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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY
T H E S E N A T E R E C O R D
Volume 34-----APRIL 24,
2001-----Number 7
The
Senate Record
is the official publication of the University Faculty Senate of The
Pennsylvania State University, as provided for in Article I, Section 9 of the Standing
Rules of the Senate and contained in the Constitution, Bylaws, and Standing Rules of the University Faculty
Senate, The Pennsylvania State University 2000-01.
The
publication is issued by the Senate Office, 101 Kern Graduate Building,
University Park, PA 16802 (Telephone
814-863-0221). The Record is
distributed to all Libraries across the Penn State system, and is posted on the
Web at http://www.psu.edu/ufs under publications. Copies are made available to faculty and
other University personnel on request.
Except
for items specified in the applicable Standing Rules, decisions on the
responsibility for inclusion of matters in the publication are those of the
Chair of the University Faculty Senate.
When
existing communication channels seem inappropriate, Senators are encouraged to
submit brief letters relevant to the Senate's function as a legislative,
advisory and forensic body to the Chair for possible inclusion in The Senate
Record.
Reports
which have appeared in the Agenda of the meeting are not included in The
Record unless they have been changed substantially during the meeting or
are considered to be of major importance.
Remarks and discussion are abbreviated in most instances. A complete transcript and tape of the
meeting is on file.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Final Agenda for April 24, 2001
A. Summary of Agenda Actions
B. Minutes and Summaries of Remarks
II. Enumeration of Documents
A. Documents Distributed Prior to April 24, 2001
B. Attached
Door Handout – Faculty Affairs Committee –
Report of the Working Group on Part-Time Faculty
Door Handout – Faculty Benefits Committee –
AY2000/2001 Faculty Salaries of Academic Units Within Penn State
Corrected Copy – Faculty Benefits Committee –
AY2000/2001 Faculty Salaries of Academic Units Within Penn State
Senate Calendar for 2001-2002
Standing Committee Assignments for 2001-2002
Chairs and Vice-Chairs for 2001-2002
Roster of Senators by Voting Units for 2001-2002
Results of Senate Elections for 2001-2002
Senators Not Returning for 2001-2002
Attendance
FINAL AGENDA FOR APRIL 24, 2001
A. MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING -
Minutes of the March 27, 2001, Meeting in The Senate Record 34:6
B. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE - Senate Curriculum Report
(Blue Sheets) of April 10, 2001
C. REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL - Meeting of April 10, 2001
D. ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR -
E. COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY –
F. FORENSIC BUSINESS -
G. UNFINISHED BUSINESS -
H. LEGISLATIVE REPORTS -
I. ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS –
Computing and Information Systems
Virtual Reality Technology at Penn State
Research
Courseware Policy
J. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS –
University Planning
Strategic Planning: The Next Cycle
Faculty Affairs
Report of the Working Group on Part-Time Faculty 2001
Faculty Benefits
AY2000/2001 Faculty Salaries of Academic Units Within Penn State
University Planning
Status of Construction at Penn State, Sprint 2001
Committees and Rules
Report of Senate Elections
Comments by Outgoing Chair Schengrund
Comments by Incoming Chair Nichols
K. NEW LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS -
L. COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE UNIVERSITY -
M. ADJOURNMENT -
SUMMARY OF AGENDA ACTIONS
The Senate passed two Advisory/Consultative Reports:
Computing and Information Systems – “Virtual Reality Technology at Penn State.” This report was presented to demonstrate the relevance of Virtual Reality tools and interface techniques within research, instruction and communications. (See Record, page(s) 9-13 and Agenda Appendix “B.”)
Research – “Courseware Policy.” This report made five recommendations regarding the University community’s interest in courseware policies. (See Record, page(s) 13-21 and Agenda Appendix “C.”)
The Senate heard four Informational Reports:
Faculty Affairs – “Report of the Working Group on Part-Time Faculty 2001.” This report contains a set of guidelines on performance expectations for part-time faculty and appropriate support services. (See Record, page(s) 24-25, Door Handout Record Appendix II, and Agenda Appendix "D.")
Faculty Benefits – “AY2000/2001 Faculty Salaries of Academic Units Within Penn State.” This is the mandated internal salary report on faculty salaries for 2000-01. (See Record, page(s) 26-29, Door Handout Record Appendix III, Corrected Copy Record Appendix IV, and Agenda Appendix "E.")
