April 2024

Faculty Assembly

April 2024

 

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday April 12, 2024

 

 

Attendance:  Monica Yoo (President), Joel Tonyan (President Elect), Minette Church (Past President), Norah Mazel (Secretary), Nancy Marchand-Martella, Kathy Kaoudis, Rame Hanna, Jose Cantu, Angela Bender, Jerilyn Taylor, Andrew Archuleta, Lindsay Coppa, Michael Kisley, Dylan Harris, Kristi McCann, Les Tekamp, Matt Jabaily, Suzanne Cook, Assma Sawani, Camilla Troudt, Catherine Simmons, Claire Rau, Constance Staley, David Anderson, David Weiss, Elisa Thompson, Emily Mooney, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Haleh Abghari, Ilaheva Tuaone, Janet Giddings, Jena McCollum, Jennifer Zohn, Jian Ma, John Barnett, Karin Larkin, Kristi McCann, Kyle Gruenhagen, Kylie Rogalla, Lei Zhang, Marek Grabowski, Margaret Harris, Raphael Sassower, Rosely Conz, Seth Lummus, Suman Lakkakula, Thomas Wolkow, Todd Endres, Yvonne Wu, Zhe Li

 

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve March 2024 Minutes

            Moved by: Les Tekamp

            Seconded by: Carole Woodall

            Motion passes 

 

Reports of Visitors:

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor Report Presented by Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance

  • Yvonne Wu and multiple students advocated to the Board of Regents to ban concealed carry on all CU campuses.
  • Expressed gratitude for the support from regents, system, campuses, community and UCCS for the response to Feb 16. Incident.
  • Our strategic plan highlight was on research and Jessi Smith and Christine Bierman presented on the research happening on campus to the Board of Regents
  • Feb. 16 updated: We have two on-going teams related to the incident. One group is totally focused on the aftermath of the incident and this is led by Jennifer. This group is looking at ongoing support for specific groups on campus. The other group is focused on strategic work to retain current and incoming students and is led by Jose Cantu and Homer Wesley. 
  • Partnership with Boulder and CU Denver on strategic enrollment. This was announced in the CU President's newsletter.

 

Nancy Marchand-Martella, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs 

  • Grievance Policy: Worked with Erica Weston from system legal to completely revise the policy. That policy is now back in the hands of the Grievance Policy Committee. 
  • Multi-Year Contracts: These are left up to the deans of the college to decide on. I do not weigh in on those. There are different budgets across campus and the Deans know their budgets and what they are and are not able to do. 
  • Faculty Affairs Position: We have one time funding for a faculty affairs position. Presented two options and those two options could be expanded to a third option if someone had an even better idea. Conversation is still happening about this position. It is funding that would fund the position for 3 years. If you have some ideas, please do reach out.
  • Testing Center: The testing center will not be allowing make-up for students who do not qualify for disability support services. We do not have the space/support to be able to accommodate. Faculty will need to handle those through the departments.
    • This will go into effect June 10th
  • Digital Accessibility Specialist: We have just signed off on this and should be starting the searching/hiring process to hire someone to help with making courses digital. That person will be in the FRC to provide support. 
  • Policy on Statement of Public or Matters of Public Concern was approved. Here are some of the elements of this policy: 
    • Resolve that state law and existing Regent law and policy establishes the Board of Regents s a sole authority to articulate the university's position on matters of social and political concern.  
    • Resolve that existing Regent laws and policies recognize on the university's commitment to the principle of shared governance preventing a voice for faculty without being subject to the same restrictions as campus administrative and operational units.
    • Resolve that the Board of Regents recognizes faculty shared governance bodies speak on behalf of the associated faculty without being viewed as speaking on behalf of the university 
    • Resolve that the Board of Regents reaffirms its commitment to the principle of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and shared governance, as articulated in Regent laws and policy
    • Essentially, if there was a mater of public concern that the faculty felt strongly about and wanted to make a statement around, it needs to be done through our shared governance avenues and not be done, for example, the departmental web page, or something like that. 

