Meeting Minutes, March 17, 2020
The Arts and Sciences Council (ASC), March 17, 2020, 3:30-5:00, Zoom Conference
Representatives present: Stephen Mojzsis, GEOL; Andrew Cowell, LING; Angelica Lawson, ETHN; Annjeanette Wiese, HUMN; Barbara Buttenfield, GEOG; Christina Meyers-Denman, SLHS; Daniel Appelo, APPM; David Stock, EBIO; Elizabeth Huard, SPAN; Françoise Duresse, AAH; John Gibert, CLAS; Juan Herrero-Senes, SPAN; Julia Lundquist, ATOC; Leslie Irvine, SOCY; Lonni Pearce, PWR; Matthew McQueen, IPHY; Rebecca Wartell, JWST; Robert Kuchta, BCHEM; Roger Pielke, ENVS; Sebastian Casalaina-Martin, MATH; Michaele Ferguson, PSCI; Mike Zerella, RAPS
Representatives & ex-officios not present: Tanja Cuk, CHEM; Hanna Rose Shell, CINE; Tim Weston, HIST; Patricia Rankin, PHYS; Tim Kuhn, CMCI; Samantha Martin, CUSG; Matthias Richter, ALC; Gerardo Gutierrez, ANTH; Erica Ellingson, APS; Peter Hunt, CLAS; Tania Barham, ECON; Ramesh Mallipeddi, ENGL; Michela Ardizzoni, FRIT; Daniel Jones, HONR; Shuang Zhang, IAFS; Jenny Knight, MCDB; Ding Xue, MCDB; Daniel Kaufman, PHIL; Ralf Norgaard, PWR; Deborah Whitehead, RLST; Cecilia Pang, THDN; Alison Jaggar, WMST
Ex-officios present: Hillary Potter, A&S; Leaf Van Boven, PSYC; Roshanne Ebrahimian, SAC
Also in attendance: Robert Rupert, PHIL; Anna Jensen, A&S; James White, A&S
Chair’s remarks
The meeting was called to order at 3:31 pm. Chair Stephen Mojzsis welcomes all and says that ASC meetings will be held by Zoom or other online modalities until further notice, due to COVID-19. This meeting will introduce attendees to the candidate for ASC chair for the next academic year. The nominee will have the opportunity to speak later on. Mojzsis reminds all that the documents outlining the functions of the new Faculty Affairs Committee, as well as the strategic plan implementation was posted to the A&S website and was sent to all ASC members prior to this meeting.
Dean’s remarks
Interim Dean James White explains that COVID-19 is an evolving situation and has been a learning adventure for everyone. Students have been told to go home if they want to, but they are not being forced to go home. Some students cannot get back home or do not have good enough internet access at home for classes.
Regarding White’s view on the restructuring announcement from the Provost, he believes there is a lack of planning for going forward. White explains that they are still debating when to hire the divisional deans and when to hire the dean; but this ultimately needs to be decided by the Provost.
White clarifies that the College Restructure committee is made up of a group in Old Main that were interested in looking into ways they could provide advice to the Provost on restructuring of A&S; there is no formal committee.
On the closing of CU events, White explains that A&S is following the campus guidance here. Whatever we can do to limit that spread, we should do that.
Regarding CU’s plan for sick leave and staff salaries, White explains that there is no additional plan for using sick leave and that working from home doesn’t require using sick leave. A&S just updated their policy on working from home, which is very in-line with what is happening now in light of COVID-19.
As for the financial effects of COVID-19, White says that CU’s number one group of employees is students. They are being provided with paid administrative leave. The money for this was already budgeted and most students rely on this income. White then opens the floor up for questions.
Were faculty involved in the decision to go completely online? White says he does not know much about how that decision was made. He was under the impression that we had a few weeks to plan, but the timeline got pushed up. He heard about the decision to go online at the same time as everyone else.
Someone asks about the informal announcement concerning the libraries closing. White says he saw this announcement as well and thought it was not made clear whether they are closed completely, or just closed to the general public. White thinks CU employees doing research should be able to get into the building for that. His understanding is that they are operating on a “skeleton staff” (essential employees only in the building).