University Planning – “Status of Construction at Penn State, Spring 2001.” This is the annual report on the status of the Department of General Services and Penn State major construction programs dated February 16, 2001. (See Record, page(s) 29 and Agenda Appendix "F.")
University Planning – “Strategic Planning: The Next Cycle.” This was an oral informational report by the Provost on the status of strategic planning. (See Record, page(s) 21-24.)
The Senate heard the Report of Senate Elections for 2001-2002 and the Senate Officers for 2001-2002 were installed.
The University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern Graduate Building with Cara-Lynne Schengrund, Chair, presiding. One hundred and forty-nine Senators signed the roster.
Chair Schengrund: It is time to begin.
MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING
Moving to the minutes of the preceding meeting, The Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the proceedings of the March 27, 2001 meeting, was sent to all University Libraries, and posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page. Are there any corrections or additions to this document? All those in favor of accepting the minutes, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Schengrund: Opposed? The minutes are accepted. Thank you.
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE
You have received the Senate Curriculum Report for April 10, 2001. This document is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page.
REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL
Also, you should have received the Report of Senate Council for the meeting of
April 10, 2001. This is an attachment in The Senate Agenda for today's meeting.
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR
Chair Schengrund: The Faculty Advisory Committee met on
Tuesday, April 17, 2001 and discussed the following topics: Faculty consultation regarding AD-57 and other
administrative policies; College diversity plans; Proposed courseware policy;
we revisited the faculty role in searches for academic administrators; we
discussed Penn, Temple and graduate student unionization; implementation of the
Faculty Senate recommendations for internal and external reports to the Senate
on Faculty Salaries; we discussed the possibility of an academic hall of fame;
LGBT minor; and we discussed the reorganization of the Commonwealth Educational
System.
Several memos were received from the president regarding implementation of reports passed by the Senate at its meeting of February 27, 2001. From the Senate Committee on Outreach Activities, a report titled “Recommendations To Refine And Expand the Models For Recognition Of Outreach Activities,” the president is pleased to accept the recommendations of this report. From the Senate Committee on Curricular Affairs, a report titled “A Clarification of ‘Active Learning’ As It Applies To General Education,” the president is referring this report to the vice provost and dean for undergraduate education to be effective immediately.
In a separate vein, usually at this point I would update you on our meetings with the Coalition of Students however, this will take a slightly different form today. As many of you are aware, there was another threat made against an African American student. This happened on Friday, and led to the staging of a peaceful sit-in by a number of students at the Blue-White football game on Saturday. The sit-in was carried on the news that night and was reported on in the Sunday papers. Not just within the University Park area but state-wide. One thing that I noticed was that in some instances the reason behind the student protest was not given during the TV news coverage. We cannot fault any student for being upset at the receipt of a death threat. On a personal level I know that it would cause me to look at the world in a less than trusting manner. It has been brought to our attention that some people believe that the actions of these students--the ones that protested on Saturday--were no different than those of the students that rioted after the basketball game. I disagree. This was a nonviolent protest against a threat that caused these students to feel unsafe on this campus.
As faculty, it is essential that whenever we see an act of intolerance or of incivility, that we let the person doing it know that this is not acceptable behavior. Everyone has the right to expect to be treated civilly, and we should be teaching our students the importance of diversity. America has traditionally welcomed everyone--the saying on the Statue of Liberty starts with give me your tired, your poor, your weary, your huddled masses yearning to be free. It doesn't say anything about country of origin, race or ethnicity.
The problem with the current situation, or one of the problems, is that we don't know who is sending the threats. It is quite possible that it is a single individual who may or may not have any connection with Penn State. What is certain, is that he or she has a problem that has made a number of our students feel less than welcome here.
Racism exists; it is not a problem that the faculty or the administration created. It is a problem that exists in part because people grow up in one type of environment, and they are comfortable in that environment. When they leave that environment and they go to a different environment such as a large university, and in this case one that has worked hard over the years to develop a diverse population of students, it forces the students to live in a more diverse world. This in itself is a part of every students education, but it can make some students very uncomfortable as they have to grow to deal with it.