 

Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance

  • This regent meeting had a focus on tuition, fees, and compensation. 
    • Regents approved a 3% increase in resident, 4% in non-resident which is well below the inflation rate. This will of course help with our revenue. 
    • Most fees were increased and just under the inflation rate and all fees were approved today.
      • Biology Program Fee increased from $15 to $25. 
      • New Humanities program fee was added for $10 which will go to fund an annual distinguished speaker series. 
      • Student activities fee rose from $16 to $30 per semester. This fee has not been increased since the 2008/2009 academic year. This was approved by student government and will go toward increased programming for student clubs.
      • Athletic fee increased from $11 to $12 per credit hour
      • Green Action Fund fee of $6.39 per semester was reinstate and does not have a sunset date
    • Our overall budget picture: We were very lucky in the legislature. Our system and legislative team have done absolutely phenomenal work lobbying on our behalf across the state. Higher Ed funding has increased by almost 10% state wide. We will receive about $2M for our campus alone. The $2.8M in cyber was approved for this year and will be part of the law for the next 3 years. 
    • Team came together when working on budget cuts. As a result, we have about 4M in budget cuts. Instead of telling each area what to cut, we instead asked each area how they can bring forward base budget to match those cuts. Everyone pulled together with what we needed. We have been able to accomplish that. Those will be done July 1. We have had 45 applications for Retirement program so far. This is coming in as we expected it to and will provide opportunity for folx to come and join our organization. Looking good at this point. 
    • We will be gathering data over the summer about our one time funded data. 
      • Question: If a faculty member decides to retire. What is the cabinet's position on whether to maintain that position? 
        • It could mean anything. Those lines will be swept to the budget lines and the Provost will consider what will happen to those lines. There are a variety of things that could happen after the lines are swept. Could be replaced, replaced at a lower pay, or eliminated. 
      • Questions: If we have a candidate who wants to defer their start by a year, is that line still considered “open” and at risk of being removed?
        • We will have to discuss this and will get back to you. 

Rame Hanna, Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  • Thank you for inviting me to give an update on the work that is being done toward DEI efforts on campus. The updates that I have are looking holistically at the full range of change efforts that we are looking to establish here on campus. 
    • Division Structure
      • We have 2 folx that are in our international affairs area
      • 2 folx in our DEI Outreach area
      • There are about 6.5 people on campus that work toward these updates
    • Division Initiatives
      • Inclusive Excellence and Belonging (IEB) Action Plan
        • Been our strategic planning approach to provide holistic engagement by engaging each college and divisions. The past few months this group has been working on finalizing some of the core goals of the plan with colleges and divisions that will lead to a formal launch at the start of the next academic year. Developing a IEB Actions website that will be available at the start of the academic year. Will promote transparency and accountability through intentional change by allowing people to visualize the data driven approach that we are taking across each college and division. Will have quarterly updates on each of the 40 initiatives. 
      • Council on Inclusive Belonging
        • There is no core definition of DEI on campus. We are working on generating a dynamic series of terms that we can have as our working definition at UCCS of what change efforts look like.
      • VCDEI Impact Fund
        • Fund of about $20,000 that funds campus wide initiatives for students, faculty, and staff. These funds go towards many areas across campus to elevate the impact of DEI change that directly relate back to our strategic plan pillars. 
      • Inclusive Excellence Award
        • Dr. Carole Woodall, Dr. Yvonne Wu, and Jennifer Poe are our winners this year and we are so excited to celebrate them at the Campus Awards Ceremony next week.
      • Faculty Rising Star Diversity Grant
        • We have granted three incoming faculty these grants this year. 
    • Staple Programs
      • MLK Days of Service
      • Pride Parade
      • Inclusive Belonging Spotlight Series
      • Heritage Munch & Learn Program Series
        • Promote faculty & Staff engagement in DEI
        • Elevate change impact happening across campus
        • Wonderful opportunity to highlight the great scholarship happening around change on campus.
    • Staple Trainings
      • Inclusive Belonging Training
        • This has been a collaboration with HR and Academic Affairs. The hope of this program was to be able to elevate the impact of what we can do in recruiting and retaining diverse faculty and staff at UCCS. We used to have a Diversity Champions program and this training will be replacing that. This training will give education on what each member of the search committee can be considering when going through the search process. We have had over 75 people engaging in this training. Working on getting a Skillsoft version of this training created and posted. The goal of this is to promote a deeper culture of care and equity throughout the search process. We encourage that every division sends a representative to this training. There will be regular updates and resources for these advocates. 
        • Becoming an Equity Advocate Training: May 16th from 11-12:30pm on Teams
          • To sign up, reach out to the DEI Team or view on the DEI newsletter
    • International Affairs Team & Pre-Collegiate Outreach is hosting 1-on-1 sessions this spring for bi-lingual sessions on study-abroad. 
    • International Student and Scholar Services has been hosting a series of events. Working on workshops about working with immigration attorneys as well as a curry cook off that is taking place on April 22nd. Therapeutic Thursdays is a regular event that they host that bring students together to feel community connections and support their mental health and wellness. Numerous programs to help with retention initiatives. Providing opportunities to study abroad.
    • Resources
      • Division of DEI Website
        • Updated daily and highlights change efforts happening on campus.
      • Cultural and Mindfulness Calendar
      • Heritage and Identity Month Calendar
    • ROAR DAYS has had programing throughout the week
      • Incredible opportunities to elevate the voices and lived experiences of our marginalized students through partnerships and collaborations.
    • Club Q Memorial unveiling 
      • Collaboration with KFL, MOSAIC, and the LGBTQ+ Resource center have been working on these two memorial and will be unveiling them on April 23rd. 
      • One will be in KFL and the other will be in front of the MOSAIC area.
    • Inclusive leadership and Belonging Summit at the ENT Center for the Arts - Social Justice Summit CU conference
      • Thursday, October 10th
    • There isn't one small thing that we can do on campus. It is both a process and a goal and is something that we are trying to tackle in numerous different spheres through these different types of partnerships and collaborations.
  • Question: International Affairs Office - Is there an update on work being done to make studying abroad accessible and affordable for faculty and students? 
    • Answered by Rame: We are working to find trips that are more affordable. We are also working on a core training for faculty who are interested in study abroad. If we can create trips that are more affordable then we are going to look into it.

