theacademic experience: the curriculum, thelibrary, the classroom, the studio, and thelaboratory. The work of Student Affairsshould not compete with and cannot sub-stitute for that academic experience. Asa partner in the educational enterprise,we enhance and support institutional pro-ductivity in learning. Therefore, whatand how much students learn must alsobe the criteria by which the value of stu-dent affairs is judged, (as contrasted withnumbers of programs offered or clientsserved). Our mission complements theUniversity’s mission, with the enhance-ment of student learning and personaldevelopment being the primary goal.

We try to function in ways that recog-nize that students benefit from many andvaried experiences during their years atthe University and that learning and per-sonal development are cumulative, mu-tually shaping processes that occur overan extended period of time in many dif-ferent settings. The better the balancebetween curriculum and co-curriculum,the more students gain. Student involve-ment in clubs and organizations, Greeklife, athletics, student government, andother co-curriculum activities contributeto their learning experience.

Senate Forum: IF YOU WERE ASKED TOLOOK DOWN THE ROAD FOR THENEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS FORSTUDENT AFFAIRS, WHAT DO YOUSEE AS ACCOMPLISHMENTS ANDCHALLENGES?


V.P. Palmer: While we have accomplisheda lot in the three and a half years I havebeen on campus, we still have goals toachieve. There are areas in Student Af-fairs that we have identified as targets forattention and focus. We want to continueto build on our first rate University Learn-ing Center, a place where any student cancome to get tutoring and learning assistancein writing skills, mathematics, and othersubjects with which they may be having aproblem. Since opening our new center inMcCarthy Hall 66, we have had a tremen-dous response from students, faculty andstaff. The University Learning Center willneed to continue to grow to meet the de-mand for service.

Another department in Student Affairs thathas seen a lot of growth in the past year isthe Career Planning and Placement Cen-ter. Student and alumni needs for careerplanning and job placement services con-tinues to be a high priority for us, as isworking with each college dean to meetthe needs of specific majors.

In terms of co-curricular learning, StudentAffairs will be emphasizing leadershiptraining and development in the next fiveyears. We have opened a new MulticulturalLeadership Center, a service area that willnot only provide support for our many cul-turally related student organizations, butwill also be a hub for multicultural leader-ship skills-building. The MulticulturalLeadership Center is one part of our newumbrella program, the Student LeadershipCenter. The Student Leadership Centerwill oversee the Student Leadership Insti-tute, a Leadership Resources Library, aLeadership Speaker Series, as well as theMulticultural Leadership Center. The de-velopment of these programs will takededication, creativity and resources. Weare working with the newly formed StudentLeadership Center Council, a group of localand regional business and community lead-ers and alumni, to help guide the vision forthe Student Leadership Center programs.

In the next five years, Student Affairs willcontinue to work diligently to partner withAcademic Affairs through myriad pro-

grams. We already have very good work-ing relationships with programs such as theHonors and Scholars Center, the AssistantDeans program, Fullerton First Year, com-munity service/service learning, and pro-grams for first year students. I believe weat Cal State Fullerton have a uniquelystrong working relationship between Aca-demic and Student Affairs and I want tocontinue to work very closely with the VicePresident for Academic Affairs to furtherstrengthen these close ties.

Finally, two areas in which we have madesome small inroads and want to continueour progress are Student Affairsfundraising and development, and build-ing up the Student Affairs Research Cen-ter. In order to accomplish some of ourgoals related to leadership developmentand in other areas, we will need to createand implement a fundraising and develop-ment agenda. We will work closely withour Division of University Advancementand with our staff to establish priorities forfundraising, and we will need to be cre-ative in our approach. The Student AffairsResearch Center has been in existence forabout two years and has produced someexcellent reports on research findings re-lated to the CSUF student. We will needto move ahead in creating a researchagenda within Student Affairs, find waysto do some common student satisfactionassessment across departments, and establishmethods to assess learning outcomes of stu-dents involved in Student Affairs programs.

I truly believe that the Division of StudentAffairs at Cal State Fullerton is doing veryinnovative work in the field of student af-fairs, and employs one of the finest groupsof professionals I have had the pleasure ofworking with. We are dedicated to pro-viding the student services that allow stu-dents to persist towards the completion oftheir degree, and to creating unique learn-ing opportunities through our student de-velopment programs. We are proud to con-tribute to the excellent learning environ-ment here at Cal State Fullerton.

Senate Forum: THANK YOU.

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Assessing Assessment – An Iconoclast’s ViewThe Chancellor and Trustees demand thatwe be “accountable,” and they have de-fined the accounting categories. It is de-moralizing to scan these and find virtu-ally no references to quality – for thatmatter, even to “learning.” Thankfully,the Trustees’ directives leave it to aca-demic departments to establish individualassessment plans; ominously, however,all indicators suggest that the preferredmodel for assessment is “bean-counting.”

I find NSF’s efforts to assess its REU (Re-search Experience for Undergraduates) tobe illuminating. The clearly-stated goalof this program is to increase the numberof students who enter research careers inscience. It would seem to be obvious howto assess a program with such a clear,simple goal: Count how many partici-pants enter research careers in science.As a control, determine how many non-participants with otherwise similar back-grounds enter research careers in science.

Obvious, - yes; easy to do, - no. REU is,like virtually everything else we do inhigher education, a value-added enter-prise. Perhaps those who participate inthis program are those who are alreadyon their ways to research careers, so theprogram adds nothing. Thus, countingalone is insufficient; former participantsmust be surveyed to determine what ef-fect, if any, participation in the programhad on their career choices. Thus assess-ment becomes complicated and expen-sive to do right. Neither NSF nor theparticipating universities is willing to in-vest the time and money for such a study.

