===== PAGE 1 ===== # January 22, 2021 Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes Submitted by Danny Collum, Secretary ### 1. Call to Order 9:02 a.m. 2. Approval of Agenda [5 minute time limit] Agenda was approved unanimously as submitted. 3. Approve Meeting minutes from 12/4/2020 [5 minute time limit] Minutes unanimously approved as submitted. ### 4. Faculty Senate President Report [5 minute time limit] ### a. Transition to Safety Week reminder- Jan 25- Jan 29 President Clay noted that January 25-29 will be “Safety Week” at KSU with a special emphasis on stopping the spread of Covid 19. He also reported that, according to the Council on Postsecondary Education, all higher education employees will be included in the 1(c) category for Covid 19 vaccinations. Registration for this category will open January 28 and vaccinations will begin February 1. ### b. Update on New Senate & Committee Appointments President Clay announced that Senator Bruce Griffiths had been nominated to fill the now- vacant position of Senate Vice-President. There were no other nominations and Senator Griffis was elected by a unanimous vote of the Senate. President Clay reported that, at an executive committee meeting last week, he solicited suggestions for topics to take up in his regular meetings with the Provost. These included issues around registration, scheduling and advising and the need for a clear process for faculty to opt in or out from in-person teaching during the pandemic. Also at the executive committee meeting there was discussion of protocols for the conduct of Faculty Senate meetings, with an eye toward focusing the discussion and keeping it on topic. Following on that discussion President Clay reminded senators that the Blackboard Collaborate “chat box” was not part of the official proceedings of the Senate and comments or questions placed in chat would not be included in the minutes. He also asked that senators use our Blackboard profile to identify ourselves on-screen as senators and that call-in guests who are identified only as a phone number should identify themselves by name when speaking to the Senate. Senator Valentine reported, on behalf of the Elections Committee, that nominations for University Committees would be open January 20-21, with voting to be conducted online January 27 and 28. #### 5. General Education Update. [5 minute time limit] a. Bruce Griffiths drew senators' attention to the General Education report that was attached to the Senate meeting notice. He noted that the revised general education core ===== PAGE 2 ===== may require revision of our general education assessment practices, and the general education committee is available to help with that process. He noted that the mathematics program has already done this for Fall 2020. A guest asked who is responsible for audits of the general education core. Dr. Schneller answered that faculty advisors and university college do this, and the registrar does a final audit before graduation. ### 6. Administration Updates [5 minutes each] #### a. Dr. Dailey-Technology Dr. Dailey offered thanks to the faculty for our cooperation with the transition to the new Blackboard format. He said that we will switch to the “Ultra” experience for the online classroom next year and that soon “terms” would be available as a category for organizing our “Courses” view by semester. This update will also group courses by discipline. He acknowledged that there was a glitch between Blackboard and WIRED at the start of the semester. Suddenly, they stopped communicating with each other and many students who were registered in WIRED didn't get loaded into Blackboard. Mr. Ross in IT is entering the students manually, one-by-one, and will be done soon. Finally, Microsoft Teams is now integrated into Blackboard. ## Nurse Todd- Safety Nurse Todd reported that Amy Olds will be sending student excuses, so look for that name on the excuse emails. We do already have student Covid 19 cases in the first week of the semester. We have tested 637 resident students and found two positives. She expects that at least another 200 students will be coming in for testing. Regarding the vaccination, Nurse Todd reported that she has had both doses of the vaccine and is fine, with no significant side effects. During Safety Week, Wild Health will be doing surveillance testing in the Student Center. This will recur in early February. Cleaning supplies are available from Facilities. A senator asked if off-campus students notify Student Health when they are in quarantine, and the nurse responded that they are supposed to. Another question was whether student internship placements in the community would be eligible for 1(c) vaccination status. Nurse Todd said the supervising faculty should get in touch with her and she would follow up with the County Health Department. A senator who lives in Fayette County asked if he could be vaccinated in Franklin County. Nurse Todd replied that people can be vaccinated either in the county where they live, or the one where they work. A guest asked about potential allergic reactions to the vaccination, and Nurse Todd explained that you are kept on site for at least 15 minutes after your injection to be sure that no allergic reaction occurs, and the vaccination sites are equipped to deal with reactions if they do happen. She said that allergic reaction might be possible for anyone who routinely carries an epipen. ## Daryl Love- Career Services ===== PAGE 3 ===== Mr. Love reported that Graduate and Professional Schools Fair was coming up soon. Then February 9 there will be a jobs and internships fair. The KSU Student Success Academy is underway. It has identified 130 students to help with hard and soft skills that will help them become employed. Students who complete the program will also have a certificate for their resumes. ### Dr. Beverly Schneller - Academics/Research Dr. Schneller reminded all faculty that census date for attendance this semester is January 29. Attendance records in Blackboard can migrate to WIRED. In classes that are all virtual, “attendance” is considered to be completion of two assignments for the class. She urged faculty to make sure that all part-time instructors get the message about the non-attending census. Programs in social