Regardless of comfort level, it should not lead to acts of incivility or intolerance. As the Senate Officers said in the fall at our October meeting, we do not condone such acts of hatred and we offer the students who are receiving these threats our support. To show that support, the Senate Officers again strongly condemn these and other acts of hatred, intolerance and discrimination in any form. We further commit ourselves to the use of all appropriate tools within the authority of the Senate to fight hatred and intolerance at Penn State. As the officers of the Senate we reject the politics of conflict, confrontation and intimidation. Divisiveness in conflict within Penn State only play into the hands of the hate mongers and racists. We seek again to join arms with all those who will work with us in good faith to find real, meaningful and lasting solutions to the horrible problems that we face. As a step towards this we hope it will lead toward healing, the old Senate Officers and your newly elected Senate Officers plan to walk from here to Old Main to join the March For Unity that is starting at 4:00 p.m. This is why we have started the Senate meeting early and we hope that having started this meeting early we will finish well prior to the time of the walk and that many of you, hopefully all that are able, will join us in that walk. And in that view I will also ask, I know that we have some items that are on the Agenda that will engender quite a bit of discussion, but what I will ask is not that we don’t have discussion but that if someone has made a comment that you would like to make that you refrain from making it a second time. Give your colleagues credit for hearing it on the first go.
This is also
the time of year when a number of Senators leave us, and I would like to
acknowledge those Senators that have finished their term in office at this
time.
Larry Kuhns
Dennis Scanlon
Lynn Drafall
Zachary Irwin
Victoria Kazmerski
David Roth
David Christy
Ronald Bettig
COLLEGE OF EARTH & MINERAL SCIENCES
Shelton Alexander
Kostadin Ivanov
Thomas Jackson
George Lesieutre
Robert Prosek
Paul Clark
Robert LaPorte
David Myers
Jon Olson
Gerhard Strasser
John Ferriss
James Beatty
Wenwu Cao
Robert Mitchell
Victor Romero
James May
John Bardi
Kathleen Mastrian
YORK CAMPUS
Jane Sutton
John Dutton
APPOINTED SENATOR
John Leathers
Alison Altman
Chad Boushell
William Campbell
David Chao
Marcus Fedeli
Jennifer Flinchbaugh
Jessa Gabler
Joseph Garwacki
Amanda Hudnall
Jacob Kosoff
Melissa Landis
Quinn Morton
Amy Poggio
Alissa Shirk
Jenny Zhang
Philip Bower
Paul Gaffney
Daniel Kiefer
Chair Schengrund: And I think at this point we should thank them all for their service.
Senators: Applause.
COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
Chair
Schengrund: President Spanier is here and he has comments.
Graham B. Spanier,
President: Thank you very much Cara, and good afternoon everyone. First of all I want to thank the leadership
of the University Faculty Senate and thank all of you for your willingness to
alter the schedule for the day by convening early and adjourning in time so
that everyone has the opportunity to join us in our march today “No Hate At
Penn State”. I think all of you are
certainly familiar with the challenges that we have had at this university,
particularly at the University Park Campus this past year with incidents of
hate mail that have been directed at our students and others. I think everyone in this room would share
the philosophy that any act of hate, any threat directed at any one of us
really must be considered an act of hate and intolerance directed at all of us
to the extent that we believe in this community, and in the basic principles of
freedom and equity and justice, civility and tolerance in our community. It’s very important that we stand together
on these issues and your participation in the march today would be a welcome
symbol of that. We do expect quite a
substantial turn out. We have in fact
closed Old Main and will close it this afternoon early, so that people can make
preparations and, we have asked all the staff in the administration building to
actually close their offices mid-afternoon and participate. I have seen emails from departmental
listservs and other groups around campus suggesting that they are doing the
same thing, so I think it will be a very nice turn out. We do expect people from off campus as
well. We have been informed that groups
are converging from lots of different directions and we want to welcome them to
our community. Some of you may be aware
that among the more unfortunate aspects of the recent incidents is that 26 individuals,
including 23 students and three others engaged in an act of civil disobedience
on Saturday by cutting on to the field at the football game after warnings not
to do so, and then after they were on the field and locked themselves together
and were given several opportunities to leave peacefully and warnings to do so
they elected to remain on the field and to be arrested. They were charged with a criminal
misdemeanor trespass charge. I want to
tell you however, that within the last 24-hours following discussions with the
police, and in consultation with the district attorney we have asked, and they
have agreed to file these charges instead as summary violations as opposed to
misdemeanor criminal trespass charges.
