September 2025

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday September 12, 2025

Attendance: Joel Tonyan (President), David Havlick (President Elect), Monica Yoo (Past President), Kylie Rogalla (Secretary), Lynn Vidler, Kathy Kaodis, Laura Austin-Eurich, Melissa Benton, Dylan Harris, Susan Taylor, Cathy Simmons, Les Tekamp, Douglas Risser, Sara Hagehorn, Todd Endres, Assma Sawani, Robert Mitchell, Henriikka Weir, Markus Moeder-Chandler, Margaret Harris, Marina Eckler, Aaron Corcoran, Michelle Dorne, Gabriel Martinez Mercier, Catherine Simmons, Rosely Conz, Matthew Beckwith, Douglas Risser, Colin Mahoney, Suman Lakkakula, Zhe Li, Evan Taparata, David Weiss, Jian Ma, DAvid Moon, Birgitta de Pree, Gordon Stringer, Jennifer Zhon, Janet Giddings, Mark Ferguson, Solveig Olsen, David Anderson

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve May 2025 Minutes

Moved by: David Moon

Seconded by: Monica Yoo

Motion passes

Reports of Visitors:

Lynn Vidler, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Welcome to the fall semester and the new academic year.
Enrollment Updates: Overall decline of 1.29%, with increases in graduate, transfer, and online students, and a decrease in freshmen. This is better than they projected 2% decrease that we were anticipating. Thank you everyone who added students off the waitlist and colleges who worked to make that happen. Retention rates are estimated at 69–70% which is up from 68% last year. Will not have revenue projections until September 15th but will share when we have that number.
- Question: With Boulder and CSU reporting record freshman numbers, do we know why ours is going down?
  - That is something that we are looking at. As of a few days ago we had over 100 who were registered and then fully dropped out. We are looking at why they left and Wendi is looking to communicate with those groups and figure out what happened. Some have answered with things such as finances, waitlisted, etc. We will be looking more into that.
- Question: have heard that the residential housing rate is also lower. Can you go over that?
  - Stephanie will be able to give a better answer. There is revenue generated from housing. We are not close to being full. We are also looking into this. Students are going to other housing options that are close to us. They are choosing to live in other areas but we are going to look and have a more in-depth look at why students aren't staying on campus.
Provost Office Structure: We are working on some the structure of our office and rolls within and will be communicating that soon. The biggest being Emily Skop joining us as the Interim Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs in charge of the Faculty Affairs Office. If you have questions about PRT, Mentoring, a Grievance, please feel free to reach out to Emily. She will be speaking at the next FA meeting to discuss what is happening in that office.
Academic Freedom: There is a group that is putting together some activities around Academic Freedom. I'm looking forward to these. We are excited to see what comes from this group. Academic Freedom is incredibly important and support your ability to teach and research in your areas of expertise.

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

Strategic Initiatives: There are Strategic Spotlight Series launching on September 24th. These spotlights will highlight the Success 20/30 Strategic Plan. There is a website will kickoff at this first spotlight. Throughout the rest of the year, we will have one hour opportunities to hear about one of the pillars that are connected to the strategic plan and highlight what is being done in those pillars.
UCCS Differentiator: Last year, we gathered feedback on what makes us different as a university. We are doing focus groups this month about that initial feedback and looking into it more. Would like to have our differentiator/s figured out by the end of this semesters.
Campus & Workplace Climate Survey: You will hear more about this from Leya later today but this is another big project that our team has been working on. Scheduled to launch next fall.
NSF's James Moore visit: Working with Hillary and the Office of Research to bring James Moore from the NSF to campus. We will have more information about that later this semester.
Federal Transition: Team is still meeting monthly about the changes that have been happening. This week we are watching the duration status for F & J Visa holders. University is working with the system for feedback on that. As an individual, you can also give your feedback. There was a Department of Ed about some resignations. Waiting to hear about guidance on our opportunities to give our feedback on these.

Roger Smith, Vice Chancellor for University Advancement, Communications, & Engagement

Our goal is to lift the mission of UCCS and we want to learn from you across the gambit. All the work that you do lifts the students and the mission of UCCS and is vital for what we do in our office.

Jeff Green, Interim Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance - Presented by Jennifer Sobanet

Jeff wasn't able to attend but Jennifer gave update. Jeff Green comes to us from the city/county and is an extraordinary administrator and an excellent financial strategist.
Budget: We are still getting exact number from our enrollment decline which will effect our budget this year. We are also dealing with the mid-year state budget reductions which will be about $400k-$500k. We were also cut by half for both cybersecurity and rural health scholarships. Those scholarships have already been given to our students and so we will be dipping into our reserves to cover those scholarships so that those students don't loose that funding. Will be going over this in more detail at UBAC.