Jose Cantu, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management

  • Giving a brief explanation about the Todd Saliman email that went out about students. CU system is working and collaborating together so that if a student is denied from Boulder, we are going to try to keep those students in the CU system. Currently we are working to create a system that will streamline this process. Currently, we have this on an excel sheet. Looking to make this automated next year. Boulder/UCCS have worked closely on this. Looking at Undergraduate level students and can look into Graduate students as well.
  • Summer Registration: Registration started last week so it is too early to call but we are look good. right now in headcount we are 25% ahead of last year. Up 17% in SCH from last year. Monday starts fall enrollment. We will have a report from that a week after that. One thing we will be considering is that FASFA is still at the government level. This may effect fall enrollment. In the admissions funnel we are 9% ahead in applications overall. Where we are seeing a worry is students trying to get housing – it is lower. Out of state students are up but housing is lower. Several institutions are feeling this pressure.

Reports of Officers:

Report of the President – Monica Yoo

  • Congrats to Norah Mazel for receiving the FA Service Award
  • Have FA/Staff association mixer on April 17th from 4-6 at Clyde’s 
  • If you are interested in the retirement incentive, you should contact the CU benefits office. If you are considered retiring early, benefits might be done differently and you will want to talk directly to the CU office about what it will look like for you. 
  • BOR is meeting today. There are a number of people presenting
  • Been talking to FA Chair at UCD – some concern about the faculty review for admins and making that a separate process. I have been connecting with Boulder and Denver about how they go about this process

 

Report of the President-Elect – Joel Tonyan

  • Election: Tank you to everyone that volunteered for the elections. I have been working with IR to send the ballot out so that it will be a unique link to everyone. Will be sending an announcement to the listservs. The election will run from 8:00AM on April 22nd through 5:00PM on April 26th. Thank you everyone who has nominated or self nominated!
  • As for committees, we are looking to fill 2 positions for the Committee on Research for representation in the College of Engineering and for VAPA. Please nominate yourself or a colleague. 
  • PRIDE committee is looking for a representative from the College of Business and the College of Public Service. Please nominate yourself or a colleague.

 

Report of the Past-President – Minette Church

  • I want to elevate the work that is going on right now with CREST and the DEI related faculty assembly committees on equity around institution building, service, public engagement and that kind of service that we all do. They are looking at ways to make the service we do more visible and make equity across different units and within units more transparent. I think that it is important work.
  • I wanted to also mention and thank people for is that from David Moon's report on the UBAC and also the Faculty Assembly Committee on the Budget, that the consensus seems to be that there will be some raises and specifically lecturer pay. I want to thank them for the work that has been done to make that happen.

