The associate vice president for facilities planning presented a proposal for the remodeling of the CSUN campus at the Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting on Thursday afternoon.
Colin Donahue said many of the proposed new buildings are already underway. Construction began in December 2007 and the full plan should be completed by the year 2035.
G3 parking structure, a fifth science building and the performing arts center are some of the construction projects outlined in the proposal.
Faculty Committee member, Charles Macune, was not pleased with the prospect of professors teaching more than 100 students in one classroom.
“What makes us the institution that we are is our ability to maintain classroom sizes to 49,” he said.
Along with this proposal is a plan for a new residential building to meet the demand of students placed on the waiting list for on-campus housing.
Donahue said the new dormitory would contain about 400 bed spaces with two people to a room. Twenty to 25 students will share a common hall.
The new building would be mainly designed for freshman students, he said.
“We get freshmen and put them in an apartment where they can isolate themselves. Here they will be forced to interact,” Donahue said.
Committee members expressed concern about adding more residential halls on campus.
Edward Alfano, acting chair of the art department, said traffic on Reseda Boulevard is already heavy and adding new residential halls may only increase traffic.
“If we become more of a residential campus, we can make people less dependent on their cars,” said Donahue.
Technological improvements on campus were also discussed at the committee meeting.
Hilary Baker, vice president for Information Technology, said efforts are being made to bring the technology to the CSUN campus up to date.
“The current CSUN technology does not meet everyone’s expectations, but (updating) is a little more complicated because the e-mail network needs to be up all the time,” said Baker.
Baker adds that maintenance on the system is scheduled to usually take place between midnight and 6 a.m.
Often students don’t use their webmail, but simply have their mail forwarded to their regular email address.
“We have to really think if we want to pay for these email services when students just forward,” Baker said.
There is also the need to update the WebCT program used by many professors as an alternative way to e-mail students and post assignments.
An agreement proposed by the Educational Policies committee was passed to rewrite the Probationary Student Policy in the new CSUN catalogs.
The EPC hopes to change the probation policy so that students who are placed on probation must work to improve their GPA toward a 2.0 or higher every semester until they reach good standing. If a student fails to meet the probation requirements, they are disqualified from the university.
