October 2025

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday October 10, 2025

 

Attendance:  David Havlick (President), Emily Mooney (President Elect), Joel Tonyan (Past Chair), Lynn Vidler, Jennifer Sobanet, Robin Parent, Jeff Greene, David Moon, Laura Austin-Eurich, Julie Torres, Jennifer Kling, David Weiss, Stefanie Ungstad, Suzanne Cook, Daniel DeCelles, Gabriela Martinez Mercier, Dylan Harris, Robert Mitchell, Monica Yoo, Joey Lee, Armin Moin, Rosely Conz, Douglas Risser, Suman Lakkakula, Rebecca Wood, Lisa Hollis-Brown, Karin Larkin, Brandon Vogt, James Ma, Evan Taparata, Carole Woodall, Brigitta de Pree, 

 

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve September 2025 Minutes

            Moved by: Joel Tonyan

            Seconded by: Emily Mooney

            Motion passes 

 

Reports of Visitors:

Lynn Vidler, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs 

  • Higher Learning Commission (HLC) Accreditation: Our HLC accreditation is moving along. Thank you David Moon for leading that group that is working on this. This group has started reaching out to areas to start gathering information for the review.
  • Office of Faculty Affairs: You should all have received the welcome email with some general information about the office and a survey that you can fill out to give feedback about what you would like to see from the office. Emily Skop will be presenting to FA at your next meeting. With the introduction of this office, we are doing some restructuring in the Office of the Provost. The FRC will now be moved under OFA and our Faculty Fellow for policies, David Weiss, will also be moving under that office.
  • Policy Updates: This last year we had quite a few policies that went through review processes and have been approved. Those include Faculty Assembly Governance (200-015), Assignment of Academic Office Space Policy (200-024), Differentiated Annual Workload Evaluation (200-028), Distribution of F&A Recovery from Externally Sponsored Programs (900-003), PI Eligibility on Sponsored Programs (900-006), and the Academic Affairs Guidelines on Chairs Responsibilities. You can read move about these policies in the "Developments in Faculty Affairs & Policy Updates" communication from the Provost Office sent on October 6th. Thank you to everyone on those review committees and to you in FA for providing feedback on these policies.
  • Multi-year Contracts: We have gathered the data for how many multi-year contracts we currently have. We have something like 59 in LAS, 3 in CPS, 1 in EAS, and 5 in Beth-El. That data reflects a couple of interesting things. The ones in CPS and Beth-El have all been done while I have been Provost so those have been recent. I have been talking with College Deans about multi-year contracts to make sure that they are taking those into consideration. There is a campus policy for those contracts and there should be a college policy on them as well. This means that these contracts are dependent on these policies and really rely on enrollment to guarantee that those contracts can move forward. If you have any questions about your college policy or the process for these contracts, please reach out to your Dean.
  • Research Communication: The comms department has hired a new writer to help work on articles about our research activities. If you have stories that you would like to be shared, please reach out to myself, Hillary Fouts, or Jenna Press.
    • Question: Do we have a Faculty Relations Manager?
      • We currently do not. The person in this role previously has left and we have been wanting to get the OFA established before figuring out what this would look like. Let's meet with OFA and Emily to talk about this
      • Yes we need to discuss this as that position is mentioned in the Grievance Policy. 

 

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor

  • State of the Campus: We will be celebrating our 69th Anniversary celebration at this year's state of the campus. Please invite your previous colleagues to attend and celebrate. October 22nd from 2-3pm in Berger Hall.
  • Realignment of Duties: With Robin helping organize and the Office of Strategic Initiatives taking on more day-to-day activities, I am going to be focusing my time into brining in resources to UCCS and working with elected officials to advocate for us. This is a way that we can manage our resources better and a way that I can focus on advocacy and working with donors and elected officials and finding new pipelines of students and scholarships. 

