By Robert Rios , News Editor
Although it wasn’t on the agenda, the coronavirus and, more importantly, steps that the university is taking to protect against any possible outbreak on campus, topped last Wednesday’s Academic Senate meeting.
President Thomas A. Parham asked the senate to veer from the scheduled agenda so he could share information on having a plan in place for the possibility of an outbreak occurring.
Parham explained that CSUDH is coordinating with the California State University Chancellor’s Office on preparing such a plan.
“What we cannot afford to do as a campus is not be prepared,” Parham said.
Accompanying Parham was Dr. Irina Gaal, chief of medical services for the Student Health Center. She explained what type of precautions individuals can take, such as advising anyone who is feeling sick to stay home. take.. Gaal also mentioned that professors should be a little easier on students missing class if they were to get sick with a cold or cough.
“We want to keep sick people out of the classrooms and out of public places where they could affect others,” Gaal said. “But we also don’t want to make it a barrier to these students to miss class by having to give them these onerous tasks like getting a note from a doctor…we would really discourage that.”
Parham made it clear that the school will not be lenient with allowing students and staff to travel internationally just as a precaution. The president also stated the university has already called back two students from Korea and Tokyo, plus one more in Italy.
“Relative to international travel with the way that this is bubbling up, we are about to put a hard line in the sand,” Parham said. “…I’m going to be very hard-pressed to justify a reason to sign off to send a faculty member or student, or staff person into any place that I think is likely to put them and their health at risk.”
In other news the senate:
- Heard from Parham that the CSU Chancellor’s Office has asked all the CSU’s to control their enrollment. He said the CSU has directed CSUDH to no longer take in redirected students. Redirection is the process where eligible applicants who cannot get into impacted campuses (meaning they are full) get redirected to non-impacted CSU campuses without having to complete another application for admission.
- Conducted a first reading to amend the senate constitution and by-laws to include having a representative from the coaching faculty at the meetings, and changing all references of his/hers to theirs in the constitution.
- Discussed for its first reading of a Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) policy that could mean moving towards another form of assessment for students to take.
- Also discussed possible changes to the sabbatical policy due to the way the selection for sabbatical leave has changed since first carried out in 2005. This item was tabled due to there being a limited time in the meeting.
- Honored Carrie Stewart, a CSUDH alumna and vice president of University Advancement, for her many contributions on campus including getting the largest corporate gift in the university’s history, establishing an alumni relations program, and efforts in getting the new Science and Innovation built.
- Senate Chair Charles made special mention of two notable upcoming events:the Dymally Millennium Symposium on March 11 and the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Science and Innovation Building on March 26
