SUNY New Paltz Academic Affairs Committee

Minutes of the March 2, 2004 Meeting

Jason Carter, Lisa Chase, Ben Endres, Glenn Geher (Chair), Barbara Hardgrave – Presiding Officer Faculty Governance (guest), Yoav Kaddar, Debra Miller, Yoni Schwartz, Chi-Yang Tsai, Mohammad Zunoubi

1. As the minutes from the previous meeting (2/17) were not available, they were neither addressed nor approved.

2. No announcements

3. Status report on calendar:

Barbara Hardgrave thanked the committee for its work on the calendar. She went on to tell the committee that according to the by-laws, the committee has fulfilled its obligation by making a recommendation regarding the calendar. She added that the faculty does not have to approve the calendar and that the final decision regarding which calendar the university will use is made by the President’s Cabinet.

Members of the committee asked that the committee’s stand on the calendar be made clear to the President’s Cabinet - that not one version of the calendar is more favorable than the other.

At the next general faculty meeting (3/12) Barbara will make the announcement that the issue of resolving which calendar will be accepted is in the hands of the President’s Cabinet. This body will make the final decision regarding this issue.

4. Continuation of discussion regarding the “Diversity Calendar”:

The committee further discussed the different aspects and implications of forming a diversity calendar.

At the end of the discussion the committee recommended the following:

That the university implements a mechanism for making all members of our community aware of holidays (religious, cultural, etc.) with the goals of (a) furthering cultural awareness, (b) showing respect for diversity, and (c) furthering the dissemination of information to the campus community of the different religions and cultural groups represented here. Toward this end, we recommend that representatives from both Student and Academic Affairs work to create such a calendar to correspond with each academic year.

The Academic Affairs Committee suggests that the particulars of this calendar conform to the following:

A. How Disseminated:

This calendar should be (a) included as a link to the University’s Academic Calendar website, (b) included in the planner given to students by the Center for Student Development, and (c) included in the College Activities calendar. Additional mechanisms (not specified here) for dissemenation that are deemed appropriate may be utlized as well.

B. Contents of this Diversity Calendar:

We suggest that this calendar is comprised of an edited version of the interfaith calendar found at the website www.interfaithcalendar.com.

C. Process-Related Concerns regarding the Diversity Calendar:

1. We propose that the Offices of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs work together to work out the particulars regarding who implements and updates (yearly) this calendar.

2. A process for updating this calendar to match each particular academic year should be created. Further, a process for adding additional holidays based on interests of contingencies on campus should be described and implemented.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:25 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Yoav Kaddar

Secretary pro tempore