That’s a nuance that some of you may not be familiar with, but as is the
case with many crimes there’s a continuum in which justice can be served, and
in this case we have prevailed upon the authorities involved to recognize the
circumstances, and for this to be a summary citation, which means it will be
handled in a way that the students will not be finger printed, processed, they
won’t need attorneys and it is not a criminal charge. It is something that more resembles a citation of the sort you would
get if you had a traffic ticket. There
would still be justice done in the sense of fines and/or community service, and
that would be left to the magistrate to determine, but it is not something that
would go to a judge or that would be handled any further by the district
attorney. We’re very hopeful that we
can see our way through to peace and tranquility through the rest of the
semester, and through graduation. We’re
very concerned about issues of safety and have done a number of things to try
to guarantee that. That will be the
case this afternoon and beyond. There’s
a lot of emotion on this campus right now.
I’m concerned about the level of emotion and the incivility and the
discourse that has crept into the situation.
That’s personally troubling for me, and has made my job much more
difficult than it normally is, but we will continue to work on that as best we
can. There’s a very large team of
individuals in the university administration who have been working on this and
only this issue for quite a good number of days now on a 24-hour a day cycle,
and so only a couple of them are here now, others are preparing for activities
this afternoon, but I do express my appreciation to all who have been
involved. Cara has been in regular
touch via email with expressions of her concern and willingness to be involved,
and offering the good offices of the University Faculty Senate and we
appreciate that, thank you Cara.
Chair Schengrund:
You’re welcome.
President Spanier: So
if you have any further questions on this general matter I would be happy to
take them in a moment. Let me just say
on one other topic that is very important, and one of the reasons I wanted very
much to change my plans to be back here today was because I knew that you were
having a final reading so to speak, of the courseware policy. Several of the Faculty Senate committees
have worked very hard on this for much longer than we thought it would
take. I think initially we thought that
might be a few months thing, and it has turned out to be a couple of years and
I know that some suggestions were made at the last forensic session that you
had and there have been yet further changes in the document as a result of
that, and I want to express my thanks to all of you who have been involved in
making sure that this turns out as well as it possibly can. The only input I would give to that
substantively is to say that from my perspective this almost certainly will be
an area where we will have to continue to re-visit the policy every couple of
years or so, to keep an eye on it and bring it back as necessary to see how
it’s working and determine if it needs to be tweaked. Almost every university in the country right now is going through
this process or has recently been through it.
Our policy I think stands up very well compared to the others, but I
think it would be foolish for any university to think that they understood
everything about where information technology is going and the implications it
has for how we operate the university, so we want to keep our minds open to the
possibility of changes in the future down the road. Well, with those two topics out and anything else you’d like to
talk about I’d be happy to take your questions.
Chair
Schengrund: Before you take a question I’d just like to say thank you for getting the
charges reduced. I think that was very…
President Spanier: Are
you speaking personally or on behalf of the Senate?
Chair Schengrund: I’m
speaking just that I think it was a good thing to do, personally I would guess.
President Spanier:
Well, thank you.
Tramble T. Turner,
Penn State Abington: President Spanier, there was a number of
articles of course, today in the Collegian relating to the issues that
you and Cara-Lynne have addressed. One
report was on your meeting with the Black Legislators. My question has to do with the report in the
Collegian that said the legislators view was that the Penn State plan to
foster diversity had failed. First, I’d
like to ask if that was indeed what they said, and that secondly, I’d like to
ask what you and others at the meeting brought up as aspects of partial
success.
President Spanier: I
received an indication Monday morning, I think, yesterday morning that members
of the Legislative Black Caucus, three of whom visited this campus a few weeks
ago had been in touch with our students, and had a heightened level of concern
as did some of the students and asked if they could meet with me. I happened to have been in Washington, DC at
the time, and I was just preparing to speak to the Association of American Universities
to moderate a session that afternoon, but instead of doing it by conference
call, I thought it would be best that I just go to Harrisburg which I did. I think that it was good that I went there. I met with the majority of the members of
the Legislative Black Caucus and was accompanied by Terrell Jones our Vice
Provost for Educational Equity. After
their visit here, they had promised that they would summarize their findings,
put a draft together and share that with us.