NSF administrators, like administratorseverywhere, believe that flawed assess-ment data are better than no data at all.Their bosses (the US Congress), likebosses everywhere, demand accountabil-ity. Faculty participants in their pro-grams, like faculty everywhere, try to beaccommodating and look for things tocount. In the case of this training pro-gram, the easiest thing to count seems tobe research output as measured by pub-lications. Thus, a strong thread in the fab-ric of reviews of REU programs on indi-vidual campuses is the publication recordof faculty and participants in the programs.

This reminds me of an old story about adrunk on his hands and knees under alamppost. A cop pulls up and asks himwhat he’s doing. “I’ve lost my keys, of-ficer, and I’m looking for them.” “Didyou lose them right here?” “No, I think Ilost them on the other side of the street.”“Then why are you looking for themhere?” “Because the light’s much betterhere under the lamppost.”

Like the drunk, NSF and its faculty re-viewers lose track of their goal and endup looking in the wrong places. The“light” cast by the professional literaturemesmerizes us into thinking that stacksof publications are good for measuringlots of things. For a program that seeksto get undergraduates excited about sci-ence, publications are not only irrelevantbut may actually be negatively correlatedwith success. “Publish or perish” is aspecter that haunts young faculty; extend-ing it to undergraduates may well drivethem away from research careers.

The problems inherent in assessing theNSF-REU programs also confront theassessment of undergraduate and gradu-ate degree programs. Valid assessmentwould have to be longitudinal, wouldhave to involve appropriate controlgroups, and would have to measure the“value-added” quality of baccalaureateeducation. Indeed, the problems are ex-acerbated by the broader scopes of ourmissions. NSF cannot assess well a pro-gram that has a single, well-defined goal.How, then, can we hope to assess programswith multiple goals and with differencesof opinion among various stakeholders?

Confronted by such a daunting task, weadopt the drunk’s tactic, deciding to mea-sure what we can without regard to its’appropriateness. A particularly stark ex-ample is an assessment plan developedby my Chemistry colleagues at a sisterCSU campus. They have set “targets”for success in each course and will as-sess their program by comparing actualstudent “performance” against those tar-gets. For example, they expect 80% ofthe students in their Analytical Chemis-try course to receive grades of C or bet-ter. Never mind that this hardly measures

anything relevant to the department’smission, and never mind that such tar-gets generate pressure to “dumb down”the course to ensure “success.” They canmeasure this, so it must be good assess-ment. Frighteningly, the authorities aredelighted with this approach, touting it asa model for assessment. Instead of exhort-ing the drunk to look for his keys where helost them, the cop agrees that lookingwhere the light is good is the best strategy.

Our Chancellor, Trustees, and (so theytell us, at least,) the California Legisla-ture demand “accountability,” which en-tails assessment. Besides, legitimate as-sessment informs us of our strengths andweaknesses and helps us to improve ourprograms. Why not, then, assess by vari-ous means of counting? Because count-ing the wrong things is worse than noassessment at all, and most (if not all) ofthe measures that are easy to accomplishare the wrong things to use for assessment.

It is relatively easy to outline an appro-priate assessment strategy. First, we needto identify those outcomes that we valuemost highly. Second, we need to have arobust database of alumni whom we canquery about their educational experienceat Fullerton. Third, we need to designsurvey instruments that will encouragealumni to respond and will yield infor-mation about the qualities of our pro-grams. Fourth, we need to allocateenough resources to permit meaningfulanalysis of the results.

Do we have the will and resources toadopt such an assessment strategy? Mydepartment has made a modest start bytrying to establish contacts with ouralumni, through a survey and newsletter.This was a major undertaking, takingover a year of effort involving two stu-dent assistants. So far it is only margin-ally successful and has not addressed as-sessment. Moreover, if we are to do as-sessment “right,” we will need expertassistance, and it’s not clear where wecould find such expertise, or at what cost.

Aw, shucks. I think I’ll just look underthe nearest lamppost; after all, it’s mucheasier.


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Assessing Online InstructionAnother example concerns the popular-ity surveys (which we euphemisticallycall “course evaluations”) that we con-duct a week or two before final exams.If we want to conduct evaluation sessionsas we normally do, we must ask distancelearning students to travel to campus forthis 5-10 minute exercise. Alternatively,since we know they will be on-campusfor their final exam the following week,we can precede the final with the courseevaluation. While the former strategy isnot going to endear us to our students, itis guaranteed that the latter can do noth-ing but skew the popularity ratings nega-tively away from what they would other-wise be. After all, ask yourself, when youwere a student, what did you think aboutyour instructors or your courses 10 min-utes before your final exams?

Separate from these issues is the natureof the questions themselves. While ev-ery department has the freedom to con-struct its own questions, it is almost acertainty that virtually every popularitysurvey asks questions based on the ac-tual presence of the instructor in front ofthe class. Questions such as, “Did yourinstructor dress in a way that made youappreciate MTV performers” have norelevance to the online teaching model.This too struck home to me when I re-viewed the results of the survey done ofmy popularity in my first online classes.To be honest, the mean of the scores ofthe irrelevant questions on that surveywas almost identical to that I had receivedin prior popularity surveys. So what ex-actly did this score mean (no pun in-tended)? (The interpretation of my pre-vious scores I leave as an exercise to oth-ers.) Ever mindful of the effect of thesescores on FMIs, I mentioned this toChairman Barry who passed on my com-ments to my department committee re-sponsible for these matters.

