The Role of Campus Senates in the Accountability Process

AS-2511-00/AA - November 2-3, 2000

RESOLVED: That the Academic Senate of the California State University urge the Chancellor to ensure that campus senates are involved actively in the process of forming and setting goals and preparing and submitting reports as part of the CSU accountability process; and be it further

RESOLVED: That the Academic Senate CSU urge the Chancellor to ensure that the accountability report for each campus be signed by the academic senate chair on behalf of the campus's senate or to accept a separate report from the campus; and be it further

RESOLVED: That the Academic Senate CSU urge the Chancellor and Board of Trustees to ensure, in keeping with Cornerstones Principle 10, that the accountability process not be used to compare individual campuses or to compare similar programs among CSU campuses.

RATIONALE: In a report titled "CSU Accountability Process; Report to the Board of Trustees: September 2000," the CSU Chancellor's Office submitted the first of what are anticipated to be annual reports to the Board of Trustees under Principle 9 of the Cornerstones report adopted by the Board of Trustees in 1998 and following procedures adopted by the Board of Trustees in November 1999. This first report consists of a series of measures of performance by the system as a whole and, for each campus, a "Digest of 1998/1999 Campus Accountability Data: Extracted from campus reports and system data." Since submission of this first report, the Accountability Process has been extended to include goal setting by individual campuses. The request for goals, including those related to the quality of a campus's academic program, was communicated to campus presidents by the Chancellor with a due date of January 19, 2001. Few campus senates were involved in the preparation of their campus's initial report, and the short timeline for the setting of goals makes full participation by campus senates difficult if not impossible. The presentation of individual campus measures as a part of the accountability report may encourage comparisons between campuses that are likely to be counterproductive for frank reporting by campuses and that may violate Cornerstones Principle 10.

APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY - November 2-3, 2000