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor

There is a new compensation policy (Policy 11.F: Restrictions on Certain Salary Adjustments) that has been proposed and you are able to give your feedback on that policy on the Regent Laws and Policies Review website and encourage you to comment. It will go back to the governance committee in October and could be voted on in November.
- This policy is very different from the work that our HR has been doing for our campus. That is the information that HR has been gathering from faculty and staff. That way they can determine compensation bands and where everyone falls in them. The ultimate goal is to figure out how we can get funds and have a strategy that will meet the needs of our faculty and staff. We have been developing off of the original philosophy that is currently established at the regent level and this policy is very different from what we have been working from. We would need to readjust what has been done based on this new policy.
Federal Transition: We have been working over the summer to advocate for our campus and the

Reports of Officers:

Report of the President – Joel Tonyan

Hello everyone, I’m Joel Tonyan and I’ll be the President of FA this year. I’m a faculty member in the library and I’m really excited to lead you all this year. Before I get into my report, I do want to acknowledge the loss of one of our faculty members, Haleh Abghari in VAPA. Haleh was a long time professor in the music department and was very active. My heart goes out to everyone who knew Haleh and everyone in VAPA. She will be greatly missed.
Faculty Council Updates: The Regents are continuing to review policy 1D which deals with the freedom of expression, not just for faculty, but also for students and staff as well. They are reviewing the latest revisions to this policy at the Regents meeting today so please do keep any eye out for those discussions. One of the things that they talked about in these discussions was the use of digital spaces.
Resolution Accessibility: One of the ways we as a body can express our own point of view on a particular issues is through resolutions. We have passed a number of resolutions in the past and they have typically just lived in the minutes of the meets that they were passed in. I have gone in and made a resolutions page on the FA website so you can now easily see what resolutions have been passed each year and in which meetings they were passed in. Currently through 2017 and I will add more as I’m able to go through. These resolutions represent our voice as a faculty governance group so I want these to be as visible to our campus and to our community as possible.
Vacancies: We are looking for three faculty members to join the Faculty Council committees. We need someone for the Pay & Benefits committee, the Women’s Committee, and the Communications Committee. These are all at the Faculty Council level. College affiliation isn’t considered at this level and we are really looking for someone with the expertise and the passion for these committees. Please reach out to me if you are interested in any of these positions.
- PRIDE is looking for a representative from the College of Public Service
- Committee on Research is looking for a rep from Arts & Humanities
- Grievance Committee needs a rep from College of Business & College of Public Service
- FA Rep from LAS – We will need to have a special election for this position
State of the Campus: I have been asked to speak at the State of Campus Address and to talk about the innovative work that you all are doing in your classrooms. Please share those stories with me by the 17^th.

Report of the President-Elect – David Havlick

Nothing New to Report

Report of the Past-President – Monica Yoo

Nothing New to Report

Committee Reports

Committee on Educational Policy and University Standards
Committee on Personnel & Benefits
Faculty Advisory Committee on the Budget
Committee on Disability
Committee on Misconduct in Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities
Committee on Research
Educational Policy & University Standards Committee
Faculty Assembly Committee on Teaching
Faculty Assembly Grievance Committee
Faculty Assembly Women's Committee
Faculty Equity & Inclusion Committee
Instructional, Research, & Clinical Faculty Committee
Intercollegiate Athletics
PRIDE
Sustainability Council Proposal

