Faculty Senate Minutes | April 21, 2021

This meeting of the University Senate introduced new Senators, described and discussed some Senate committees, and featured a presentation from Assistant Vice President AJ Mazaris.

Faculty Senate Meeting

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 Matthew Phillips called the Senate to order on a Zoom conference.

Approval of March Meeting Minutes (unanimous)

Thanks to Simone Caron for service as previous President.

“Senate-Year” discussion

  • New structure of April-through-March Senate-Year maintains trajectory across the year by having a new Senate in place prior to summer undergraduate holiday. ExComm will meet throughout the summer, but this is not obligated for the whole Senate.

Introduction of new members

  • Historical review: Senate existed since 1967. A unique body, part of shared administration with board and president. Advisory and diplomatic office. First priority of the year is to establish Senate as a respectful partner in strategic planning. Senate establishes community across campuses. Senate should be organized around diverse views and challenging thoughts – not to be overly officious.
  • Distribution of link to “community interest” form by which senators can identify subcommittees to join: https://forms.gle/cSzN3DdGYs4AbDtt7

Committee Reports

  • Faculty senate resources committee – the committee monitors program and capital planning processes. Committee not particularly busy during pandemic. Rogan and Hof provided insight to the whole faculty. High points of the year: no budget for the academic year, just a provisional semester-by-semester budget. Financially the university is fine with 10M surplus in the Fall. University took advantage of federal relief efforts. Budgetary needs for the fall tied to in-person teaching and enrollment (which should increase). Thin margin on budget tied to tuition increase. Some staff may not be replaced, as technology can satisfactorily complete tasks. Actively recruiting new members to this committee.
  • Fringe benefits – No formal report because the committee is currently meeting with HR. It looks like there will be little change in benefits for the next fiscal year.
  • University integration – This is a curiosity committee to find out more about units and how they work together, their challenges and success, and the techniques for linking them together (e.g. iplace and reynolda house and downtown campus and charlotte activities). This will become a broader project to detect and enhance the broader mission of the university.
  • Athletics – How can we integrate student athletes into campus life and work with faculty to help them assist students athletes towards success? It would be great if additional new member is from the College in order to be part of College Athletics committee.
  • Compensation – Identify comparison schools (similar and aspirational). Break down by school, instead of combination. Gathered merit evaluation processes from the WFU schools. Teaching professors included with TT professors in the assessments. Law school has no associate professors. B-school assistant profs have higher average salaries than associate profs because of lack of ATPs and different disciplinary specialties. Data does not include librarians. Full documentation will be posted and available.

Discussion of fall 2021 meeting modalities.

  • Zoom seems a likely advantageous option.

Calls for new business.

Presentation by Assistant Vice President AJ Mazaris

  • Working on drafting a data standard on names and Gender markers.

Adjournment

Appendices

Categories: Minutes

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