They did that and the comments that you just summarized are reflected in
that draft. Now it is not the final
document that they sent, it is a draft, and what I indicated to them is that we
at Penn State would look that over and give them some suggestions about
it. What they put in that document is
very substantially based on information they received from our students, so
what is in there is really from what they are saying if you put the words, “the
students believe the following,” before the substance of the comment. I think it’s a fair representation because
it is very much what the members of our Student Black Caucus organization told
them. Much of what is in there however,
is not actually factual. The students’
presentation makes certain representations about the curriculum, about Faculty
Senate actions, it quotes Cara and John in various settings in ways that I
think are somewhat out of context. It
presents our very substantial diversity efforts (which frankly I am proud of)
in a somewhat unfavorable light. Now
that’s not for a moment to say that I don’t think we have a lot to do, and I
would be the first to agree that the goals outlined in the plan to foster
diversity are not accomplished. We
agreed with the students and some of your Faculty Senate leaders were at a meeting
where we all agreed that was the case but that’s not to say that the plan is a
failure, or that we don’t care about it.
We are right smack in the middle of that five-year process. We have indeed made some progress, and we
have a lot of progress yet to make so I think any organization including the
Legislative Black Caucus can be most helpful if all organizations take a step
back, look at what is happening and what we are doing, look at what’s possible,
develop a little better understanding of where certain decisions are made. The Legislative Black Caucus had heard from
the students that they think there should be six mandatory credits in the
diversity area, and a lot of other mandatory things, and I think that’s not
just something I can snap my fingers and make happen even if I thought it was a
good idea. So that’s the zone we’re in
right now and I think we’re going to, after the semester is over, have to take
a fresh look at all of these different issues.
The emotion is running a little too high right now for there actually to
be a meeting where this could occur in a productive way, I’m sorry to say.
William A. Rowe,
College of Medicine: The death threat emails that the students
were receiving, is there a sense among the administration that this or at least
some of the opinions expressed are representative of even a tiny minority of
the Penn State community or are these the work of a psychotic who is simply
trying to get…
President Spanier:
There are some different theories out there. I don’t want to comment on that because this is in the hands of
the FBI and their laboratory right now, and there are others who have been so
open in talking about all the details that I think it actually compromises our
investigation. I do not want to be
party to that. It is, of course
difficult to trace anonymous mail, especially now under the way the postal
system is reorganized with these regional centers. It could come from a very broad array of people, you don’t know
where it’s really from. So there are
some different ideas out there about it of course and we wish we could find out
who sent this latest death threat.
There is an impression out there that somehow lots of people are
receiving lots of mail of this kind and that is not true to the best of our knowledge. I think most of the university community was
aware of at least four individuals who received such a letter from what appears
to be the same person with the same postmarks sent at the same date, from the
same mailbox so to speak, back in the fall and then this one here. Now, we’re trying to learn about any other
isolated incidents, that we may not have previously known about and there may
be a couple of others out there but we have not lately experienced a massive
series of letters to individuals. This
particular one has galvanized a lot of attention, because of the news
conferences that were called immediately and the mobilization that the students
went through around that letter.
Chair Schengrund: At
this point then, I’d like to say thank you and I think we should move on. As we start discussing reports, I’d like to
remind you to please stand and identify yourself and the unit you represent
before addressing the Senate. We have
no forensic business, we have no unfinished business and no legislative reports
so we’ll move on to the advisory and consultative reports. The first one comes from the Senate
Committee on Computing and Information Systems. It deals with “Virtual Reality Technology at Penn State,” and you
can find the report in Appendix “B” and Semyon Slobounov will present that
report.
FORENSIC BUSINESS
None
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
None
LEGISLATIVE REPORTS
None
ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Virtual Reality Technology at Penn State
Semyon Slobounov, Chair, Senate Committee on Computing and Information Systems
Semyon Slobounov, College of Health and Human Development: Thank you Cara, and good afternoon. As you probably know for the last two years we were working on this information and now in an advisory statement related to Virtual Reality Technology at Penn State and I’m pleased to present today the representative for the Center for Academic Computing that’s George Otto, Manager of Visualization Group who worked heavily with us preparing this first information statement last year when you heard about it and now we have an advisory statement, George will present it, and elaborate on some technicalities related with this report, and if you have any questions we will answer them within our scope of time. We also have a video clip that’s related to virtual reality at Penn State on the different campuses, different units and at the end of the oral presentation we’ll present you that video and George will lead the discussion on it. George, welcome.