Representative Reports

No Reports

Unfinished Business

No unfinished business

New Business

Open Discussion: Updating the Faculty Assembly Constitution
1. Timely time to look at the constitution as the CU Faculty Senate is actually updating their constitution as well. There will be a vote at each of the four campuses to approve that constitution in the near future.
2. This presentation covers some of the areas that I have identified that perhaps need updating. This is not everything though. I would really like to put together a task force to look for other opportunities to update the constitution.
  1. Need to update “instructor” positions with the new “teaching professor titles”
  2. Right now the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs are voting member of FA. I’m not sure if this is common practice or not but thought there might be an opportunity to revisit this.
  3. Article 1.A – Adding Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty Committee Chair as an Officer for Faculty Assembly. This is something that we have been doing but is not reflected in our constitution.
  4. Article 1.A – President & President-Elect. Look at updating to be in line with other CU faculty governance bodies. Use Chair instead.
3. Amendments to the Constitution may be proposed by a majority vote of the representative assembly; which means the entire faculty body. So the challenge here will be to get the vote out there for the faculty to vote one before we can adjust. We had 43% participation in the last election. We need 60% vote to accomplish this so messaging is going to be key.
4. I would like to propose that we create a task force of volunteers from faculty assembly that’s not just the representative assembly to evaluate the constitution and recommend updates. Then the taskforce will bring recommendations to us and FA would have a discussion and vote on those changes. Then we would need to put it on the ballot in the spring elections. I will reach out to departments to relay the importance of voting in the elections. The taskforce should be made up of different colleges and both IRC and TT faculty.
5. Motion 1: Motion to constitute a taskforce to update the Faculty Assembly Constitution. (1:00 – 1:05 p.m.)
  1. Moved by: Joel Tonyan.
  2. Seconded by: Laura Austin-Eurich
  3. Discussion
  4. Result: Motion passes
Guest #1: Matthew Beckwith – Parking
1. 4 Big Changes that will be coming that will impact employees.
2. There is a New Parking Management System that will provide more robust options and more intuitive.
3. Single Day Permit Flexibility
  1. There are two permit packs.
    1. 16 Day and 5 Day options with Central & Border Options
    2. You will receive an email when you have used your pack.
  2. Discontinuing Single Day permits that are purchased by departments
4. Perpetual Permits for Employees
  1. Permits will automatically renew every month unless returned.
    1. If you want to cancel your auto payment, email parking. If done before the 10^th of the month you will get a reimbursement
  2. Payroll deduction or recurring credit card charges will be done monthly
  3. Option is available to set an expiration date
5. New Expanded Discount for Employees
  1. 20% discount for all permits for employees making under $85,000
6. The free lot are free to employees and students but there is no free parking for visitors to campus. There is also an issue in lot 540 with people parking in non-designated parking spots along the back. There is plenty of parking in front of the Ent Center. We are working on signage so that will stop.
7. Parking is 100% self funded and cannot accept any other form of funding. We do not get general funds which is why we must charge for parking on campus. We are still paying off the two parking garages which is generally about $1.8 million a year and there are lots that need repaired.
Guest #2: Stephanie Hanenberg – Enrollment Management & Student Affairs
1. Hello everyone. I am the interim Vice chancellor for the two new merged divisions of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. Good things are happening in the area. We did a visioning project in the spring with student affairs. With budget cuts, we looked at how we provide for our critical functions. What areas can we cut and how do we realign better. Enrollment Management did the same thing. Focused on how we build teams. Looking at what we may or may not have the bandwidth to continue. Looking at what we are spending money on and if we have two similar resources that could go down to one. We are still going through this process.
2. Census was yesterday at 5pm and we are coming in at .77% which is the first time in over five years that we are coming in flat and just a little bit over. Previously we have had declining enrollment. There was a large effort in getting waitlist students in classes and increasing our SCH. Kudo to all of you who helped make that happen.
3. Big push now to focus on how we provide the student experience even before students are here and how to get them through to graduation. We have rolled out a program called Near Peer. It is like a dating app to make a friend on campus. You list all of your interests and then you are given a list of others who share the same interests as you and then you can message them.
4. We brought our first concert back with Waka Flocka. It was an extremely successful event and the energy was really amazing. It was great to watch our students engage.
5. Athletics is off to a great start.
6. Bringing some of the well-being things into the classroom and partnering with faculty to help our students with anxiety and other things be able to manage and help them out.
7. Question: So we know that retention is important but asking faculty to accept more students does contribute to faculty burnout in time. So while this might have saved us $3 million now what is the long term solution to getting students off the waitlist? Is it the expectation that we will continue to let more students into our classes?
  1. So this was very much a solution for this year but we are hoping to add new sections and make it more manageable. The plan moving forward is Wendi is going to work with the Deans and Associate Deans to let them know your trend and what the waitlist has been. That way we are able to invest our resources to the areas that are seeing higher waitlists.
8. Question: Last year there was a result from the National College Health Assessment that said that a third of our student have suicidal ideation. Can you talk about what is being done to address this?
  1. So we have something called an ASQ when we see students at the wellness center. There are four questions and it is broad. So when students are answering those questions it is for any time in their live have they had any suicidal ideation. It does not necessarily mean that they are having those thoughts now. With social media it is easy to believe that someone else’s life looks better and for students to feel lonely. This really needs to start earlier on in a child’s learning so that they know how to start a conversation and make connections but we can teach them useful skills to help switch mindsets. Last December we rolled out a program called Mindfulness and Positivity. We had some faculty & staff take the lead on this and bring it into their classrooms. It helped them with their own wellbeing and they wanted to share those skills to their students.
Guest #3: Sloan Gonzalez – Inclusive Culture & Belonging
1. We have sent out communication about this at the beginning of the semester if you want a full overview. The main thing that is happening is that the Chancellor has created a new position for the Executive Leadership Team which will be the Chief of Staff and Vice Chancellor of Inclusive Strategy. We are combing these previous two positions into one. The goal of this was that the Chancellor was looking at how she could bring down the size of cabinet as well as cost savings. This position will serve as our Senior Diversity Officer for the campus which is required by the CU system. Where as the Chief of Staff position was originally the chief of the Chancellor’s staff and Chancellor’s Office, this position will be the Chief of all UCCS staff. They will be looking at our strategy, our policy, and our culture. They will also be looking what we need to do to recruit and retain our faculty and our staff on this campus. This position will have a lot of support with my team and staff in the Office of Inclusive Culture and Belonging. This position, in addition to looking at the DEI lens of things, this position will also be in charge of overseeing our strategic plan. The search for this position is currently underway and will be starting, hopefully, with the new Provost at the start of the spring semester.
  1. Question: So is this a common ask to find someone with both the DEI and the Strategic Planning aspect? Is it going to be difficult to find qualified people for this position?
    1. So HR has done a lot of research into this and how other universities doing for this position? Even when you look at the four Senior Diversity Officers at the four CU campuses, none of them have the exact same role. So we are really looking at how this will work best for our campus. We have historically be very understaffed and not able to create change at a systematic level with how we have had this position in the past. We have had really great humans doing great work but they would all say that they have not had the resources that they needed. We believe that having this position in the Executive Leadership Team and working directly with the Chancellor will improve this. For this position, we are really going to be looking for someone who is a coalition builder and can bring together the amazing people on campus who are already working on DEI initiatives. We need someone who’s going to come in and lift the programs, initiatives, and experts that we already have. Staff Council mentioned that this position sounds like a unicorn position. We aren’t expecting to get anyone that has had this exact same position. Just like the Provost search isn’t going to find someone that has the exact experience that is listed. I am confident that we will find a great candidate. There are people on this campus that we will specifically send the position to and say that they should apply. These people exist. I think this position is going to open up a lot of doors for people who maybe didn’t see where they would fit.
2. The CU Social Justice Summit is happening in October. In-person registration is maxed out but you can still attend virtually.

