For continued campus support of undocumented students, Enrollment Services moving to Student Affairs and the approval of review for reappointment, tenure and promotion policies dominated the Academic Senate meeting on Aug. 31.
Long Beach State President Jane Close Conoley said she has started the process of moving Enrollment Services from Academic Affairs to Student Affairs.
Enrollment Services will be focused on declining enrollment. Conoley added that Academic Affairs will have additional items to work on, but she didn’t disclose at the meeting what those items are, although the idea is to balance workloads.
Conoley said she wants to give time to both the CSULB Provost, Karyn Scissum Gunn and the Vice President of Student Affairs, Beth Lesen, to look over the proposal before giving more details on it. The focus of the changes is to work on better recruitment strategies. Moving Enrollment Services should take about a semester.
“My best assessment is that current students will notice no change in their interactions with enrollment services,” Conoley said.
The change was noted by Norbert Schürer, English professor and Liberal Arts Senator, his concern being who exactly was consulted for the change. He focused on the decisions being made without the President consultation of anyone within the shared governance the campus uses.
Conoley said the change is administrative, she had taken time to think it over and that the process needed to be started in some way.
“My point with Professor Schürer was that I knew that this move would cause some consternation because few people like change. The good news is that the professionals in enrollment services seem very happy with the decision,” Conoley said.
The Dream Success Center presented findings from a study made during the Spring 2023 semester that they concluded through interviews with undocumented students on campus that they feel unseen or invisible.
“We started a large part of our data collection in Spring of 2023, survey and interviews, but the study itself started before then,” Luis Mendiola Luna, a student research fellow at the DSC, said.
According to the findings, 58% of undocumented students either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that they were treated equitably at CSULB. But 25% of undocumented students disagree or strongly disagree with the level of equity between them and their United States citizen peers. Since 2020, there is a growing number of undocumented students without work permits or social security cards.
The DSC is in the process of expanding its connections around campus and continuing to research the situation for undocumented students. The panel suggested expanding UndocuAlly training to more staff and faculty members. Audits of policies and practices at university and academic departments should also be conducted.
The Academic Senate will begin reviewing their reappointment, tenure and promotion policy after a motion to substitute was passed. This motion allows the senate to focus their efforts on a more recent draft of the policy from May 4, 2023 instead of working with the 2022 draft.
Leslie Andersen reintroduced information from last year’s policy changes that focused on the work that the Senate did on the reappointment, tenure and promotion policy.
“We did a lot of listening. I looked back at our minutes [Senate minutes of past meetings]. We started revising this policy in November of 2020,” Andersen said.
Anderson emphasized that this was a starting point for the colleges and departments to write their own policies when it comes to reappointment, tenure and promotions.
The RTP policy has been under senate review for close to three years. Senators will have until the next senate meeting to add proposed changes to the policy.
The next Academic Senate meeting is Sept. 14 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Towner Auditorium, PSY-150 or online via Zoom.