 

Robin Parent, Vice Chancellor of Strategic Initiatives & Chief of Staff 

  • National Mental Health Awareness Week: An email was sent out earlier this week with resources available to everyone.
  • Federal Update: The government is till shut down and layoffs are starting to happen. Military checks will not be going out next week which will have a major affect on colleagues and students. Please keep that in mind.
  • Differentiator Project: We have had over 150 individuals join us in our focus groups. We are still going through that data so that we can make an analysis. There is also a survey that was created for those that were not able to join one of the focus groups. This survey is built off of the same questions from the focus group. This survey will close on Oct. 15th. We will then take that information and polish it into something by mid-December.
  • Faculty Listserv Policy: The Faculty-l policy hasn't been updated since 2017. There are three different list-servs and both the student and staff polies have been updated. This happened over the summer and we wanted to make sure that the policy for faculty-l was done when faculty were here so it was delayed until this semester. Greg Williams is leading the work on the policy to get it reviewed and updated. One of the major things that will be reviewed is what the best way to post things is going to be. For example, the staff have decided that Jenna Press will be reviewing submissions and deciding if it would be better posted somewhere else. At this point, we are looking at who want to be on the committee to review that policy and help make sure that it is in line with APS and that there are appropriate rules to have on the listserv. Greg will be reaching out to get that committee together.
  • Military Students Stop Gap: This is a fund of money from financial aid to help support our military students if they have an interruption in benefits or pay. It is a 0% interest load that will be required to be paid back 2 months after pay/benefits are resumed. You can reach out to Jevita with any questions on this opportunity. 

 

Jeff Greene, Interim Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance

  • We had our first UBAC meeting on September 25th and we had a discussion primarily about our budget actuals for the general fund of the university. Our graduate and undergraduate enrollment is up but we did have a drop in undergrad SCH. Last year we did exceed our approved expenditures budget by $5.3 million last year. We also exceeded our expected revenue in June to have $4.8 million so when you look at our overspending versus unanticipated revenue, we ended the year with a negative $492,000. So good news and bad news. We are really pleased with the increases in concurrent enrollment. At the next UBAC, we will be going into details about auxiliaries. At this next UBAC meeting we will also be discussing the Hotel Conference Center project, provide an update on our proposed FY27 tuition tables, and give an update on the engineering building renovation.
    • Question: Can you talk a little more about the Conference Center? I believe that last year we had discussed here about conducting another faculty survey?
      • Jennifer: There is probably not going to be a survey. Really this is coming out of the College of Business and the academic programming that they want to create around hospitality and tourism. A request for interest has been issued to find out if there is even any interest from developers across the nation in this. At this point, we don't know where this is going to end up. There may be no interest. If that is the case, we will not be moving forward. We do not have an interest in getting involved in running a hotel conference center. There is interest in having students be able to learn in this type of environment. We are currently in a waiting pattern right now to see if there is any interest. We added a lot of things in the request for interest based off of the feedback that David brought to us on FA's behalf. David was a really great ambassador for FA and we took that into account when putting together the request for interest. If we do end up having interest there will be an opportunity for faculty, staff, and students to give feedback. There is a guarantee in the lease agreement that dictates that a contractor will not be able to abandon the project at any point.
    • Question: After looking into public-private partnerships I have some concerns about how this project could effect our reserves. Can we take a look at how this type of partnership might impact our reserves?
      • Jennifer: So this is something that I do have experience with in the past and I shut down that partnership. We do not want the risk to be on the university. The purpose of the partnership should be to share that risk or make sure that the risk is transferred off of the university. So I am highly attuned to that and completely agree with that concern.
    • Question: Some of the unexpected revenue last year was from opening wait lists. This is not going to be a sustainable model for faculty moving forward. Is there a plan to address this and not continue to have larger classes for faculty in addition to Slate?
      • Jennifer: So spring enrollment was actually hirer than anticipated and we brought in more research grants which was were that unexpected revenue came in from. We do want to set ourselves up for success and we want to have a strategy to help provide courses that align with student interest. This might result in overload pay or bringing in more lecturers to teach the high-demand courses. We want to change the reactive approach that we have been doing by opening waitlists and want to predict better what enrollment needs are. That way we can plan in advance what caps may need to be for various classes. Now that we are seeing increased enrollment, we need to have a new plan on how we address this. Slate and Ad Astra will make it faster and easier for us to predict what the new number of courses need to be in the future. Once we get these tools to chairs, it will help make better decisions on what sections should be multiplied and which ones shouldn't. We want to move into a proactive stance instead of a reactive strategy.
      • Comment: That is good in theory but students register the week before classes start. Chairs are decided what classes to get rid of and it doesn't take into account all of the students that register right before.
        • Jennifer: So both of these software are completely new and should be able to model and predict classes taking into account those last minute registrations. We have not had this in place in the past and hopefully you will have a different experience next year after these technologies have been in place.
        • Jeff: Currently many of our processes are done manually and we are working to move this to be more technical so that we have more accurate forecasting.
    • Question: So what is the process for COB or any other college that wants to have a new program with major investments required such as how the hotel is connected with COB.
      • Jennifer: There are no new resources going into the hotel/conference center. It needs to be net revenue positive for us to even consider this. This is a project that started before I got here.
      • On the academic side of things, there is a process for any department that wants to add a new program. This process goes through what the program will cost and must be net revenue positive. It must be approved by the department, the college, various committees on campus, and then ELT looks at it and then may be presented at a Regents meeting. This is the Proforma process
        • Question: Has this program gone through this process?
          • It has not as we do not know if we will even be moving forward with the hotel/conference center. We will wait to see if there is interest and then will work on next steps after that. 