Motion to add 5-10 minutes to the meeting

Moved by Joel

Seconded by: Dylan Harris

Guest #4: Mark Ferguson – Campus Planning & Facilities Management
1. Here to talk to walk you through the Master Plan. We have made some changes since we presented it last year.
2. Started this process in 2019 and we are targeting to update every 10 year. COVID happened there and we did get slowed down. With new campus leadership recently we took another look at it and adjusted for our priorities.
3. Skipped process and moved to goals. The four goals of the facilities plan for the next 10 years are:
  1. Enhance Student Experience
  2. Create Primary Campus Entry
  3. Consolidate Academics
  4. Strengthen Pedestrian and Vehicular Circulation
4. 2012 Strategic Plan anticipated enrollment to be up to 15,000 students. We have adjusted to our reality and made some big changes to that mater plan.
5. Consolidating College of Education: On the other side of campus you will see that we are looking to create a new facility on the West side that would move the nursing students over to that side of campus. This would leave UHAL to consolidate the rest of COE to that building.
6. Central Campus Opportunities:
  1. Creating Welcome/Student Success Center in El Pomar: We have gotten feedback that many of staff on the first floor of El Pomar are working remote. We would still have the OIT desk but it give opportunities to look at utilizing that space more.
  2. Consolidating Non-student facing Admin to Cragmor: Opening up El Pomar gives opportunities to utilize Cragmor for non-student facing areas. This includes moving over our areas that are in UOP and be able to use that money that is used for leasing here on campus. No intention of moving the large OIT server room.
  3. The first three are the main ones. The others are really just looking at renovating what we have and updating buildings that might really need it.
  4. 11 & 12 are new buildings. These are last on this list depending on what we look like in the future. These are things that we do need to have on the master plan incase we are able to or need to do them. The dorm is something we need to have incase we do need to increase the number of dorms that we have. One thing to note with 12, it looks like we would be getting rid of parking for a building. In reality, the building would have parking below so that we would still have that parking option.
7. Alpine Valley:
  1. So one of the big feedback that we have received is that the field on top of Alpine, while cool to look at coming up Austin Bluffs, it gets really hot and isn’t a great place to do workouts because of the heat. Students have said that they would prefer to have a field on the ground that doesn’t have turf. That would make it so that we could make that top level into parking and have a new field on the other side of the parking garage. We have also gotten a lot of requests for a pickle ball court and skate park.

Question: Does this take into account any culturally important sites?
- So anything we want to build, we need to go out and do a study before work begins. We take these one at a time. This plan is dynamic and will change as we learn more. We are tracking when a site is significant and will build up as close as we can without disturbing those areas.
Question: How are we planning to fund these projects?
- So we are looking at alternative ways to fund as much as we can. We have been pretty successful working with state funding. We are also looking at fundraising and other things that have helped us with engineering. We are making sure to really think about the cost of maintaining these buildings and really being strategic about how we bring dollars back.

Motion to Adjourn

Les Tekamp motioned to end the meeting; Melissa Benton seconded; passed.

Next meeting: Friday, October 11, 2024, 12:00-2:00 pm in Hyflex Format; Dwire 103 or MS Teams