The Academic Senate will postpone discussion over SF State's participation in the annual Outstanding Professor Award until it is debated further in the California State University Academic Senate. Previously, each university in the CSU system would nominate its candidate for outstanding professor. From those nominees, the CSU board of trustees would announce two winners.
This year's winners were a geography professor from Chico State
and a music professor from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Each nominee receives $1,000 and the winners take home $4,000. The money comes from the Joseph M. Schenck Foundation and the CSU Foundation.
The outstanding professor award is given based on a professor's contributions to students, academic disciplines and community involvement.
For the past six years, SF State has not nominated professors for the award.
SF State's faculty opposes the award because there are so many outstanding professors on campus that selecting one is difficult, Marilyn Boxer, vice president for academic affairs, said.
Senator Larry Medcalf said each professor has a different teaching style and trying to find out what works best is debatable.
"It's like saying 'what's the best book of the twentieth century?' How do you compare them?" Medcalf said.
Beginning next year, each campus will select their own outstanding professor.
According to the CSU senate, the outstanding professor award "will produce a winner from each campus, rather than a large group of losers."
Also some campuses lobbied for their nominee more than others, leaving others at a disadvantage.
CSU Academic Senator Harold Goldwhite wants to retain the current selection process, in which individual schools nominate professors and the CSU selects the winners.
In a letter to other academic senators, Goldwhite said under the current system the CSU could showcase its outstanding professor to the nation.
He said one of this year's winners gave a talk on teaching methods in her field at a national conference, which made her more recognized among colleagues.
Goldwhite proposed that the senate redefine the award to emphasize teaching and limit the amount of paper work needed to support their candidacy.
At Tuesday's Academic Senate meeting, Senator Gary Hammerstrom suggested that the senate wait until this issue is dealt with in the CSU Senate before taking action.
The senate agreed.
In other action, beginning fall semester, the SF State school year will start on the fourth Monday in August and end on Dec. 22 or sooner.
The date in August will allow faculty, students and others to complete summer plans and the semester will end early enough to prepare for the holidays, according to the senate document.
In another item, English Chair Stephen Arkin proposed that the Master of Arts: concentration in ESL title be changed to Master in English: teaching English to speakers of other languages.
According to Arkin's memo, the old title was "not appropriate to the current professional practice in academia."
The next Academic Senate meeting will be held Tuesday, April 25 in the library, Room 431 at 2:00 p.m.