Faculty Senate Minutes, September 7, 2023

Present: A. Rosenfeld (Chair), B. Gaines (Secretary), D. Brophy, C. Carlson, K. Engemann, D. Gunn, J. Haber, M. Higgins, A. Howerton-Fox, L. Ivanov, A. Kelso, J. Klein, H. Park

Excused: G. Barry, C. Dougherty, Y. Kang, N. Kyaw, S. Petrovic, A. Qayyu

A. Rosenfeld called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m. Quorum was met

Announcements

N/A

Updates

Constituencies of specific departments and committees were set up at the Senate Retreat. Please reach out to your groups, so they know they can contact you with issues, and you can provide updates on what the Senate is working on. Spreadsheets of senate liaisons and their constituencies will be re-distributed to all senators.

Action Item Resolution on DEIB Office

The Senate voted to approve the following amended resolution:

The Faculty Senate endorses A. Munsch's official appointment as Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Officer

Discussion Item Amending Constitution of Faculty Senate

The Senate discussed the possibility of amending the constitution of the faculty senate. This item was tabled to the next faculty senate meeting. Prior to that meeting, senators should closely review current constitution, the current expectations for clinical faculty and other non-tenure track faculty in terms of service, and the section of the most recent Middle States report that addressed shared governance.

Action Item Committee Vacancies

The Senate voted to approve all new self-nominees for appointed committees, listed below. There were no self-nominees for the elected committees. There remain a number of vacancies on both appointed and elected committees from across all three schools, so we will reach out to personal networks and the Dean’s Office of each school for assistance in finding faculty willing to fill these roles. These vacancies are listed below.

Commencement Speakers/Honorary Degrees: LSB- Chrissy Martins, A&S- Tyron Pope, Jeffrey Schriber
Senate: 1 A&S, 1 LSB, 1 NYPISHS (elected)
RTA: 1 A&S (elected)
CAA: 1 A&S (elected)
Commencement Speakers/Honorary Degrees: 1 LSB
Enrollment Management: 1 NYPISHS
Honors Council: 1 LSB (Note: Secretary was only informed of this opening after self-nom form distributed)
Arts Council: 4 Any School

Discussion Item: Workload Committee

The provost contacted the members of the workload committee to set up the first meeting for 9/22. Prior to that meeting, questions should be distributed to chairs to get their input on workload and what is important to their departments. In addition, there should be a meeting (tentatively scheduled for Thursday, 9/14 at 3:30 pm) to include: faculty members of the workload committee, self-nominees for the committee who were not appointed by the Senate, and the executive committee of the Senate. There was also discussion of members of the workload committee reaching out to different departments on an ongoing basis.

Discussion Item: Mandatory Trainings Distributed by SafeColleges

There were three major concerns voiced with the training sent out to all faculty: The lack of differentiation between new and returning faculty in the materials provided, the timing of the training to be completed right at the start of a new semester, and the `required’ language. Aaron will reach out to HR, who distributed the training, with these faculty concerns.

Discussion Item: Retirement Contributions for Overloads

There continues to be uncertainty over the language in the current policy (which right now refers to excluding “overtime”) as well as the language in the previous policy (which apparently did not have that exclusion), and whether there should have been percentage-based retirement contributions for employees based on their compensation for teaching overloads and independent studies. The Senate agreed this warrants continued investigation, but there is not enough information to take action at this time.

Discussion Item Space for NYPISHS Faculty on New Rochelle campus

As faculty offices move to the Bronxville campus, NYPISHS faculty who teach courses on the New Rochelle campus had expressed concern over not having a space available on this campus to meet with students or do their work between classes. Some ideas floated include the 4th floor of La Penta, and a Faculty Senate office/lounge that existed in past years. The concern and these ideas will be communicated to Provost’s office.

Discussion Item: Guests for 23-24 Faculty Senate Meetings

We discussed the following schedule for inviting guests to our meetings this year. There are still three additional meetings in the Spring semester if we think of guests we would like to invite.

Alison Munsch to the 9/28 meeting (over Zoom
Joanne Steele to the 11/2 meeting (over Zoom)
President Carey to the 11/30 meeting (in person)
Provost Mulligan to one of the Spring meetings (TBD)

Discussion Item: Follett Access Affecting Teaching

Concerns were raised about how the way that the program has led to students needing to bring/use computers during class to access the text, when some faculty prefer not having students on computers during classtime. Senate should reach out to chairs to find out how the change has impacted their department. Senate liaisons should reach out to their constituencies to gather information on all the ways the new model has affected pedagogy, in order to craft a document.

Discussion Item: Transparency about Peer Group and Compensation Study

Concerns were brought to the senate about the lack of transparency regarding the peer group and the data that is used to determine the “25th percentile of rank and discipline” that determines raises granted on tenure and promotion. A faculty member brought a specific example of this happening in a way that seemed unlikely. The senate felt it would be appropriate to form a subcommittee to look at this and clearly articulate the concerns, and that this could then be picked up over email or at the next meeting.

There being no other business, A. Rosenfeld adjourned the Faculty Senate meeting at 5:30 p.m. The next Senate meeting will be held via Zoom on 9/28/2023 at 3:30p.m.