In the middle of last semester, the com-mittee chair called to tell me that theywere revising the popularity survey andwanted to consider questions relevant toonline instruction, and could I provide

some? That night, after searching the Webto see how other institutions handle thisproblem, I began to realize its complexity.

In the breakout session held on February26, a group of interested faculty, all ofwhom have had experiences similar tomine, reached consensus on a number ofissues related to student evaluations ofonline learning. To summarize, these canbe categorized as follows:

Logistics: It is clear that the time andsetting of student evaluations effects theoutcome. We need to create institutionalguidelines on how and where to conductsuch evaluations, and also how and wherenot to conduct them. Consideration mustbe given to providing students withmechanisms to do their evaluationsonline.

Content: The group felt that it is impor-tant to recognize that there are two dif-ferent objectives in conducting evalua-tions of online classes. While it may betrue that these objectives are valid for anyclass, the group felt that they are espe-cially important for online classes, giventhe innovative and experimental natureof all that we do in these classes. Ac-cordingly, instructors require diagnosticinformation that provides them with feed-back on the processes and methodologiesthey employ in online classes. It is im-portant to understand what works andwhat does not so that they can alter theiruse of online tools or strategies, excludethem from the next class offering, or tryalternatives. The group felt that thesekinds of data should not be used for FMIpurposes for tenured full professors, andcould be included voluntarily in the teach-ing portfolios of faculty in the RTP cycle.

The second kind of evaluation that shouldbe conducted (if we are determined tocontinue the popularity polls for FMI andRTP purposes) should be summative innature. Questions should be more con-ceptual and comprehensive and shouldattempt to assess the totality of the learn-ing experience provided by the instructor.

There was a great deal of concern ex-pressed over the current kinds of ques-tions that allow students to criticize thelearning experience because, for ex-ample, the campus Help Desk may nothave been available one night to answera question concerning browser settings.These kinds of questions inevitably ef-fect the scores that in turn effect decisionsregarding RTP and FMIs. Everyoneagreed that until CSUF deals with thesekinds of issues, faculty seeking an FMIor who are on an RTP track are ill-ad-vised to stray from narrow and traditionalmethods of teaching.


behavioral similarities are generally al-ready present and provide the “socialglue” that binds them together.

How does one convey to students the ex-citement and thrill of being a researcher?As I indicated above, I try to bring theresearch laboratory into the classroom! Ido this by sharing conference news andfindings with students, and by encourag-ing them to contribute to research projectshere at CSUF. I set up “mini-conferences”in my undergraduate developmental psy-chology classes in which students presentfindings from a paper of their choice ac-cording to customary conference format.I also encourage students to attend andpresent their findings at conferences hereand out of state.

Occasionally I have wondered if the poolof twin topics available for instruction orstudy will ever dry up. I have decidedthat this is not a worry! Instead, I con-tinue to be impressed with the growingnumber of interesting problems waitingto be solved. Ideas behind many projects,papers and lectures have come from con-versations with families, twins, col-leagues, students and others. I look for-ward to what the future will bring.


Twins

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Are Male Students Now an Underrepresented Minority at Cal State Fullerton?As Figure 1 shows, college enrollment for both men and womenin the United States rose rapidly from the mid-1950’s until theearly 1970’s. At that point male college enrollment leveled off,while female enrollment continued to grow rapidly until the early1990’s. Men seem to have had a somewhat higher persistencelevel in their college studies, so that the number of bachelorsdegrees awarded to women did not exceed the number awardedto men until 1991. However, for approximately the last 10 yearswomen have received more college degrees than men, and in thecohort of people under 26 years of age, more women than mennow hold bachelors degrees.

Figure 1Nationwide college and university enrollments by sex. (Data from theNational Center for Education Statistics.)

Surprisingly, the growing imbalance between male and femalecollege enrollment has received little attention in the media andamong college and university administrators. In November 1999,a conference sponsored by Goucher College (formerly a women’scollege that has been trying to attract men students), outlined thescope of the problem, but provided no hard data regarding thecauses for the imbalance. I have been unable to find any refer-ences to systematic studies of the causes of the imbalance, eventhough this is something that college admissions officers seemto be aware of from anecdotal evidence.

At the Goucher conference several conjectures were made forthe causes of the problem. These include the lack of male rolemodels for boys in K-12 education (only 16% of elementaryschool teachers are male), teaching methods in the early gradesthat do not take into account the different learning styles of boys(elementary school teachers label boys as “learning disabled”three times as often as they do girls), and for men, the readyavailability of relatively well-paying jobs that do not require acollege education. In addition, shifts in the ethnic makeup of theK-12 population have been suggested as contributing factors.Among minority males there seems to be a high degree of peerpressure to avoid doing well in high school. One factor that does notseem to have been considered is the relatively high number of youngminority males who are caught up in the criminal justice system.

Further research on the issue revealed that the decline in the per-centage of male college enrollment is correlated with ethnicity.Nationwide the decline has been steepest for African-Americanand Hispanic males, somewhat less for white males, and leastfor Asian males. Here at CSUF we have experienced significantshifts in the ethnic makeup of our student body in the past 15years. In 1986, white students comprised almost 68% of ourtotal enrollment. Today only about 38% of our students identifythemselves as “Anglo,” and our student body is now so ethni-cally diverse that there is no “majority” group on campus.

As I noted at the outset the overall percentage of male studentson our campus is about the same as the national average – 40%.However, when we look at the correlations between male enroll-ment and ethnicity we find some surprises.

The percentage of male students on our campus has been declin-ing steadily for the past 15 years at least. The ratio of whitemales to white females in the student body has declined at aboutthe same rate during that period (Figure 2). In 1986 approxi-mately 44% of the Anglo students on our campus were male.Today only 38% of them are.

