RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
UNIVERSITY SENATE

MINUTES: Organizational Meeting of the University Senate

DATE: May 1, 2020

TIME AND PLACE: 10:15 a.m., WebEx

MEMBERS PRESENT: Ahmed, Albert, Alexander-Floyd, Alizadeh, Allamand, Ameri, Anderson, Aubert, Avallone, Bachmann, Barchi, Bhatt, Bhuyan, Bogden, Boikess, Boison, Borisovets, Bridgeman, Brienza-Arcilla, Buyske, Cabrera, Castaneda, Chadalvada, Chefitz, Chen, Chiu, Choo, Cifelli, Cohen, Cole, Coleman, Cooper, Crews, Dasari, Dool, Drazer, Esposito, Everett, Fadahunsi, Felder, Fernandez Arroyo, Figueira, Flynn, Foster, Fox, Garcia, Gillett, Giraud, Gohel, Gomes, Goonetilleke, Granadeiro, Guo, Gursoy, Haley, Hara, Hodes, Huang, Hunter, Hunter Fratzola, Hurd, Ibrahim, Immidisetti, Jarrin, Joergenson, Kane, Kaplun, Kaye, Kiss, Kosar, Kothari, Kustka, Lutz, Lyles, Madson, Maglione Rico, Mahajan-Cusack, Marchetta, Markert, Markowitz, Marsic, Matto, Mazurek, McKeever, Mena-Segovia, Mendicino, Menifield, Miranti, Morton, Oliver, Ozel, Parsa, Paskhover, Patel, Rabinowitz, Ribou, Rivera, Roth, Ryan, Sacks, Sanota, Saltzman, Schwartz, Schwartz, Sesti, Shapiro, Shinbrot, Siederer, Silver, Simonds, Sinacori, Speigel, Stephens, Stephenson, Struble, Sztatrowski, Thompson, Tommasi, Trees, Valverde, Vargas, Ventura-Martinez, Volino, Walkup, Wang, Ward, Willett, Winters, Wirtenberg

EXCUSED: Kovacs, Maloney, Stern

ABSENT:  Adya, Atkins, Ayad, Baldi, Barone, Bator, Beegan, Bekdash, Blanchett, Britton, Cantor, Conway, Dane, Davidson, Ding, Dreyer, Eaton, Ebert, Elsayed, English, Farris, Feldman, Fellenz, Goodman, Gower, Halkitis, Hatefi, Henderson, Holdom, Hsueh, Johnson, Joy, Kukor, Lamar, Lee, Lei, Liu, Lopez, Maddox Douglas, Mahon, Mansukhani, March, Marchitello, Marsh, Mayes, Molloy, Moore, Murphy, Mutcherson, Nath, Nelson, Nickitas, O’Connor, Pedro-Santiago, Pinto-Figueroa, Ponzio, Porumbescu, Potter, Potter, Rajan, Schiavo, Scroth, Shankar, Shapses, Shobut, Song, Strom, Tan, Thakuriah, Veysey, Vidal, Virani, Yamaoka

ATTENDANCE  SUMMARY: Faculty: Of 105 total: 79 present (75%), 1 excused (1%), 25 absent (24%); Students: Of 35 total: 22 present (63%), 1 excused (3%), 12 absent (34%); Administrators: Of 37 total: 3 present (8%), 1 excused (3%), 33 absent (89%); Staff: Of 20 total: 18 present (90%), 0 excused (0%), 2 absent (10%); Alumni: Of 8 total: 6 present (75%), 0 excused (0%), 2 absent (25%)

PRESIDING OFFICER: Jon Oliver, Chair

CALL TO ORDER AND DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM: Chairperson Oliver called the first meeting of the 2020-21 Rutgers University Senate to order at 10:15 a.m. via WebEx. He welcomed all attendees and extended a special welcome to new Senators.

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY – Mary Mickelsen, Executive Secretary of the University Senate

• Agenda: The meeting’s agenda was approved by the Senate.
• Committee Preferences:  Secretary Mickelsen directed the Senate to online resources to guide Senators’ choices of standing-committee membership preferences, including the committees’ standing charges, pending charges, and a committee-preference form, and reminded everyone to send her their preferences.
• Schedule of 2020-21 Senate and Executive Committee Meetings: Mickelsen asked the Senate to add to their calendars the dates of next year’s Senate meetings.
• New Senator Orientation: Mickelsen asked all new senators to mark their calendars for the New Senator Orientation on September 11, 2020 with more information to follow.

PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR: Privilege of the floor was granted to Nominating Panel Chair Ann Gould, a member of the 2019-20 Senate.
 