 

Committee Reports

Representative Reports

  • LAS Representative Haleh Abghari (VAPA)
    • Later in the agenda, we will be presenting a resolution to prohibit firearms on campus. Yvonne Wu and I are co-authors on this resolution. In light of the Feb. 16th incident – we have been looking at things that can be done to help others feel safer by banning weapons on campus. A misconception is that we are not able to effect the state bill that give permission for concealed carry on campuses. That bill gave local governing boards the ability to decide on stricter gun policies. The regents can address this. We do not have to go with the state policy. We have been doing action in different levels (UCCS, State level, Regent level) to get the word out on this resolution. The BOR met yesterday and we presented to them along with a student representative. We have some very dedicated students who have been working very hard on effecting this change. We have been working on different actions including a petition on this ban. We are looking for more signatures (have over 1000) and you can add your signature to that petition if you are interested. Regents will not vote until their June meeting on stricter firearm restrictions. At the state level, SB-24131 is a bill about banning guns in sensitive spaces that include universities campuses. There was a hearing in the Senate and that bill ended up passing. It is now going to the House. There have been some very severe edits to what is considered sensitive spaces in that bill but universities are still included. There is a hearing next week and you can speak up on that. We are specifically asking the BOR to not leave it to the state and to take a stance.  You can write to the regents and can email them at cuboardofregents@cu.edu

 

Unfinished Business

No unfinished business

 

New Business

  1. Motion 1: Faculty Assembly Executive Committee moves to suspend the bylaws for the time needed to vote on two appointments to the CU Faculty Senate Grievance Committee. 

    1. Vote: 25 Yes; 3 Abstain, 0 No

    2. Motion Passes: Bylaws suspended for next two motions

  2. Motion 2: The Faculty Assembly Executive Committee moves to appoint Lesley Ginsberg (Professor, Department of English) to a three-year term on the CU Faculty Senate Grievance Committee. 

    1. Vote: 25 Yes; 0 Abstain; 1 No

    2. Motion Passes: Lesley Ginsberg is appointed to Cu Faculty Senate Grievance Committee

  3. Motion 3: The Faculty Assembly Executive Committee moves to appoint Rhonda Glazier (Associate Professor, Kraemer Family Library) to a three-year term on the CU Faculty Senate Grievance Committee. 

    1. Vote: 24 Yes; 0 Abstain; 0 No

    2. Motion Passes: Rhonda Glazier is appoint to the CU Faculty Senate Grievance Committee

  4. Motion 4: PRIDE Committee moves to adopt the resolution Commitment to Campus Community, brought forward by Carole Woodall (History)  

    1. Carole Woodall: We are asking you consider is just the contours of the resolution. The resolution terms from this intention of recognizing diversity in terms of our campus community, recognizing that individuals on our campus community, no matter what rank or position, are experiencing from the effect from the ongoing and historic violence that's taking place in Palestine and Israel. This resolution is trying to just reassert a commitment to campus community through a lens of care and compassion. This resolutions was brought to the LAS Faculty assembly in November and was approved. The Boulder Faculty Assembly also ended up approving it in December.

    2. Discussion:

      1.  Pre-submitted Comments from Robin Kempf who could not attend:

        1. I submit these comments to you to be read into the record before the Faculty Representative Assembly (FRA) votes on the resolution entitled “Commitment to Campus Community” offered by Dr. Carole Woodall. I am the representative of the College of Public Service and the current chair of the Faculty Assembly Women’s Committee; however, I am writing on behalf of myself. 
        2. I oppose this resolution and I would like to explain why. First, at its heart, this resolution does nothing. It asks UCCS to remain what it already is. Although I should be clear that I am not opposed to UCCS remaining as it already is, this resolution is an empty effort.
        3. Second, the resolution uses as its context the Middle East conflict. Many other conflicts around the world could be included here, so I ask: why does this conflict deserve special attention? Undoubtedly, the consequences of this particular conflict (and of all wars) are awful and not to be ignored by the international community; however, to be truly committed to the campus community as the resolution suggests, it should mention the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Myanmar civil war, the wars in Afghanistan and Ethiopia, the Mexican drug war, etc., etc., etc. 
        4. It is my opinion that this empty gesture without expansion of scope does not serve the campus.
      2. Carole thanks Robin for generating a response
      3. What happens to resolutions? 
        1. Answered by Carole: I think this is actually a really good question for the campus at large. I think it is really important to have a resolution that is of the faculty as opposed to just being of the administration. I think it's from that sensibility of thinking about the mission of the university as a transformative public university that's trying to structure itself through a lens of diversity and inclusiveness, but also engaging with this idea of shared governance that there is something that has been generated of the faculty which can extend to other conflicts. This will be something from the faculty that be drawn upon.
      4. Discussion on having resolution on our webpage for everyone to access easily
        1. This is something that our new admin help, Lindsay Coppa, can look into and work on.
    3. Second: Dylan Harris
    4. Vote: 23 Yes; 6 No; 1 Abstain
    5. Motion Passes: Resolution Adopted

