Faculty Senate Minutes | February 15, 2023
Committee reports to the Senate.
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 Tracey Banks called the Senate to order on Zoom.
Approval of January 18, 2023 Meeting Minutes (unanimous approval by affirmation)
Announcements and Updates
- Reminder: Provost’s Address to the University on Thursday March 23 at 4p in Annenburg Forum, Carswell Hall, Reynolda Campus.
- Reminder: look for scheduled feedback sessions for the Strategic Framework process.
Committee Reports
- Athletics Committee – John Sumanth: one of the biggest issues at the top of the committee’s agenda is the Johnson case which will determine if athletes are employees of the university. The athletics department is preparing for future possibilities. One current thought is putting the University’s brand under an LLC and the students may not even be students at the university. The joint athletic committee is meeting in a few weeks.
Question: Will students who currently are paid in some form by the university experience some change? Response: some athletes may be students and some not. The students might proceed forward as usual. The pure athletes would just get paid by the LLC.
- Fringe Benefits – Melissa Jenkins: see document in appendix.
- Ad Hoc Committee on the Faculty Handbook – Brian Young: that the committee submitted the final Phase I proposal to the Provost’s office on 2/2/2023. The proposal was consistent with prior Faculty Senate updates with the exception that specifics of the formatting of the changes were left intentionally vague. The committee will work with the Provost’s office before the release of the next several changes to ensure that the spirit of the proposal has been implemented. The Provost has accepted the proposal and it is considered to be in effect immediately.
- Committee of Collegiate Senators – Olga Pierrakos: see document in appendix.
- Compensation Committee – Ryan Shirey: . The college committee just presented their annual report to the college and found compensation to be fairly aligned with peers and show no gaps among cross-sections available to us. This committee will perform this analysis across the entire university and will look for any improvements in the data.
- Integration Committee – Erik Summers: early surveys of faculty reveal strong interest in the new Medical School and the relationship with the School of Professional Studies. His team will line up a speaker to discuss this. Also, they are putting together a field trip to the hospital in April to see how the hospital works along with its teaching elements.
- Nominations Committee – Simone Caron: the committee worked to get two candidates per position, but have just one for President. We should ask in the future if we want to elect Presidents or just have the VP assume the role by design. The process considered even representation across academic units. The vote is one month from now. Candidates will have two minutes to discuss their approach for the position.
VP Raja Chatterjee noted that some organizations have a set progression from Secretary to VP to President while others prefer more input from the broader Senate.
President Tracey Banks opened the floor for additional nominations. There were no other additional nominations above and beyond committee recommendations.
New Business
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As one of his earlier projects in his new role in the Provost’s Office as Senior Adviosr for Strategic Initiatives, Matthew Phillips felt the Handbook process went well and is anticipating moving forward with Phase II soon.
Adjournment
Appendices
Categories: Minutes