George Otto, Center for Academic Computing: Thank you, Sam. Let me begin by saying thanks for the opportunity to be here today. I’m honored to be able to speak with you briefly about some thoughts and activities related to virtual reality here at Penn State. I’ll just begin real quickly by saying what virtual reality is, and that one way of thinking about that is to say it’s the experiential interaction with simulated phenomena or data in order to gain intuitive insight into the phenomena under study, usually these days involving computing systems, maybe in the future something else. We’ve been following in our group…I work in the visualization group at the Center for Academic Computing we’ve been following virtual reality trends there for about a decade. Starting in the early 90s and the mid- to late 90s was kind of a watershed time, when virtual reality started emerging from a select few research labs, and being practically applied in a number of research institutions. Perhaps as best evidenced by the supercomputing 1998 conference in Orlando during which there were 14 Immersadesks on the expo floor. We will see an Immersadesk in the tape and most of the national high performance computing and networking research organizations were well represented there in the virtual reality and telecollaborative virtual reality applications including the Department of Energy labs, Department of Defense labs, NPACE and NCSA affiliate institutions, etc. It was around that time that CAC put together the Visualization and Immersive Environments Testbed, the centerpiece of which is an Immersadesk, again you’ll see that, and since that time we’ve had some other significant acquisitions here at University Park with general purpose projection based VR facilities. These would include the Applied Research Lab SEALab, which is CAVE-like surround screen VR room. They’ve done a very nice job with that facility over the last year. Three facilities that are coming online to be shared among six or seven departments in the Colleges of Science and Engineering that will involve single screen projection facilities similar to our Immersadesk. This list obviously is biased in favor of general purpose, large format projection based facilities. There are other activities I’m sure, clearly around campus that can be considered supporting activities or VR activities per se. So VR is more than facilities. It can include a number of disciplines. Obviously, human computer interface, multi-modal interfaces kinds of work, numerical simulation, scientific data visualization, CFD, molecular dynamics, etc. Earth sciences, geographic information systems, engineering and design applications like CAD or architecture, computer mediated communication sorts of things, biomedical, computational biology, surgical simulation, we’ll see some of that on the tape, as well as more fundamental human subjects research like perceptual psychology, or kinesiology studies. With the current state of kind of general purpose systems VR can be complex, should be inter-disciplinary, and is often labor intensive, and should obviously have the domain specific knowledge of the researchers or scientists involved in a given case, but there’s usually quite a substantial layer of applications programming or systems integration skills that are required to pull these things off well. That is changing. Some commercial software vendors are starting to add VR extensions to existing application suites to make it easier for researchers to pull VR into their existing workflows, and have it a natural extension of their desktop but we’re not quite there yet. VR can and should be made easier for researchers, educators and students to seamlessly integrate within their existing word processors. So some of the things that we need to think about to lower the bar and extend the reach of VR, is how I like to talk about it, are things like what applications under what circumstances can benefit from VR techniques? What kinds of interaction tools and representation metaphors will be most effective, for what kinds of users, within what kinds of application contexts? And then what about the development of improved systems and software, based on the above? It’s my perception from being out in the kind of personal networking in the national community, in the national VR users groups, is that we really are on the cusp of bringing about useful applications which have been sorely missing, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done there, and I think that’s an important part of this process. We’ve also found in our facility that students can be some of the best contributors to that process, they’re very enthusiastic, and we were actually surprised in retrospect how much student activity we have in our facility as opposed to more peer research. Why I’m here today is to sort of put that little bit of context on the tape we’re about to see, and I think we are at the threshold of a really interesting opportunity here at Penn State. We have made some significant strides in recent years in acquiring facilities. There’s probably some more that we could do for student access. There is a burgeoning community which I hope will be a community, and share the results of each others work. So these are exciting times, and I’m here to provide a little bit of background, and solicit your support and encourage your participation and if any of you have activities that you think can benefit from these kinds of approaches. Thank you, and we can role the tape please.
Semyon Slobounov: If you have any questions related to the topic. We tried to show a different example of virtual reality research and teaching lesson. If you have any specific questions related to this you’re welcome to…
Chair Schengrund: Please give your name and unit.
George A. Lesieutre, College of Engineering: I guess I’m not quite clear why the Senate is being asked to take a position on this? I was wondering if you could say a few words about what’s the best thing that could possibly happen as a result of this report being accepted? What are you hoping for, I guess?