What if students can’t finish their work/is there a change in the incomplete policy? White suggests that if a student does not have internet access, the professor should let the chair of the department know immediately. They need to know what the specific circumstances are for that student so that the correct actions can be taken.
Someone mentions that students at other universities have been mentioning all classes for this semester becoming pass/fail. Some are concerned because this would not satisfy classes for their major/minor requirements. White explains that it’s not a simple matter. If your major requires a certain grade in that class, pass/fail grades don’t work well. Right now, there is information being gathered on this issue and White thinks there will be a relaxation of the pass/fail policy, but specifics still need to be figured out. By tomorrow, there will be another discussion about this.
White adds that there has also been a lot of discussion around FCQ scores. The Regents need to be the ones to say that we do not need to do FCQ (since they are the ones that require it as part of the faculty teaching evaluation). The Chancellor is currently asking regents if they can wave FCQ scores this semester.
Someone adds that if the discussion on pass/fail grades is continued, students should be involved in the discussion. They should not just get an e-mail with an announcement once the decision is made.
Mojzsis reminds all that it’s important to focus on the way the college administration is responding to the call for restructuring. Mojzsis is concerned that with COVID-19 changing our priorities, we are all distracted but sooner or later we will have to get back to the restructuring. Mojzsis stresses faculty involvement in the restructuring and White encourages everyone to make their thoughts and feelings heard by the Provost on these matters. Mojzsis agrees and says that we have to keep asking for faculty participation and not neglect the fact that the restructuring is moving forward. White says he thinks it would be difficult to hire anyone in the near future considering the fact that travel and face-to-face interviews are not possible right now with the realities of COVID-19.
Someone points out that the faculty has already made recommendations to the Provost- what is the status of that process and how is it seen by the Provost right now? Mojzsis explains that those documents were recommendations, but not voted on by the faculty. Any changes made to structure (especially governance) have to be voted on by the faculty as a whole after discussion. However, those documents should be considered foundational in any conversation.
Charge of the New Faculty Affairs Committee
The Faculty Affairs Committee is a new ad hoc committee of the ASC. Mojzsis invites Lonni Pearce, chair of the FAC, to share their charge and information from their first meeting.
Pearce explains that one of the things that came up from the Instructor Task Force Report was the need for a group of faculty committed to looking at specific questions around faculty governance and conditions, relationship with other administration, and the conditions for teaching and research.
The committee met on Thursday for their first meeting. They are still looking for other faculty members to join the committee.
The first issues looked at by the FAC will include the shift to online education, instructor course load, faculty governance and restructuring, and the A&S strategic plan.
Stephen attended the first FAC meeting and one of the questions that arose was: what exactly was the cost savings of moving from 3:3 to 4:4 course loads?
Pearce says that she wants the committee to meet at least twice more between now and the end of the semester to start tackling these issues.
Response of the Arts & Sciences Council to the Provost’s announcement
The ASC’s Executive Committee submitted a response on the restructuring to the Provost’s Office. The summary of the points are:
·The Executive Committee raises concern that the stated plan was to recruit divisional deans before recruiting the executive dean
·This is viewed as a more siloed plan than what was suggested by the various working groups
The ASC has yet to receive a reply from the Provost, which is not surprising given current events.
Mojzsis points out that the reduction of authority of the Executive Dean may lead to a position which is less attractive to potential candidates.
The ASC encourages the Provost to allow more opportunity for faculty, chairs and directors to voice concerns prior to opening any job searches. Any such search must involve faculty input and participation.
The ASC would also like clarification over whether the Provost is going with a plan closer to Cumulat’s report, or the newer reports.
Report from online education committee on Parthenon Survey
Mojzsis welcomes ASC’s Online Education Committee Chair Leslie Irvine to speak about the Parthenon Survey.
Irvine explains that on February 14th, a select group of faculty members were invited to complete a survey sent by Parthenon. No one at the time knew what this was about. Irvine met with Robert McDonald of the Academic Futures Committee to find out more about this survey.
