Dr. Moffett reported that the Board of Regents held four meetings over the summer, mostly focused on the campus re-opening.
June 4: Board approved an Updated Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws and the August 2019 Version of the Faculty Handbook as well as updated policies, an internal audit plan and an FY 20-21 Operating Budget of $40,623,086, which represents a reduction of $8 million from last year. This budget also included a cost of living pay increase for faculty. Questioned about the budget cuts and positions eliminated, Dr. Moffett said that the Board is not told about specific cuts or specific positions eliminated.
July 7: Board approved the reorganization of Academic Affairs. Faculty has already seen the same materials on this that were shown to the Board. Some cuts or changes were not reflected on the documents, such as the elimination of the Deputy Provost position, distribution of administrative assistants, or the total number of deans. The Board approved a contract with Capital Plaza Hotel for 56 rooms for student housing overflow and with Quest Diagnostics for Covid-19 testing. Total costs for testing are not to exceed $340k, with testing fees of $130-170 per administration. Also at this meeting, four new faculty hires, with tenure, were approved. These were hires made under the TOPS program. Questions were raised by senators about the cost of the Covid-19 testing, which is much higher than that at University of Kentucky, and about the TOPS program. Dr. Moffett explained that TOPS is a board initiative to give the provost flexibility in recruiting faculty in order to improve faculty diversity and to fill high-need positions. Regarding the Academic Affairs reorganization, Dr. Moffett noted that the Board has yet to see a detailed organizational chart.
August 5: Board approved an update of the Capital Plaza Hotel contract to include 112 rooms total. Also the president announced that, as of July 30, the University expected 1,513 students: 1,451 undergrad and 62 grad. First year students accounted for 493, and 930 were continuing.
Senator Helen Smith introduced a resolution addressing the reopening of on-campus instruction. The resolution notes that faculty were given the impression they could choose their method of presentation, prepared classes accordingly and then, on August 13, two days before the official start of the semester, were requested, in a message from Interim Provost Yates that all classes, to meet all scheduled in-person classes in-person, regardless of faculty members' previously expressed preferences and plans. A request that was presented without concurrent uniform protocols and procedures to address Covid-19 safety issues. The resolution states the sense of the Senate that a request for in-class instruction would ideally have been delivered much sooner than August 13 and would have come with information and resources for addressing safety concerns.