Figure 2Upper line: percentage of all Fullerton students who are male. Lowerline: percentage of Anglo students who are male. (Data from the CSUFOffice of Analytical Studies.)

In 1986, Hispanic students (Chicano plus “other Hispanic”) com-prised about 9% of the total student body. Today Hispanic studentscomprise slightly more than 21% of the student body. Since 1986the decline in the percentage of Chicano students who are male hasbeen steady – from slightly less than 46% to about 38% (Figure 3).The decline in the percentage of male students among the “otherHispanics” has been much greater – from about 48% in 1986 to lessthan 34% today. Taken together these figures are consistent with thenational picture which shows a relatively steep decline in the maleenrollment for Hispanics. Thus, even though the campus has morethan doubled its Hispanic enrollment in the past 15 years, the enroll-ment of Hispanic males has not kept pace with this growth.



22

Figure 3.Diamonds: percentage of all Fullerton students who are male. Crosses:percentage of Chicano students who are male. Squares: percentage of“other Hispanic” students who are male.

Asian students traditionally have had a significant presence onour campus. In 1998 slightly more than 11% of our studentsidentified themselves as “Asian.” Today that figure is slightlyless than 19%. Nationally, the decline in male college enroll-ment has been least among Asians. However, the picture here atCal State Fullerton is much different. As shown in Figure 4, thepercentage of Asian students who are male has declined from54.5% in 1986 to 43.1% today.

Figure 4Lower line: percentage of all Fullerton students who are male.Upper line: percentage of Asian students who are male.

The cohort of African-American students on our campus alwayshas been a relatively small percentage of our total enrollment –2.3% in 1986 and 2.7% today. In contrast to the national statis-tics which have shown a precipitous drop in the percentage ofAfrican-American males enrolling in college, at CSUF the per-centage of African-American students who are male (allowingfor statistical fluctuations characteristic of the small absolutenumbers of African-American students on campus) has remainedrelatively steady during the past 15 years – approximately 44%today vs. about 41% in 1986 (Figure 5).

Are Male Students Now an Underrepresented Minority at Cal State Fullerton?

Figure 5Diamonds: percentage of all Fullerton students who are male. Crosses:percentage of African-American students who are male.

The decline in the percentage of male high school students, whocontinue on to college, though quite real, is a poorly understoodphenomenon. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there hasbeen little or no research aimed at uncovering the reasons forthis trend. When my earlier article first appeared, it generated anumber of rather sharp responses. These were mostly fromwomen in academia who asserted that this was a problem thatthey were not going to worry about since we have not yet achievedgender equity in the faculty ranks in many disciplines.

However, in the long run, it seems to me that unless we addressthis issue squarely, we run the risk of shortchanging a generationof young men, and those who will be affected most adverselywill be young men of color.

Here at Fullerton we should be asking ourselves some specificquestions. For example, why is it that the percentage of malesamong our Asian students seems to be declining more rapidlythan for the nation as a whole? Should we be doing somethingto try to remedy that situation? And, why have we been able tomaintain a relatively stable percentage of males among our Afri-can-American students? Are there recruiting lessons from thatexperience that could be extended to other groups?

Likewise, should we be taking proactive steps to stem the de-cline in the percentage of Hispanic males enrolling on our campus?

These are not easy questions to tackle. The trends may wellreflect sociological factors that are beyond our control. In addi-tion, enrollment management has not been a high priority issueon this campus until relatively recently; and many of us haveadopted a passive attitude towards the composition of our stu-dent body. We often hear the expression that “we must workwith our students as they are.” However, by not being more pro-active in our approach we may be denying to significant seg-ments of the population in our service area the advantages of acollege education. As we discuss issues of growth and diversity,it seems to me that we also need to take a second look at ourefforts to achieve gender equity.

(The author thanks Dolores Vura and the Office of AnalyticalStudies for providing much of the data used in this article.)


23

istrative Board (PAB) and Council ofDeans chaired by the Vice President forAcademic Affairs (VPAA) is of particu-lar importance. Both of these bodies con-sider matters that are important to theeducational functions of this institution,without direct faculty input. Neither theagendas nor minutes are provided to fac-ulty. What does this say about sharedgovernance? As one faculty membernoted, “It seems like we do the sharingand they do the governing.”

The case for faculty representation onhigh-level university bodies is as follows:

• Meetings behind closed doors createan atmosphere of distrust, which isinimical to effective shared governance

• Faculty are the most knowledgeablemembers of the university about itsprincipal functions. Their contributionsto any policy discussions cannot beoverestimated. The exclusion offaculty from policy discussionseliminates some of the most valuableinputs.

• More “buy-in” – critical forimplementation – will occur if thosewho are expected to implement apolicy are included its making, andare shown respect by being includedin the process. To repeat an old saying:if you want us there at the landing,you had better include us at the take-off.

• Better communication will take placeand the faculty will find out what isbeing planned for the university muchfaster than if they have to wait for itto be filtered down through severallayers of administration

• Faculty are generally the strongestsupporters of academic quality in auniversity, and will be the individualsmost skeptical of proposalsthat threaten it

• The commitment of the administrationto shared governance and interest infaculty views would be clearlydemonstrated.

• Any tendency to engage in “faculty-bashing” and thus create an “us v.them” atmosphere will be lessened.“Anti-faculty” comments, however

innocuous-seeming, foster a climateof distrust.