Parthenon is part of a major consulting firm; they assess the capacity for and interest in online education and degree programs.
Most who took the survey found it poorly worded, redundant and unclear. Pearce was surprised that this came from a major consulting firm.
Mojzsis asks who here took the survey and a few say they have. He feels that this survey could have been crafted much better and at a lower cost using experts on campus. The engagement survey had some odd similarities with this Parthenon survey.
Mojzsis asks if there are any comments on how we ask for faculty to be more involved in the process of these surveys being rolled out.
Someone speaks up to say that COVID-19 will tell us a lot about what we need to focus on. People working with computer tech, music and fine arts will find that the campus is not very well prepared for online teaching in those areas. The campus needs to change its infrastructure to make this possible.
Mojzsis asks if there is a committee that can be a liaison to the campus on survey practices. When no one responds, Mojzsis says he thinks that Bob Ferry of BFA would be the best person to ask. He will contact him after the meeting is adjourned.
What is the nature of the so-called engagement survey?
Mojzsis says that the last that we heard, the faculty response rate on the engagement survey was 30% and the staff response rate was 50%. The faculty response rate was the same as 2017; staff response rate is lower. White points out that we probably could not have picked a worse time to do this survey.
White says that there was no appetite for extending the time period to take this survey. People felt responses to survey would change given the times and we do not want to continue to collect information after such a seismic shift as COVID-19.
Preparations for our April all-hands meeting
Mojzsis reminds all that his role as ASC chair comes to an end at the end of June. On July 1st, there will be a new chair. This new chair will navigate ASC through restructuring.
Barbara Buttenfield introduces ASC Chair Candidate Rob Rupert from the Philosophy department. He has served as ASC chair the previous term and served on the ASC curriculum committee.
Rupert thanks all for attending and understands that his statement has been distributed to the ASC prior to this meeting. Rupert highlights a few things he discusses in his statement: the importance of the procedural integrity of the ASC and the importance of faculty governance, as well as faculty/staff collaboration. Rupert believes this is an exciting time for faculty governance and thinks it is important for the chair of the ASC to work together with others to identify the most important priorities for the ASC’s work.
Rupert thinks it is important to be flexible and that there are probably multiple ways to best go about the restructure of A&S. He does not have an opinion over whether divisional deans or an executive dean should be hired first and sees that there are advantages and disadvantages to both. He does, however, want to make the functions of the different deans clear.
If Rupert is elected, a big part of being chair would be dealing with the fallout from our current situation with COVID-19, which is impossible to predict right now. Rupert says he has strong views on online education, but there are a lot of ways to do this effectively.
Buttenfield calls a motion to vote on the new ASC chair in April. Leslie Irvine approves and Juan Herrero-Senes seconds the motion.
Pearce asks Rupert if he foresees any challenges for coordinated college faculty efforts moving forward?
Rupert brings up a few challenges, including: How will new programs be approved? Will there be sub-curriculum committees in each division? Will it be difficult to have interdisciplinary programs/certificates? Rupert says that these issues are all important and we should be especially sensitive to cross-divisional issues.
Pearce asks what rises to the top out of these issues for Rupert. Rupert explains that he just came back from sabbatical and was focusing a lot on his research, so he is just now coming up to speed on these issues.
Any other issues or questions can be sent to Buttenfield or Mojzsis and they will run them along to Rupert.
The vote for the new ASC chair will happen at the April 21st ASC meeting.
Mojzsis says we have several options for voting. Electronic votes are acceptable via the bylaws- are there any objections to this? No objections. Buttenfield wants to know if these votes will be carried out via e-mail or Zoom chat. Mojzsis says he prefers e-mail.
Mojzsis reminds all that he will be a non-voting observer. The interim dean & candidate will recuse themselves from the voting process. Ex-officios and other representatives will not be able to vote as this is a procedural vote that follows the Council’s By-Laws that only ASC representatives can vote.
In the next ASC meeting, we will hear reports from standing committees on their progress this academic year.
Mojzsis asks if there are any questions before adjourning. There are no comments or hands raised. The meeting is adjourned at 4:49 pm.