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Kentucky State University

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

February 18, 2022

Submitted by Danny Collum, Senate Secretary

Call to Order

Meeting began with a quorum at 9:00 a.m.

Approval of Agenda

Agenda approved without opposition.

Approve Meeting Minutes from 02-04-22

Patti Marraccini has retired and so should be removed from Senate roster. With this amendment, minutes were approved unanimously.

Faculty Senate President Report

President Clay began by putting on the screen the purpose of the Faculty Senate as defined in the Faculty Senate Constitution. Next, he reminded faculty of the contact points for COVID-19 information: (855-598-2246) and covid19@kysu.edu.

In his meeting with the provost, items discussed included keeping modality of course delivery consistent and the need for faculty to attend assemblies and convocations.

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee discussed impact of COVID on our work, returned action items and getting all Senate committee information and documents onto Microsoft Teams. Also discussed was the need for a response to faculty concerns, coming from the Professional Concerns Committee, that will be coming later this semester.

Acting President Stamps cancelled her meeting with President Clay. There was no meeting with the SGA President.

By way of announcements, no classes Presidents Day, February 21. Midterms start March 5. Spring break begins March 14. Midterm grades are due March 21. Due to the loss of an administrative assistant for Student Engagement, there will be no individual excuses sent out for traveling student athletes. Faculty are expected to check team rosters and travel schedules for themselves and excuse absences when appropriate.

A senator commented that student athletes should know that they are expected to complete class work before going to sporting events.

President Clay said he would communicate that concern to the Athletic Director.

Administrative Updates

Distance Learning and Technology Michael Dailey

Distance Learning is emphasizing professional training for faculty. We want everyone to get online certification. We will be awarding the first Course Design badges soon. Other training opportunities are coming up. We will also be holding listening sessions with students about their online classes.

A senator asked about updates to Blackboard, especially regarding editing functions within text boxes.

Dr. Dailey responded that those updates for formatting text on Blackboard should be available now. He also noted that a recent Microsoft update caused a glitch in Blackboard’s ability to open uploaded Word and PDF documents.

Kentucky COVID case numbers are down. We’ve had one student case and one employee case in the past week. The Green and Gold commission is working with Acting President Stamps to evaluate possible opening of in-person events. HB 51 in the legislature will ban mask mandates in all public schools, including colleges and universities.

Candace Raglin in Human Resources asked Nurse Todd to announce that, if you present your Express Scripts card at your pharmacy, you can get at-home COVID tests covered by insurance.

Last Saturday there was a suicide attempt on campus. We are seeing more depression and other mental health issues. William Mink is in charge of University Counseling and that is where students should go for help. Counseling is now separate from Health Services.

There’s a virtual career fair next Wednesday. This will also include graduate schools. Students can go online and schedule 10-minute one-on-one meetings with employers and graduate school representatives.

University College staff are seeking a grant for the pre-college academy and working with students on Black History presentations. Please send your students who are struggling academically to the Thorobred Learning Center in University College.

We are planning for the fall semester. In making schedules, please spread courses across the entire day. We anticipate 600 freshmen next fall (not counting dual credit).

A senator asked if all students should be expected to register for at least 15 credit hours?

The answer was “yes.”

A committee will be looking at program offerings, course offerings and faculty productivity as part of our CPE Management Improvement Plan. Serving on the committee will be Provost Hamilton, Dr. Michael Dailey and Professor Mary Barr. He is also working with the School of

Education on redesigning teacher preparation. Academic Affairs is also working with CPE initiatives on enrollment management and career services and developing our graduate profile. Professor Kristopher Grimes is looking at revising dual credit policies and procedures. Dr. Dailey is working with us on technology in our physical classrooms. The West Louisville initiative is also going forward.

APC discussed policies around internships. The committee’s top priority this semester is an attendance policy that will cover all delivery modes. We want a policy that is both reasonable and aggressive. We are looking at our past policies and policies from other universities. When we get a policy, faculty will need to enforce it consistently.

The English faculty has done a student survey and is using that data to make big changes in its program. The committee began working on these proposals in its last meeting and more will be coming.

PCC is working with Academic Affairs on a faculty mentoring program. There will be an action item on faculty elections after our next meeting. At our last meeting, we heard from this year's tenure and promotion candidates about the suspension of that process. Also, it came to our attention that a Faculty Handbook amendment that passed in 2015 and again in 2018 has never been put in the handbook and implemented. This action item involved credit hours, contact hours and faculty load, especially as those pertain to lab science classes. The item was signed by the president in both 2015 and 2018.

President Clay said that he will follow up on this with the provost.

PCC also talked about the presentation from Greg Rush to the KSU Board proposing ways to make the $7 million cut KSU has to make for its 2023 budget. Those ideas from Mr. Rush have generated a lot of concern from faculty. We know that there are a lot of other possible savings that aren’t addressed and may be unknown to people outside the day to day work of teaching our students. For that reason, PCC is proposing the formation of an ad hoc committee on budget reductions to put forward faculty’s best ideas for how to save the money.

Senator Stratton presented a budget text to the Senate on screen. After a number of friendly amendments, the action item to form an Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Cost Saving passed the Senate with 18 votes for it, one vote against and no abstentions.

Amended text of the resolution appears below:

Description: Create a Faculty Senate ad hoc committee to collect cost saving and new revenue generating ideas from across the KSU campus. This ad hoc committee will try to have at least

one representative from each KSU school or department. A list of cost saving and revenue generating ideas will be gathered from faculty and a report will then be written by March 2. The report and list will be sent to Senate members before the March 4 Senate meeting where the Faculty Senate must approve. Once approved by the Faculty Senate the Committee would then organize and submit cost saving and revenue new generating options to CPE and the administration. The Faculty Senate can discontinue the ad hoc committee on March 4, or can vote to continue the committees work for an additional set time if the feeling of the Senate is more suggestions can be gathered by faculty, and more time is available before final 2022-2023 budget cycle deadline. Suggested titles for the committee can be discussed at the organization meeting, one option is Budget Crisis Committee.

Several senators volunteered to serve on this committee which will be open to all faculty members.

Our new VP of Finance, Dr. Gerald Shields and Greg Rush from CPE both joined BASC at its last meeting. The committee was impressed with Dr. Shields' commitment to transparency and to talking with faculty. He will meet with the entire Faculty Senate as soon as possible after HB 250 funding KSU is passed and signed.

A recording of the BASC meeting with Dr. Shields and Mr. Rush is available on Teams.

BASC will work with PCC on the issue of the suspended tenure and promotion process at the appropriate time.

BASC will sponsor a grants training workshop in April.

President Clay urged all committee chairs to update their Teams site.

The Senate adjourned at 10:43.

Jens Hannemann

Gavin Washington, Keith McCutchen Excused Rene Desborde