• The authority to make decisionscomes only in part from the powersvested by law. To quote the Trusteesagain, “Authority in the modernpublic university derives from twoquite different sources: (a) from thepower vested by law and administrativecode in governing boards andadministrators, and (b) from theknowledge of the subject matter andfrom the pedagogic expertise of thefaculty.” Decisions are not trulyshared if they are initiated ordeveloped in meetings at which onegroup of participants have no say.

This university and the CSU have a longtradition of shared governance, and ex-clusion of the faculty – in particular theSenate Chair, the principal representa-tive on the faculty – has long been a sorepoint. On at least a third of the CSU cam-puses senate chairs sit on the presidentialadministrative board, or equivalent body.

The rationale for excluding faculty rep-resentatives, other than distrust and thecharacteristic nature of bureaucracy toprefer secrecy, eludes me. How is inclu-sion harmful? If important matters arebeing discussed in these bodies then it isimperative that faculty be involved inthose discussions. If important things arenot discussed in these meetings, thenmaking the symbolic gesture of includ-ing faculty should not cost much. If it canhappen at one-third of our sister cam-puses, it can happen here.

On the other side of the coin, the Presi-dent and the VPAA are members of theSenate and often attend those meetings.The President can attend the Senate’sExecutive Committee whenever he de-sires. I would argue that the VPAA shouldattend those meetings regularly – but notas a voting member —, although that hasnot been the practice on this campus.Everyone – both faculty and administra-tors — benefits by inclusive meetings.

One theme that came through in the sur-vey is that for shared governance to op-erate effectively faculty must be involvedin decisions early, and administrators andfaculty must work together throughoutthe policy process to seek solutions. Fac-ulty should not be relegated to the posi-tion of simply agreeing to, or vetoing,proposals developed by the administra-tion. Further, when an administrator rejectsfaculty advice, the reasons must be clearlystated; and, in the words of the Trustees,rejection should occur only in “rareinstances and for compelling reasons.”

Of singular significance was the identi-fication of the importance of both atti-tudes and structures in making sharedgovernance function well. Without theproper attitudes, it was often noted, thebest structures cannot make shared gov-ernance function well. On the other handgood structures can engender andstrengthen those attitudes that are con-ducive to effective shared governance.

The key attitudes for making shared gov-ernance work are mutual trust among par-ticipants and respect for the other partici-pants and the roles that they fill. Thiswas mentioned time and again by admin-istrators and faculty alike. Open andtransparent processes, and conforming tothe accepted rules strengthen those val-ues. Secretive processes, closed-doormeetings, and ignoring established prac-tices undermine trust and respect.

There are few procedures in the universitythat do as much to create distrust and un-dermine shared governance as the insis-tence by administrators that their meetingsmust be off limits to faculty. This attitudereflects a managerial view of running a uni-versity: the managers will make importantdecisions and indirect employee input isadequate. Even the most overblown rheto-ric during collective bargaining does notdo as much to create an “us v. them” atti-tude as does administrative secrecy.

The regular exclusion of faculty repre-sentatives from the university’s importantdecision-making bodies, most notably –on this campus — the President’s Admin-

Shared governance: Who shares? Who governs?(Continued from page 5)


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Teacher/Scholar in Residence (TSR)Program—A two-year program of mid-career, faculty (1 from each college) se-lected for their commitment to excellencein teaching. The call for 2001-03 TSRswill be issued later this semester; watchfor email alerts from the FDC. For detailson the past 1999-2001 TSR program see:http://fdc.fullerton.edu/learning/TLAC/Teacher%20Scholar%20in%20Residence.htm.

Video Observation of Teaching Pro-gram (VOT)—This pilot program (tempo-rarily suspended) allowed 20 faculty to havetheir classroom teaching videotaped and as-sessed. More information can be found at:http://fdc.fullerton.edu/bbramucci/test/VideoObs.htm.

Campus-wide Teaching and LearningSymposium—“Improving Teaching andLearning in the Academy: StudentEvaluations and Teaching Concerns”with keynotes by Peter Seldin and An-thony Greenwald who discussed the useof student evaluations of teaching withover 100 faculty in attendance. For moreinformation see:h t tp : / / fdc . fu l l er ton . edu /e ve n t s /p r e v i o u s e v e n t s /improvingteachingagenda.htm.

Monthly workshops—The FDC hosts avariety of brown bag workshops andseminars throughout the year on teach-ing and learning and technology (over280 workshops a year). To register, see:h t t p : / / f d c w e b . f u l l e r t o n . e d u /fdcworkshops.asp.

IDEA online modules— These onlinetool kits provide faculty with a quick,efficient means of incorporating instruc-tional design and assessment tools intheir teaching activities. For more infor-mation go to:http: //instructtech1.ful lerton.edu/newidea/.

Teaching grants—3 intramural grants(Faculty Enhancement and InstructionalDevelopment Grants, Teaching Mini-Grants, Robert and Louise Lee Collabo-

rative Teaching Award) that support in-novative teaching activities. See:http://fdc.fullerton.edu/grants/grants.htm.

Summer Instructional Technology In-stitute—This 2-week institute trained 49faculty last summer to use WebCT andBlackboard to enhance student learning.

CSUF Outstanding Professor—an an-nual campus award and address. Seehttp://fdc.fullerton.edu/research/janehall/janehall.htm for 2000-01 OutstandingProfessor, Dr. Jane Hall, Economics.

Outstanding Faculty for Innovations inTechnology and Teaching Award—partof a rotating annual award that recog-nized 67 faculty for their innovative useof technology in teaching.

Electronic “Teaching Tips” Newsletter—with articles and tips from faculty andstudents. See:http:// instructtech1.fullerton.edu/teachingtips.htm.

