Kentucky State University Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 4, 2020 Submitted by Danny Collum, Secretary
Just after 9 a.m.
Agenda was unanimously approved as presented by the president.
Minutes of the August 21 meeting were unanimously approved as submitted.
Senator Keeler reported that President Brown has tasked the Green and Gold Commission to collect feedback from students, faculty and staff about the effectiveness of health and safety measures regarding Covid-19. Noted that some students are not following the rules, and there have been some complaints of contractors on campus without masks. On specific questions raised by faculty senators, Keeler was told that faculty should request Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from the provost's office. There are also free masks available at the guard post at the main entrance to campus. To report witnessed non-compliance he referred to the procedures laid out in the "Breds Back on the Hill" document posted on the school website. Keeler will follow up directly with President Brown on faculty questions about adequate ventilation in some buildings and classrooms.
Motion was approved to add 10 minutes for the president's report.
Question was raised by a senator about procedure for changing class from in-person to online. Answer was that faculty should submit a note to their dean, and the dean should ask the registrar to make the change. Question was raised of what faculty should do if some students are simply not responding to the question of whether to put the class online. Judgement expressed by the faculty senate president and other senators was that if a majority of students consent to the change it should be made.
Regarding the Provost Search Resolution authorized at our last meeting, President Brown has drawn up a list of names for a search committee and will send invitations next week. The committee will take it from there. On tenure and promotion, Keeler reported that the Board of Regents has allowed faculty to postpone going up for tenure and promotion for one year, due to the Covid-19 emergency. A new calendar for those who do choose to go up this year will be coming soon.
Academic Affairs asks that faculty be aware that approval of new programs must go through the state Council on Post-secondary Education (CPE). Director of Institutional Effectiveness urges faculty to be about the business of “closing the loop” on the 2019-2020 assessment process with evaluation of results and measures for improvement. I.E. is setting up a Microsoft Teams site for those documents that will be available to all faculty.
Dr. Michael Dailey gave a review of recent developments in distance education starting with the emergency transition in March. We developed an online training for faculty with synchronous sessions. All those sessions had at least 30 attendees, some had up to 60. 272 KSU courses were reviewed for compliance with recommendations for online courses and more than 200 were found to be hitting all the marks. One hundred faculty are now registered with Quality Management, compared to 30 before the emergency. To prepare for the return this fall, Faculty Champions were designated to set the agenda for future training. Faculty are using the resources Distance Education has offered to improve online teaching and learning, and the data shows this.