Reports of Officers:

Report of the Chair – David Havlick

  • Sent out report via email on Wednesday
  • Last meeting I had mentioned having Angela Bender come to this meeting. We ended up having a lot on our agenda for this meeting and so we will ask Angela to be at a future meeting
  • Faculty Experience Survey - Please go in and fill this out. We currently have 60% of faculty who have completed the survey. The lack of response delays the work that HR is doing for our compensation on campus.
    • Question: The intent is to focus on compensation?
      • Yes. That is what has been relayed. They want to give people credit for the experience that have from outside of UCCS. They do not have that information and are looking to gather it. This is something that they are asking of all faculty. Staff have already completed with a 98% response.
  • Regent Policy 11F: This is the policy that was mentioned at the September meeting. There was not enough support and it has stalled. The comments that were received were overwhelmingly negative.
    • Are they still excepting comments?
      • Yes. The next BoR meeting is here on November 6th. If you want to come in-person and advocate against this policy, you are welcome to do that.
  • Multi-Year Contracts: Seems like we should continue to press to help move these contracts forward. We are working to gather data on how many people are eligible for these contracts. To get that info, we will need to go to each college since each college has different criteria.
  • Faculty Senate: The next meeting is October 23rd. We are gathering questions/comments that faculty want to ask of Todd. If you have something that you want to be conveyed, please let me know. It is virtual and will send the link out to everyone.
  • Office of Faculty Affairs: Met with Emily Skop and talked about what her role should look like at these meetings. Other campuses keep their OFA people in the meetings. Would like to open it up and discuss if we would like to have Emily at these meetings or not.
    • Comment: I think it depends on what our OFA is going to do.
    • Comment: It may change the participation in the room
    • David: She will be presenting next meeting and we can evaluate after that meeting where we will learn a bit more about the office.
    • Comment: In the past we have had a representative from the Provost office in the meeting to help relay feedback/concerns/questions. The person in that position would make sure that those comments were anonymous and just was talked about at the meeting.
    • Comment: It may be an opportunity for the OFA to work for us

 

Report of the Chair-Elect – Emily Mooney

  • Nothing New to Report

 

Report of the Past-Chair – Joel Tonyan

  • There will be some Academic Freedom forums/events. If you are interested in joining the planning committee, please let me know.

 

Committee Reports

Representative Reports

  • There is a faculty driven resolution that is happening at the Colorado state level. This is based on a resolution that other colleges in other states have done. AAUP started a conversation. The CSU approved. CU Boulder just approved. AAUP Boulder chapter also approved. The AAUP is editing to make it applicable to UCCS. Mentioning it today and will present to you formally at our next meeting.
    • There isn’t quite clarity about what this does (proactive or reactive?)
    • Working on what it could do from AAUP
    • Question: Have community colleges been reach out to?
      • Believe so. 

