Faculty Senate Minutes, April 25, 2024

April 25, 2024, 3:30 p.m., Charter Room

Present: A. Rosenfeld (Chair), B. Gaines (Secretary), M. Bard, D. Brophy, C. Carlson, D. Defino, K. Engemann, G. Grimaldi, J. Haber, M. Higgins, L. Ivanov, J. Klein, Y. Kang, H. Park, S. Petrovic, A. Qayyum
Excused: A. Howerton-Fox, M. Hughes, N. Kyaw

A. Rosenfeld called the meeting to order at 3:36 pm. Quorum was met.

Announcements

Minutes from our 4/17 meeting will be coming out soon.

Faculty Senate Constitution changes

Voting has closed, and changes were approved by 84% of the voting faculty. Will be sent to the Board/president for approval soon. We are proceeding as though they’ve taken effect in assigning membership to various committees.

Election Results

These were shared via spreadsheet/email, but here are those elected:

Senate: Mitch Bard, Dean Defino, Ben Gaines and Michael Hughes
CAA: Amal AlAbbad, Charles Cante, Yasuhiro Maikumra, Ivy Stabell, Amy Stackhouse, Michelle Veyvoda
RTA: Jeffrey Alstete, Andrew Griffith, Derese Kassa
Budget: Josh Klein, Catherine Smith, Christy Solorio
HRC: Sinead Harrington, Hannah Park

Congratulations and thanks to all those elected to serve. A number of individuals reached out following the close of self-nominations to express interest in serving on these committees. Since all faculty already had the opportunity to self-nominate, these faculty are being appointed to the committees in which they have expressed interest:

CAA: Steve Kroleski
RTA: Laurie Olson
HRC: Christina Carlson

There are still a number of open seats (2 on CAA, 2 on RTA, 3 on Budget), and hopefully new workload policy will motivate more people to serve. This led to a robust discussion on the struggles to fill these committees, especially those which are possibly contentious such as CAA. Some possible suggestions that were arrived at:

Reconsider when committees meet.
Clarify which committees meet over Zoom, and look into Zoom possibilities for those which do not currently meet virtually
Send out a survey to find out why people aren’t serving on committees?
See if RTA is looking seriously at service and considering it in the letters they send to faculty.
Have all senators ask their constituencies about why they’re not serving.
Involve the deans, and get them to talk to the faculty who are not doing as much.

Formed a subcommittee to look at this: A. Rosenfeld, C. Carlson, and D. Defino volunteered. Look at the actual data of who is serving (by department/school/level), design a survey if appropriate, and think about possible levers.

Committee Appointments

The following faculty were appointed to serve 2 year terms (3-year term in the case of IRB) on the respective committee below:

Libraries and IT: Ana Camara, Eric Muller, Mary Jane Skelly
Enrollment: Oksana Huk
Institutional Advancement: Oksana Huk
Environmental Sustainability: Christina Andruk, Ana Camara, Ning Gao, Jim Robinson, Jeffrey Schriber
Student Life: Eric Muller, Jaeyoung Kang
Diversity: Laura Magliulo, Jimena Perry, Christy Solorio
Honors Council: Miles Beckwith, Hannah Park, Brandon Ring, Rachana Umashankar
IRB: Gary Grimaldi, Adam Rosado
Arts Council: Amy Stackhouse
Core Curriculum Committee: Kathleen Kristian, Maria Nereida Segura-Rico

Senate Elections

Dean Defino elected Secretary.

Mitch Bard, Christina Carlson, Mike Higgins, Mike Hughes, Yourha Kang, and Arif Qayyum elected to the executive committee

Survey

With limited responses, it was determined that the survey would be reopened and another reminder sent to encourage more faculty to participate. A reminder will be sent via Qualtrics, Aaron will send an email directly so that it is not external, and there was a suggestion that we could also reach out to the deans and ask them to encourage their faculty to fill out the survey.

Old Business

Faculty Handbook: Provost Mulligan is convening a working group of Jim Carroll, Aaron Rosenfeld, and herself to look over the handbook. Questions were expressed about how adjunct faculty are included in there, as well as university policy on holding class remotely in the case of illness/bad weather.

Looking at the priorities from the fall, we wanted to focus on: communication and morale/workload, and we have made steps on those roads. There was robust discussion on how higher education has changed and is currently changing, and that we need to find a middle ground between holding on to what we do and have done, and reconciling ourselves to new reality.

New Business

The new workload document will be made available online soon, so feedback can be provided.

There being no other business, A. Rosenfeld adjourned the Faculty Senate meeting at 5:20 pm. This was the final Senate meeting for the academic year.

Minutes prepared by B. Gaines