  5. Discussion 1: Compensation/Merit Task Force and Lecturer Committee Update - Angela Bender & Team

  • PowerPoint

  • Lecture committee – we will be postponing through the summer so that we can get as much input as we can. We will be asking lecturers across campus to have discussions about lecturers, structure of pay, concerns, and really get feedback from lecturers. Excited to update you on that. If you know of anyone that would be interested in this, please do let me know. 
  • Updated our search processes to fill positions more quickly. Has been a benefit for many of our positions. 
  • Compensation Task Force – Andrew
    • Launched in January. Comm & Engagement plan will be going out quarterly about what has been done. Meet by-weekly and then team members go out and discuss with their areas. If you have feedback, please reach out to your representative. FY25 Merit strategy – took their recommendation for a merit increase for everyone to UBAC to consider. Working with data sets to make decisions. We have that data and will be using them moving forward. Aligned our Compensation philosophy to match with the regent’s philosophy. Moving forward into the next Quarter, we will be launching a website that will have updates from what the task force is working on. Will include a timeline and FAQs. Qualification Data Project – HCM becoming a better way to utilize HCM data. Asking for resumes and qualifications from faculty/staff. From this data, it will show our market reviews. Need to look at career experience and not just UCCS experience. Looking at a long-term sustainability/compression/merit strategy. Using trigger thresholds possibly (example: Within $2500 will trigger a review for compression). Looking at peers institutions and what/how they handle pay. Will then use as a basis for making decisions. Standardizing department chairs. Right now it is up to the colleges to determine chair compensation. We are looking at a strategic and methodological approach to chairs. There will be different tiers with different baselines. 
    • Question: Do we get to see the philosophy
      • Yes – It will be posted on our website in a week or two
    • How do you decide on tiers for chairs?
      • Get pay info from our data sets from other peer institutions and will drive those tier standards
    • Have there been any consideration for those that have earned awards about getting an increase in base pay? 
      • This might be getting into performance
      • Right now, not part of the discussion but will take back to the task force. 
      • Angela: As you raise minimum to be competitive, you raise compression. Working closely with budet to see what we can build in to that adjustment pool to be able to give a dean a way to reward an employee that is doing exceptional work. When we build the structure, we need to be able to use the structure in a budget sense. 
    • Vender for a compensation review? How is it related to Compensation Task Force?
      • Coming out of HR reserves
      • Vender for knowledge in HR that is just doing the performance management work. Evaluations are done different in colleges, different with staff, this vender is not looking at the comp side but performance as a whole. They are meeting with various areas on campus. 
    • What is the long term goal of evaluating performance? The small amount of raise is a motivator to work well.
      • We are just starting this process. They will be looking at other institutions and will be giving recommendations. We want to make sure that we have some consistency on how we do evaluations and definitions around those areas.
      • We have a vender coming in to evaluate our evaluation process on campus
    • Retirement Incentive Program: First Priority is April 19th Final Priority is May 20th. This priority is just saying that you would like information. We have had 43 people sign up so far. 24 are faculty (including lecturers) applications. Most have requested dates in December with 5 requesting in May. After the priority, we will be reviewing applications and connecting with those that are interested. If anyone has questions, please send them directly to Jerilyn.

  1. Motion 5: Faculty Equity and Inclusion Committee moves to adopt Resolution for the Regents to Prohibit Firearms on CU Campuses, brought forth by Haleh Abghari (VAPA) and Yvonne Wu (VAPA) 

    1. Second: Norah Mazel

    2. Vote: 22 Yes; 4 No; 0 Abstain

    3. Motion Passes: Resolution Adopted

Motion to Adjourn

Les Tekamp motioned to end the meeting; Dylan Harris seconded; passed.  

Next meeting: Friday, May 3, 2024, 12:00-2:00 pm in Hyflex Format; Dwire 114 or MS Teams