Faculty Senate Minutes | January 20, 2021

Presidential search update; Old business updates; Athletics Committee report; Compensation Committee Report; Fringe Benefits update; Discussion re WakeListens survey and campus culture

Faculty Senate Meeting

January 20, 2021

Note: To facilitate open discussion, the identity of most Senators making comments or questions is not recorded. Such comments as recorded here are generally not verbatim. The identity of comments from Senate Officers and Senate Ad Hoc and Standing Committee Chairs are given, as is the identity of persons commenting in their official administrative capacity (e.g. EVP, Provost, or College Dean.) 

Call to Order: President Simone Caron

Approval of November 18, 2020 Senate minutes

Updates:

• Presidential Search has identified five candidates and will announce final candidate in near future.
• President Hatch’s Address to the Senate will be on 2-17-21. A google doc is available to submit questions. google doc
• Substance Abuse Policy: Caron, Knudson and Rupp worked on revising the HR document and sent it to DeDee Johnston as head of HR
• Prescription Plan: emails and hard copy letters have gone out to all participants.
• Faculty will maintain access to their offices if the University should need to pivot to online teaching.
• New Ombudsperson will begin duties by the end of January or early February.
• New Senators and Officers will begin their terms April 1^st
  • Units will have to hold elections prior to this date
  • If a Unit is unable to hold such elections because of Covid-19, sitting Senators will continue to serve until such elections can take place.

New Business:

Committee Reports:

Athletics: Wayne Silver *reporting from meeting with Athletic Department. Please see Appendix A for full report.

• Financial related
  • Athletics is not a business but an enterprise. If it were a business it would have to show a profit.
  • Wake receives about $30 million each year from the ACC
  • Athletics cannot operate without more money from the university
  • Athletics facilities is no longer separate from university facilities to help save money
  • It has 200 employees; 40 furloughed; director and football coach have taken pay cuts; athletic buildings only built when money is available
  • It doesn’t want the department to be called the “Athletics Department” anymore
  • Faculty Athletic Committee would like to know about diversity problems and rift between athletes and nonathletes
  • Athletics reduced operating expenditure by about 50% from July 1 to December 31 vs the year before.
• Scholarship and insurance related
  • Athletes use their own family insurance and Wake insurance
  • About $16 million each year goes towards scholarship
  • Athletes contribute about $12 million in tuition
  • Medical scholarships available for students no longer able to compete
• COVID related
  • Wake has spent 1.5 million on testing for athletes.
  • Wake has to continue to play to sustain revenue.
  • Students had opportunity to go home for winter break
  • Athletes have avenues for mental health
• New personal brand development for athletes
  • Wake has made arrangements with Stride program- a program to teach student athletes how to develop personal brands.
  • Biggest challenge will be allowing student athletes to profit while still being in compliance.
  • Concerns
    • Could breed ferocious competition and cause hierarchy. How does this help the community?
    • Problematic is that there is an actual company to help athletes brand.
      • (response) Reason to hire a company is to protect the university and to make sure the athletes play by the rules

Compensation: Katy Harriger

• Committee’s charge is to report annually to the Senate on issues concerning compensation for administration, faculty, and staff.
• Committee has a meeting with Adam Shift with institutional research. He puts all the data together for reports to AAUP. Committee has generated questions to ask him.
• Committee plans to with 2018-2019 data because last report was based on 2017-2018 data. This report will use the new list of schools.
• Committee wants to look at merit evaluation processes across the schools to see how they are taking into account the circumstances of 2020-21 with the pandemic and their ability to do their research.
• Phil Handwerk does a lot of the hard work of comparing to other schools using AAUP report
• Senator suggested waiting a year to compare administrative salaries to other schools.
  • Another senator then asked why we would wait a year to analyze administrators’ salaries. If it’s doable we should do it. If it’s too much for this year we can wait.
  • (response) This year’s status quo is so different due to change in presidency and some other positions.

Fringe Benefits: Chris Coughlin

• Will start to meet with HR in February. Senators should send Coughlin any questions they have re: benefits
• Letters with information on the new drug policy have gone out.
  • (response) Will be helpful to get feedback on this process and transition.
• May see a delay in prescriptions due to Postal Service delays

Presentation of major conclusions from Wake Listens Survey: Saylor Breckenridge

• This was a survey of faculty, administrators, and staff across the university in 2019.
• 69 items about Wake workplace characteristics.
  • Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with statements ( 5 point scale)
• There have been two previous reports about this survey that can be found on the WFU website.
• More details on the report:
  • This report disaggregated faculty, administrators, and staff and looked at their responses comparatively.
  • In general, administrators and staff share common perspectives on workplace culture (amongst themselves and between each other).
  • Faculty do not have consistent responses.
• Results of Presentation:
  • Senator moves to create an ad hoc committee on faculty community with the request that Julie Wayne chair the committee with Sherri Moss and Sharon Andrews as members. *the motion was seconded
  • Modification made to the original motion that Saylor co-chair the committee
    • Motion adopted unanimously

Adjournment

Appendix A – Full Athletic Committee Report