CSU Systemwide Peer Reviewed Elec-tronic Journal, “Exchanges” at:ht tp: / /www.calstate.edu/t ier3/ i t l/exchanges/.

CSU Teacher/Scholar Summer Instituteconference—annual faculty conferencesponsored by the Chancellor’s Office In-stitute for Teaching and Learning for all23 CSU campuses. See:http://www.calstate.edu/tier3/itl/programs/.This June 25-27, at CSU San Luis Obispo.

Part Time Faculty Liaison & AdvisoryCouncil—a new group working with theFDC on issues involving part time faculty.

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning Resource Li-brary with online searchable database—This database allows faculty to view andsearch a listing our small library collection.See:http://fdcweb.fullerton.edu/result.htm.

Listing of worldwide teaching confer-ences at:h t t p : / / f d c . f u l l e r t o n . e d u / n e w s /conferences.htm. In addition, calls forproposals for teaching conferences acrossthe nation can be found at:h t t p : / / f d c . f u l l e r t o n . e d u / n e w s /call_for_proposals.htm.

Working with international students.See:ht tp: // fdc.ful lerton.edu/learning/working_with_IntStudents_index.htm.

Issues involving student academic in-tegrity—For resources and more infosee:ht tp: // fdc.ful lerton.edu/learning/Academic%20Integrity/default.htm.This Fall the FDC plans to secure a sitelicense for Plagiarism.com for faculty usein detecting plagiarized student papers.

Online textbook search service withFaculty Center Network, see:http://facultycenter.net/.

Diversity Web link to AACU, for syllabi,texts and more for faculty interested ininfusing diversity and multicultural in-formation into their courses. See:http://www.diversityweb.org/.

Online audio name pronunciation link at:h t t p : / / w w w . c s u p o m o n a . e d u /~faculty_computing/lab/Pronunciations/Pronunciation/index.html.

Computer Based Training (CBT mod-ules) and teaching—These free modulesfrom the CSU Chancellor’s Office allowfaculty to incorporate CBT on a varietyof topics into their courses for studentsto learn independently on their own time.

Toward Supporting Teaching and Learning at CSUF(Continued from page 5)

25

Nomos Ergo – Painless Computing(Continued from page 7)

you tied to using your mouse or have youlearned any key commands? How oftendo you exercise, are you overweight, haveyou sustained prior back injuries? Manyof the risks for back, shoulder, and wristinjuries can be reduced by learning newhabits and attending to aches and painsbefore they get worse.

Due to the increase in musculoskeletaldisorders across a variety of industries,Cal/OSHA (California OccupationalSafety and Health Administration) wrotean ergonomic standard which was pro-mulgated October, 1997. Twenty-twoother states already administered their ownfederally subsidized programs by the timeFederal OSHA’s standard was imple-mented on January 16, 2001 (NationalEducation Association, February 2001).

The California standard states that if twoor more employees doing the same jobhave a similar injury, then the followingmust occur: a written program will beestablished and a worksite evaluation ofthe activities must be conducted. Thecauses for the repetitive motion injurywill be corrected in a timely manner byadministrative controls such as job rota-tion and breaks, or engineering controlssuch as redesigning workstations, tools,or processes. The training component isvery important and includes explanationof the symptoms and consequences of theinjuries caused by repetitive motion, andthe importance of reporting symptoms tothe employer.

The Federal standard includes the samerequirements as in the Cal-OSHA stan-dard but has set Action Triggers and timeframes with which to evaluate an injury.Federal OSHA also states that the infor-mation about the program must be pro-vided in both written and electronic formto all employees. They have allowed allprograms written prior to November,2000 to be grand-fathered with the ca-veat that a program evaluation is done toreview program elements and success.

The Environmental Health and Instruc-

There are acute musculoskeletal injuriesassociated with this list, but most of theinjuries occur because the individual wasengaged in an activity over a long periodof time. In fact, that is what the terms“cumulative trauma disorder” or “repeti-tive stress injury” imply. While this ar-ticle is mostly about how our campusjobs, the activities we engage in at homeare also contributors to injury.

It has not been very long since the daysof writing out documents, lecture notes,or other memos long hand. Secretarieswere invaluable resources because theydid numerous jobs throughout the day,including typing (which took severalmotions), filing, taking dictation, answer-ing the phone, and running errands. Per-sonal computers were not common untilthe 80’s. Moving ahead 10 or12 years,President Gordon’s computer rolloutproject made it possible for every cam-pus employee to have a desktop com-puter, and students to have computer ac-cess in labs. Not only could we type toour heart’s content, but we had an everincreasing supply of software programsthat allowed us to produce documentswith graphics, just by clicking a mouse.Access to the World Wide Web was soinfectious that people could spend hoursat the computer without realizing howmuch time had gone by. Repetitive mo-tion injuries began to increase.

Now we can sit at our desks for hours,typing or entering data at a rapid rate. Ac-complished typists execute an astound-ing 10,000 keystrokes per half hour. Thesmall muscles of the hand begin to takequite a pounding after 2 - 4 hours of typ-ing. Long gone are the days when car-riage returns, erasures, and adjusting thepaper gave your wrists a momentarybreak in the repetition.

Of course there are other related risk fac-tors, such as how often you take a breakfrom sitting, your posture when you aresitting or standing, the reach to answeryour telephone and the way you cradlethe phone receiver when you talk. Are

tional Safety (EH&IS) office believes thatbeing proactive in reducing injuries is thebest method. A few years ago, followingdecentralization of the Worker’s Com-pensation risk pool funds, theChancellor’s Office offered training fortrainers for two injury prevention pro-grams called, ‘Sitting Safe,’ and ‘BackSafe’ – both produced by Future Indus-trial Technology. These two programs,which provide visual and hands-on ac-tivities (stretching exercises and liftingpractice) for the user, are the main focusof CSUF’s ergonomics program.