 

Unfinished Business

No unfinished business

 

New Business

  1. Campus Climate Wellness Survey - Sloan Gonzales/Leya Shnitter
    1. CWC will go live October 22nd – November 12th.
    2. Survey is looking at what is looks like to work and be here at UCCS. This survey will take about 15-20 minutes to go through. This will be three different surveys
    3. There will also be some HLC accreditation and they can use that for that information.
    4. There is a full FAQ about how they are aggregating the data as well as the results from 2021 and how that data was used.
    5. There are also some door prizes that will be done if you take this survey.
    6. Survey is fully anonymous. Every single person will receive a unique link to complete the survey. Allows you to take the survey and allow you to leave it and come back to complete it. Once it is submitted, it will be separated from that link and there will be no way to know which answers go to which link. The prizes will be an opt-in option at the end. Also will not be connected with the survey.
    7. Please encourage your students to take this survey. We have templates for emails that can be sent out.
    8. Can email at CWC@uccs.eud if you do not receive the link.
  2. FEIC Bylaws (Vote Scheduled for Nov) - Julie Torres & Suhaan Meta
    1. Last year the FEIC worked on their bylaws.
    2. Article 2. A, B, and C specifies membership to align with CU policies.
    3. Minor edits like titles and names of colleges.
    4. Please review and we will bring a vote at next month's meeting.
  3. Professional Rights & Responsibilities - David Moon
    1. The idea is to approve two things with one vote.
      1. Defines what faculty at UCCS have as their rights as faculty
      2. Outlines unacceptable behavior is for teaching, research, & service.
        1. The value is to have grounds to bring in a complaint and no one can make up an issue with you. If it is not in this document, they don’t have a way to complain.
      3. If you have something that is brought up against you, it is all contained under the supervisor unless there is a COI or there is a sanction then it can be appealed to the FA grievance committee.
    2. Motion to approve PRR bylaws with formatting edits.
      1. Discussion: Would love a documented comment in part 4 that if a faculty gets something that is brought up does not include IRC that are at-will. Important that faculty at-will should be reflected in this policy. Would like for it to be included in the wording of the policy. Personally I would like to move forward with how it is and then edit when there is an opportunity.
      2. Seconded: David Weiss – called for a vote
      3. Discussion: this is outside of RPT and Annual Review. This does not automatically transfer to your RPT/Annual Review.
      4. Questions was this inspired by another campus?
        1. Yes. This started 5 years ago. Used Boulder’s document and changing it to match for UCCS and avoiding issues that later came up with Boulders
      5. Question: So would a “bad” annual review be a prerequisite for this process?
        1. No. This can come from anyone including students or staff. This is unconnected to RPT/Annual Review.
        2. Don’t confuse a grievance with someone that has an issue with professional practice.
      6. VOTE: Approved by Majority

 

Motion to extend the meeting by 10 minutes

Moved by: Dylan Harris

Seconded by: Julie Torres

 

  1. FACB Bylaws - David Moon
    1. Updated to match the changes that UBAC was made.
    2. Made a change that the FA Chair appoints the chair of the FACB.
    3. Adds two additional faculty to UBAC and FACB. This committee also serves on UBAC which is why it mirrors that.
    4. Motion to approve the FACB bylaw changes

      1. Motion approved unanimously

         

  2. Program Discontinuance Policy - David Weiss
    1. Last version of this was from 20 years ago. This has a lot more information. There is a committee that would be used. There is a policy and a separate procedures document about this process. Faculty have revised this policy extensively.
    2. Voting no on this will mean that the previous policy will continue to be used.
    3. This has been in the works for a long time. This has not come up based on any kind of political climate or anything like that. This is just the regular review process. This policy will protect programs.
    4. Motion to approve
      1. Seconded by: Joel
    5. VOTE: Approved by majority

Motion to Adjourn

Laura Austin-Eurich motioned to end the meeting; Dylan Harris seconded; passed.  

Next meeting: Friday, November 14, 2025, 12:00-2:00 pm in Hyflex Format; TBD or MS Teams