Semyon Slobounov: Let me just address this question. First of all that’s a mission of the Senate Committee of Computing and Information Systems to provide the current status of the VR at Penn State, and the commonwealth campuses and the situation in Big Ten campuses. To be competitive both in terms of recruiting students and be competitive in terms of providing appropriate instructions, not only for in terms of research but also for instruction. Both for graduate and undergraduate students, we have to show that what is actually available currently and what we are doing here. In fact, three years ago we had nothing here and as George, correct me if I’m wrong, and we just started from scratch and with the efforts of the CAC and with in fact the support from Provost Erickson who used to be the Dean of the Graduate School we just started working in this kind of area, and it is a growing field in fact, not only in our campus but also in the Big Ten campuses and also in the world. The thing is again, to be competitive with other schools within the Big Ten attracting the people. The other issue is, we have different units that use currently the visual reality and advanced technology, and the time to get some input how to collaborate and to move further in this kind of direction that’s kind of the major purpose for this statement.
George A. Lesieutre: Well, what do you hope is going to happen? You didn’t really answer the question.
Semyon Slobounov: In vision of the future development? George would you please elaborate what you think would be an appropriate way of doing that.
George Otto: I guess to answer your question, Dr. Lesieutre I’ve been asked to provide some background information. I look at this myself as an opportunity to inform those of you who are not aware of these sorts of activities of their existence, and to invite your participation. From my perspective I think probably the most important thing to happen here, and that really needs to be worked out kind of at the “worker bee” level for lack of a better word, are close collaborative relationships and growing a community of users and developers, so that we aren’t ending up with a number of facilities that are dark; too great a proportion of a time, or that aren’t realizing their fullest potential because of redundant efforts and things like that. As far as what’s an actionable item for the Senate? I don’t know…
Chair Schengrund: You have the three recommendations in front of you in the report. Are there other questions? We will limit this to about five minutes total more on this item because we have to keep moving if we’re going to finish by 3:45 p.m.
Roy B. Clariana, Penn State Great Valley: Is there any charge for faculty to corroborate? Do you charge by the hour or is it free?
Semyon Slobounov: At this point my understanding is there’s no charge. The visualization particular with that is actually encouraging the collaboration then provided all access. In fact, to my knowledge the faculty and students from different departments actually are becoming heavily involved in that kind of research and teaching different undergraduate and graduate courses.
George Otto: I can only speak from our particular facility in that case, and this is the CAC Immersadesk facility. We are very open to working with people in sort of start-up prototype kind of efforts but obviously we have a limited staff, so there’s a limit to what we can do in that regard in terms of seed commitment. If there were more elaborate things required then that’s probably the time to look at cooperative grants or some other way to fund it, but no, we don’t have an hourly fee, and it’s really not programming for hire. That’s really not how we designed the facility.
Chair Schengrund: Are there any other questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of accepting this report from the Senate Committee on Computing and Information Systems, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Schengrund: Any opposed, "nay"? The aye’s have it and the motion is carried. At this point Dr. Spanier has a brief announcement.
President Spanier: That’s okay, I’ll do it quickly. We have an interesting bit of news regarding one of your Faculty Senate colleagues. I just spotted that John Lilley was with us and I wanted to make sure that all of you knew that John should be congratulated on a wonderful new appointment. He will become soon President of the University of Nevada, Reno, a land-grant university in the State of Nevada. Join me in congratulating him.
Senators: Applause.
Chair Schengrund: I think you’ll be missed by the people at Behrend. At this point Guy Barbato will introduce Tom Jackson and they will present the “Courseware Policy”. I guess we could call this the Guy and Tom show, instead of the Tom and Jerry show. If you have questions again, please feel free to ask them but don’t repeat the same comments or the same questions if you can avoid it. Thank you.
SENATE COMMITTEE
ON RESEARCH
Courseware Policy
Guy F. Barbato, Chair Senate Committee on Research
Guy F. Barbato, College of Agricultural Sciences: Thank you very much. Nice day for a march. Let me just say that this has been a long road and a long time coming and I think Tom’s committee—Shelton Alexander, Wayne Curtis, Gary Miller and Gary Weber deserve a lot of credit for the time and the effort that they put into developing this. For those of you who haven’t caught up with it, notice that in the policy that you have in front of you that came with the Senate Agenda, the underlined areas are individual statements that have changed as a result of the forensic session. The bolded areas are ones that existed already for emphasis, so that it is the underlined areas that have changed since the forensic session. We’re