The training class time is approximately1 _ hours. Those who attend leave withknowledge of the risk factors of repeti-tive motion injuries, a reference work-book, and a stretching exercise card.Ergonomic training is listed on a calen-dar insert within our Safety Matters news-letter. Employee Training and Develop-ment also lists EH&IS classes in theircalendar and register all participants elec-tronically (etd.fullerton.edu/etd/Registra-tion/index) or by phone at x4178.

Along with these training programs,EH&IS provides onsite ergonomic evalu-ations meant to identify and correct prob-lems. These evaluations include theplacement of items around the desk, dis-tance and angle of the monitor to the user,furniture assessment, glare reduction, andtelephone body mechanics. If any prob-lems are found, recommendations arecommunicated to the supervisor of theemployee in case administrative or engi-neering controls need to be made. Allparticipants in the Sitting Safe class mayreceive an evaluation at their conve-nience.

Remember—just a few changes in yourdaily habits can help you avoid back in-juries for life.

(Editor’s note: EH & IS is working withthe FDC and the Rollout Committee toproduce a Web-based instructional videoto illustrate ergonomically correct work-station principles.)

26

The practice on this campus in recentyears has more often been one of sepa-rate and unequal spheres of influence.Top administrators and their advisorsmeet on their own and the ExecutiveCommittee of the Senate generally meetswithout administrators. Periodically theleaders of these groups meet to informeach other what is taking place. This isat best inefficient and often ineffective.

More important, this managerial ap-proach is not joint decision making andruns counter to the principles of sharedgovernance, an issue addressed in theCSU Academic Senate’s 1985 positionpaper, Collegiality in the California StateUniversity System which states:

Participants should consider oneanother as colleagues and shouldrespect each other’s individual ex-pertise and contributions… Aca-demic administrators should con-sider themselves “management”only in the context of collectivebargaining…A collegial ap-proach to decision-making is themeans whereby the fundamentalvalues of the university can bepreserved, and its conflicting ob-jectives balanced, and its legalobligations to the state met. *

The better model is the one that has beensuggested throughout this article: open,inclusive and transparent processes, withfaculty and administrators working earlyand often throughout the process to reacha joint solution.

And in the end, it is all about respect and trust.

* This document and the others quoted in thisarticle can be found in Principles and Poli-cies: papers of the Academic Senate, TheCalifornia State University. I encourageeveryone interested in shared governanceto read these documents. They can befound on the CSU Academic Senate’shomepage at: www.calstate.edu/tier3/acadsen


Shared governance:Who shares? Who governs?

27

in Veneerland? She was an academic, ac-customed to theoretical and intellectual en-deavors. She should be seeking more spiri-tual pursuits, she thought, when suddenlyshe felt a terrible pain in her tooth. Thepain was so excruciating that she didn’tthink she could make it back to her car.But being Harriet, and this day in her lifebeing so outrageously ridiculous, it cameas no surprise when she noticed the dentalpractice of the famous Buddhist dentist,The Great Dr. Moon Shine Loo. The sign onDr. Loo’s door promised instant pain reliefwithout the use of unnatural, manmade drugs.This was great. Harriet could address bothher spiritual and corporal needs by justclimbing the stairs and going to The Loo.And after an hour in his chair, she washealed. “Yes,” she said to herself. “Avoid-ing Novocain truly is the way to transcenddental medication.” And enlightened,Harriet drove back to Orange County.

On her way home, Harriet started to feelremorse about her dalliance with Bud-dhism. After all, she had attended Sundayschool until she had her PhD. Her sisterhad entered a convent when Harriet wasin graduate school. Harriet herself hadeven thought about following her sister.Exiting off the 91 Freeway she made herway through Fullerton, and decided to finda church where she could seek salvation.(Or whatever.) Parking in front of theChurch of Blessed Flowers, she wanderedinto the small florist shop adjoining thechurch. Hoping to somehow alleviate herguilt, she struck up a conversation with thefriar behind the counter and proceeded tolisten sympathetically to his tale of woe.

Apparently the church had decided to openthis shop to stimulate “business” in the ca-thedral. Since the local people liked to buyflowers from the “men of God,” a rival flo-rist in Yorba Linda thought the competi-tion was unfair. He asked the good fathersto close down, but they would not. He wentback and begged them to close. They ig-nored him. He asked his mother, a devotedchurch-going cookie-baker to ask them toget out of the business. They ignored hertoo. So the rival florist hired HughMacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious

thug in Newport Beach to “persuade” themto close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashedthe store, saying he’d be back if they didn’tclose shop. Terrified, when Harriet ap-peared, they were preparing to do so,thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh,can prevent florist friars.

PostScriptFor long time aficionados of Harriet Brown,and in response to unremitting and underwhelming demand from this year’s Outstand-ing Professor of the Year, the editorial staff ofthe Senate Forum felt that we would be re-miss if it did not bring everyone up to date onDr. Brown’s ornithological research activities.

In tern for this, and given that until nowwe hadn’t heard from Harriet since the ternof the century, we would like to report thatlast year, while in France on her quest forthe famous and almost never-heard ofFrench Frying Tern (a popular Chinesebird sometimes served with sliced potatoescooked in hot oil), Harriet participated inthe Tern de France where she took a ternfor the worse. On that long and soberingbicycle ride, poor Harriet, who was in thelead, had the tables tern on her when sheattempted a U-tern, blowing her front tire,terning her over and over on the steep moun-tain. Luckily, a competing bicyclist, an inter-nist by trade, applied a tourniquet to herterned ankle, and proceeded to retern her toher boyfriend Ted, the Atlanta media mogul.