work, public administration and education are all going forward in their accreditation processes. Timothy Ford is now chief diversity officer for the university and Pernella Deams is acting vice-president for student engagement and campus life. These changes are due to the departure of Derek Greenfield. KSU faculty and students are now eligible for two awards from COPLAC, the consortium of public liberal arts colleges KSU recently joined. Information on these will be distributed. Current campus Covid 19 protocol is that presence in campus buildings should be limited to 20 percent. ### Dr. Malone- Advising Dr. Walter Malone noted that his office is encouraging students to pay close attention to their email and Blackboard in the current situation of virtual and hybrid learning. A senator pointed out that there is confusion among students about the distinction between “virtual” and “online” classes, i.e. ones that are all online and asynchronous and ones that have regular scheduled meetings, but are conducted virtually. Another senator reported that some courses that were supposed to have scheduled virtual meeting times got stripped of their meeting times in the process of being put on WIRED. Dr. Malone said that some of the confusion around the start of this semester is also the result of understaffing in the advising office. As he spoke advising was still going through the D-F-W lists from fall semesters to identify students who failed prerequisites for their spring classes. His office is obtaining the Beacon software package that will allow for intrusive advising of students who are having trouble, especially at the four and eight week marks in the semester. Another senator spoke to note that math curriculum ladders on the website in her area were out of date and shouldn't be used in advising and that she has had the experience of seeing students who had been placed in classes that they didn't need. Dr. Malone noted that there is also a problem when student transcripts aren't in the system, which can throw things off. ===== PAGE 4 ===== ### Dr. Yates- Provost Insights & Academic Update The provost began by noting that online work has been isolating and lonely, but he said that there is light at the end of the tunnel. He committed to meet with the Faculty Senate President every week or two to hear our concerns, and he said that many of the problems we had been discussing were the result of communication between units not being streamlined. He noted that in the registrar’s office we are still doing things manually that could be automated. Every time there’s a catalog change it has to be manually scripted. The same is true of student registration. We need a system that will tell us how many students are going to need a class. The DegreeWorks software being implemented will help with this. In addition, Dr. Yates said, we are hiring three new people for the registrar’s office. Continuing his report (after extra time was voted), the provost reported that both the provost search and the tenure and promotion process were progressing on track. There was confusion around tenure and promotion at first, but it is now up and running. There will be recommendations for the March board meeting, and there will be a meeting this spring semester for people who are going up for tenure or promotion in the 2021-2022 academic year. ### 7. Senate Committee Report [5 minutes each] ## a Academic Policy Committee report [5 minute time limit] When it starts meeting this semester, Senator Gyawali reported, the APC will be looking at the processes around updates of the catalog, handbook and calendar and problems in scheduling and advising. He said that he will be inviting Dr. Malone to join an APC meeting about advising. APC will also be looking at policies around faculty exchanges with other institutions and study abroad. ### b. Curriculum Committee report [5 minute time limit] Senator Wang was not present, and there was no Curriculum Committee report. ### c. Professional Concerns Committee report [5 minute time limit] Senator Valentine said that this semester PCC will return to the issue of revising the Faculty Handbook policies on the hiring of eans and evaluation of chairs. It will also be looking at the definitions of “acting” and “interim” status as they are being used for administrative positions, degree reporting for ABD faculty and new degrees and the contract process for faculty overloads. d. Budget and Academic Support Committee report [5 minute time limit] Senator Novelo reported that BASC will meet next Friday and set an agenda for the spring semester. ### 8. Faculty Regent Updates [5 minute time limit] a. Dr. Moffett-BOR Not present. No report. 9. Faculty ombudsman report [5 minute time limit] ===== PAGE 5 ===== a.. Dr. Reilly- Faculty Ombudsman Not present. No report. 10. Other Business [10 minute time limit] Vice-President Griffiths expressed concern that an action item passed and signed by the president some years ago regarding teaching load for faculty in the sciences had still not been implemented. Another senator, who is supposed to be on the committee appointed by the board of regents to report on faculty salaries, noted that no meetings had been held and no communication received about that committee. The provost said that he would follow up and report on that. A senator asked how soon additional staff would arrive in the registrar’s office, and Dr. Yates said that the new people were ready to start February 1. ### 11. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 10:42 a.m.
Attendance
Senators
Sharon McGeeBarbara WittyShawn Lucas
Dr. Phillip ClayBuddhist GyawaliDr Noel D Novelo
Alexander LaiDonovan RamonProf. E. Amadife
Dr. Monica ValentineGary StrattonHelen Smith Senator
Bruce GriffithsFaribah KashanShawn Lucas
Faribah BigdeliDaniel D CollumKeith McCutchen
Leigh Whittinghill-SenatorJennifer Ballard-KangNancy Del Rosario Capriles
Jens HannemannPatricia Ann MarracciniRene Desborde
Bobby Walter
Senators Absent: Ibukun (Mike) Ogunade, Herman Walston, Kristopher Grimes, Jonathon Sharp, Gavin Washington, Changzheng Wang Guests Walter Malone ===== PAGE 6 ===== Dr. Nkechi Amadife
Margery Coulson-Clark
Samantha Todd
Beverly Schneller
Lauren Graves
Ban
Sheila Stuckey 0366 Michael D. Dailey, PhD Daryl Love Debbra Tate