REPORT OF THE NOMINATING PANEL: Nominating Panel Chair Ann Gould presented the report of the Nominating Panel.

Senator Gould gave a brief overview of the nomination and new election process involving an online voting procedure, as well as the runoff procedure for at-large faculty Executive Committee member elections. Gould said that any candidates nominated from the floor must be certified on the Senate roster in order to be added to the ballot.

Gould announced candidates for all positions, calling for nominations from the floor in each category except for Chair and Vice Chair, as mandated by USGC report S-1501. She also announced that Student elections will be conducted in the fall due to a lack of school-level election results.

The nominations completed, including those made from the floor, the resultant slate of candidates was:

Chair (who serves ex officio as Representative to the Board of Governors): Jon Oliver, Staff-New Brunswick (Staff) and Robert Schwartz, NJMS (Faculty)
Vice Chair: Peter Gillett, RBS:UNB (Faculty)
Faculty Members of the Executive Committee, Camden: Ralph Giraud, Business-Camden (Faculty)
Faculty Members of the Executive Committee, Newark: Natalie Borisovets, Libraries, Newark (Faculty)
Faculty Members of the Executive Committee, New Brunswick: Robert Boikess, SAS-NB (Faculty); Kenneth McKeever, SEBS (Faculty); Tugrul Ozel, At-Large NB (Faculty)
Faculty Members of the Executive Committee, RBHS: Gloria Bachmann, RWJMS (Faculty); Adrienne Simonds, SHP (Faculty); Laura Willett, RWJMS (Faculty)
Part-Time Lecturer/Annual Appointee Faculty Member of the Executive Committee: Lisa Mahajan-Cusack, PTL-N (Faculty); Karen Thompson, PTL-NB (Faculty)
Alumnus Member of the Executive Committee: Josephine Marchetta, Alumni Association, Houshang Parsa, Alumni Association; Tom Struble, Alumni Association
Staff Senator Member of the Executive Committee: Russell Crews, Staff-New Brunswick; Brian Everett, Staff-Camden; Chazz Fellenz, Staff-Newark
Faculty Representative to the Board of Governors: Rachel Kaye, NJMS (Faculty); Samuel Rabinowitz, SB-C (Faculty); Troy Shinbrot, Engineering (Faculty)
Faculty Representatives to the Board of Trustees: Anna Haley, SSW (Faculty); Boris Paskhover, NJMS (Faculty); Menahem Spiegel, RBS: N/NB (Faculty)

Candidates who wished to do so were given time to make statements in support of their candidacy.

A runoff election was conducted for all full-time faculty members of the Executive Committee based on the above slate so that those nominees who did not prevail in the contested New Brunswick, Newark, and RBHS Faculty EC categories could be placed in the at-large category.

VOTING: Voting was done online via the Senate website utilizing Net ID access and only to voting members of the 2020-21 Senate were permitted to vote. Votes were tabulated electronically and successful candidates were announced on the website immediately after each election.

RESULTS OF THE 2020-21 ELECTIONS:

Chair: Jon Oliver, Staff – New Brunswick Staff
Vice Chair: Peter Gillett, RBS:UNB (Faculty)
Executive Committee Full-Time Faculty, Camden: Ralph Giraud, Business-Camden (Faculty)
Executive Committee Full-Time Faculty, Newark: Natalie Borisovets, Libraries, Newark (Faculty)
Executive Committee Full-Time Faculty, New Brunswick: Robert Boikess, SAS-NB (Faculty)

Executive Committee Full-Time Faculty, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences: Laura Willett, RWJMS (Faculty)
Executive Committee Full-Time Faculty, At-Large: Robert Schwartz, NJMS (Faculty); Adrienne Simonds, SHP (Faculty)

Executive Committee Alumnus: Tom Struble, Alumni Association
Executive Committee Part-Time Lecturer/Adjunct Faculty: Karen Thompson, PTL-New Brunswick (Faculty)
Executive Committee Staff Member: Russell Crews, New Brunswick Staff
Board of Governors Faculty Representative: Troy Shinbrot, Engineering (Faculty)
Board of Trustees Faculty Representatives: Anna Haley, SSW (Faculty); Boris Paskhover, NJMS (Faculty)

ADJOURNMENT: Chairperson Oliver adjourned the Organizational Meeting at 12:45 p.m.

Committee Meetings

Academic Standards, Regulations & Admissions Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Budget & Finance Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Faculty Affairs & Personnel Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Information Technology Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Instruction, Curricula & Advising Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Research, Graduate & Professional Education Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Student Affairs Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

University Structure & Governance Committee

No location or time for this committee meeting