On her way home, she visited a French birdwatching sanctuary where she stumbledupon two, mysteriously killed terns. Whenno one was watching, Harriet picked upthe carcasses and hid them in her back-pack. When she got to the Air France gatehowever, she ran into problems andcouldn’t bring the birds back to the US.After all, as everyone knows, the Frenchare very strict about their carrion regulations.

And finally, can you believe that when shedid get back to the U.S., she decided to enterthis Senate Forum article in a new pun con-test run by the Orange County Register. Shethought that an article with at least 10 punswould have a really good chance of winning.Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

(Continued from the back page )A Day in the Life of Harriet Brown, Or Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

As told to the Senate Forum Staff, with exceptional assistance from the World Wide Web

A Day in the Life of Harriet Brown, Or Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

BACK PAGEA publication of the Academic Senate, California State University, FullertonVolume XVI, Number 2, Spring 2001

THE

Dr. Harriet Brown finally returned toCSUF after more than two years of thera-peutic leave following her escapade withthe unstoned terns. (Readers unfamiliarwith the “perils of Harriet Brown” are ad-vised to refer to previous issues of the Sen-ate Forum.) Harriet was ecstatic about re-turning to school. She had put behind herall those awful memories of the conflictwith her Chair. He was gone, retired orFERPing with all the other gray beards thatcontinued to wander the halls and class-rooms of the university, trying to recap-ture their youth. Although she rarely sawmany FERPers, once in awhile she wouldspot a couple having coffee and even play-ing chess at one of the campus coffeekiosks. It was hard to sit there sometimesand avoid overhearing their inane chatter.

One afternoon Harriet, in desperate needof coffee and some fresh air decided tostroll over to the Starbucks on the secondfloor foyer of the TitanShops. After buy-ing her coffee, she looked around for atable, but there was none available. Allthe tables were filled with groups of stu-dents and faculty from other colleges, - allbut one. At that table sat her ex-Chair, play-ing chess with the ex-Dean of her College– two of the people who had caused her somuch grief when she first came to CSUF.Memories of the past rushed into her headand she could feel herself getting angrier andangrier at these selfish clods that were mo-nopolizing the table. Not only were they sit-ting there playing chess, but in the raisedvoices of the aged whose hearing, amongother things, has diminished, they were loudlydiscussing some recent chess tournament inwhich one or the other had been victorious.Furious, Harriet sought out the managerwhose office was just off the foyer. The man-ager, always concerned about moving people

quickly in and out of the coffee shop, cameout of his office and asked them to dis-perse. “But why?” they asked, as theymoved off. “Because,” he said, “I can’tstand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

Although she was jubilant at her minor vic-tory, Harriet realized that she was going tobe late for her first class of the semester,and all she had with her was the new classlist. She decided to go to the classroom,take roll, and ever-mindful of thosedamned student evaluations, endear her-self to her students by giving them a veryshort first class. When she opened the doorto her new semi-smart classroom, shelooked out on a sea of unfamiliar and semi-smart faces, faces of students who couldn’tdecide whether to drop her class and takethe 10:00 AM section, and students whohad hated the earlier section and wantedto try to add hers because they’d heard thatshe was an easy grader. As she called roll,she came upon a student named Juan whoclearly looked familiar from a class she hadtaught years before. But she didn’t recog-nize his name. Being the curious researcherthat she was, she finally asked Juan if hehad been in one of her classes in the past.“No,” said Juan. “It must have been mybrother, Amahl. And we are twins–I guessif you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amahl.”

When she left class a bit later, she decidedthat she wanted to get away from the cos-mopolitan Fullerton climate and drive upto Hollywood for dinner and maybe amovie. By the time she found her car inthe once-again newly repaved parking lot,an alleged power shortage had resulted inthe cancellation of classes. The traffic jamonto Nutwood was a nightmare. Eventu-ally, by driving the wrong way in front ofLangsdorf Hall, she made her escape to the

freeways, and up to the “city.” After twohours of driving, she parked behind a West-ern-type bar where she could relax andhave a cool one. She couldn’t believe howmuch the bar reminded her of her grow-ing-up days in Texas. As she sat there talk-ing to the bartender, a three-legged dog walkedin, slid up to the bar and announced, “I’mlooking for the man who shot my paw.”

The bartender, who had had his fill of thiscreature (the dog, not Harriet), threw thecreature (the dog, not Harriet) out the doorand came back to do whatever bartendersdo with patrons that they find attractive.He was really hoping to add an intellec-tual professor to his long list of conquests.He was even willing to overlook the factthat she was from Orange County, mainlybecause he wasn’t too sure where that was.Trying to impress her with his inside in-formation about the idiosyncrasies ofmovieland, he attempted to win her overwith a story he had just heard about thetwo trained boll weevils who grew up inSouth Carolina. One, he told her, came toHollywood and became a famous perform-ing weevil. The other stayed behind in thecotton fields and never amounted to much.Just like all the other tourists who roam aroundHollywood hoping to spot a star or take homesome really interesting “National Enquirer”-type information, Harriet demanded to knowmore about these weevils. Exasperated, thebartender finally told her that he didn’t re-ally know much more, but the second onewas known as the lesser of two weevils.

Leaving the bar to escape the clutches ofthe bartender, Harriet found herself in anenvironment from which she felt com-pletely estranged. Boll weevils. Three-legged dogs. What was she doing up here


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