April 2025

 

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday April 11, 2025

 

Attendance:  Joel Tonyan (President), David Havlick (President Elect), Monica Yoo (Past President), Kylie Rogalla (Secretary), Jennifer Sobanet, Lynn Vidler, Kathy Kaodis, Laura Austin-Eurich, Melissa Benton, Dylan Harris, Cathy Simmons, Les Tekamp, Douglas Risser, Sara Hagedorn, 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, Jena McCollum, Jon Forshee, Karin Larkin, Norah Mazel, Julie Torres, Emily Mooney, Suzanne Cook, Robin Kempf, Robert Mitchel

 

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve March 14, 2025

           Moved by: Laura Austin-Eurich

           Seconded by: Les Tekamp

           Last Meeting Minutes Approved

 

Reports of Visitors:

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor - Presented by Interim Provost Lynn Vidler

  • Federal Transition: UCCS is actively working to advocate for our students, our mission, and our values. At both the state and federal levels, the Chancellor has personally spoken with representatives about the OCR investigation involving UCCS. That conversation led to a formal inquiry to the Office of Civil Rights, which is a direct result of our outreach and advocacy.
  • At the request of both Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet, UCCS is working to connect the attorney of the student whose visa was revoked with the senators' offices. That was the first student but we have had three more students have their visa's revoked in the last 24 hours. The goal is to seek support and possible resolution through conversations with the senators.
  • We also shared the details of the Department of Defense grant cancellation with the office of the Senators and Representative Crank. UCCS leadership, faculty, and staff are consistently engaging with our delegation through campus tours, organizing virtual town halls or participating in key conversations.
  • Senator Hickenlooper will be on campus next week for a town hall. 

 

Lynn Vidler, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

  • Searches: We currently have three Dean searches happening and I just had the charge meeting with the search committee for the Faculty Affairs Vice Provost search and there is also the search for the Vice Chancellor for Advancement position. We are starting to have candidates on campus for the Dean searches so please remind people to participate in whatever ways that you are able to and please fill out the surveys as they start to get sent out. The Vice Chancellor and Associate Vice Chancellor campus visits are going to be scheduled to come to campus around finals week. We know this is a busy time but it is important for everyone to provide feedback for these positions. Thank you for providing feedback and thank you to the committees for going through all of the work for these searches.
  • Committees: The Academic Freedom Ad Hoc group has begun to meet and they have been given a charge to begin work. This group will be able to asses and do what they think will be the most helpful to campus such as panel speakers and other events. Joel will be able to report out on that one as we move forward.
  • Policy Updates:
    • Making progress on a lot of things. Professional rights and responsibilities policy and procedures has been reviewed by the Deans and myself and is now back with EPUS.
    • There is a new committee for the policy on Student Academic Ethics. This policy will likely incorporate AI use.
    • EPUS is working on differentiated workload policy. Deans now have the data that was mentioned at the last FA meeting and they are reviewing it to see how many buyouts they do currently.
  • Budget Process: The Budget planning process has evolved over the last few years to be more transparent. One way this has happened is that we have asked units to provide cut scenarios that makes sense to that unit. This process has helped us as we figure out what is valued across campus.
  • Question: What decision was made about the Faculty Affairs Office?
    • There was an email sent out a few weeks ago with more information. We will be funding the office for the 4 years that we have funds available. We will reevaluate after that 4 years.
  • Question: Have all of the deans seen their plans?
    • All of the deans have seen each others cut plans. That meeting was on Tuesday.
  • Question: Did the data provided with the Differential Workload process include success rates?
    • The data that was included was about how many TT faculty there are in each college historically so that we can estimate the cost of reducing workloads. We do not have the success rate data but we can look into it.

Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance

  • Regent Approved Recommendations: The regents have voted today to approve next year's tuition, compensation, and fees. REVIEW ALL APPROVED INCREASES HERE
    • Tuition: Increase of 3.5% resident and 2.5% for nonresidential students
  • State Level: We are still waiting for the governor's signature on the Long Bill. The current version includes a 2.5% increase in higher education funding and 2.5% for financial aid. It also includes a decrease in $1.4 million in cyber funding
  • Budget: The state increases does not cover our mandatory cost increases. $4.7 million will need to come from campus along with $1.4 million from cyber. As the Provost mentioned, everyone has seen each other's cut plans and the process has been collaborative involving everyone on campus.
    • Question: Will there be personnel losses?
      • Yes. They will be targeted and limited but there will be some individuals that will loose their current positions. We are working with HR to see if there are other positions on campus that they would be a good fit for. The same is true with our federal grants that have been terminated. Most of the gap plans address currently vacant lines. Nothing is final and so there is no word on which positions. 

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

  • Federal Transition Update:
    • Thank you to the Federal Transition Team for having rich, wonderful discussions and being authentic and bringing issues/questions forward from your areas. Please do continue to bring concerns to us so we can discuss and make action plans for them. We have a group working together on research partnerships, community engagement, and communications. Something that was brought up in these meetings was about how humanities related grants are disproportionately being effective with less opportunities and that we have had a grant terminated in that area this last week. We need to rethink how we are engaging with our community and private funding to support some of our researchers on campus and this group is going to come together and think on how to approach these private foundations. We are working with the communications team and the development team to help us come up with some strategies. Once we have some of the ideas figured out more, we will bring them to this group.
    • One of the outcomes from this group was providing more robust resources for our international students here at UCCS. Our International Affairs team has done a fantastic job working with the Systems Office as well as with our legal team to put together very clear resources for our international students. As faculty and staff, you can also provide to your students.
    • We have now had 4 students who have had their F1 status revoked. Three more came through yesterday. These students all have very different feelings about what this means to them which means they may want to be very private and not talk to their professors while other will. Please be very conscious that there are different perspectives on what is happening to their status and respect that if you are talking about it in class. We will be sending out some more direct communication about visas in the next week.
    • Faculty/Staff who are here on visas/green cards, this a bit further removed from us at UCCS in the fact that these visas and statuses are maintained through the system office and through Boulder. We are working directly with them and have identified who those faculty/staff are. We have been in communication with them and are working to create a similar support resource for them as the students have.
    • The F&A rate cap that was put forward by NIH has officially had a permanent stop. This decision will be appealed but it is positive that the first ruling was in our favor.
    • There is a task force being pulled together from the Big Six Higher Ed associations and they will be providing recommendations to the administration about F&A rates. I do think that we have some positive movement in that way. We may not get the F&A that we have received historically but hopefully it will not feel as terrifying as it did several weeks ago.
  • Measles Outbreak: There is a new section in the Communique that will be giving updates about the Measles Outbreak that is happening in Southern Colorado. We have a high percentage of students that are vaccinated. We don't have data on faculty/staff but we are above average with our students. We have communicated to those who are not vaccinated.
  • Question: There was communication mentioning that Boulder had resources through their legal campus. Wil those resources be open to all campuses?
    • We will look into this and update
  • Question: Will student who have had their visas revoked be able to withdraw from classes?
    • So where we are at in the semester, this is tough. We encourage you to help if there is any way that we can help these students be able to finish the semester. We are in the process of looking into supporting these students as much as we can. The standard process if for these students to request a reinstatement of their visas. If a student is in good standing, we are able to write a letter supporting their request. The individuals are working with their own legal council. The Federal Transition website does have the resources available.
  • Question: For the faculty with H1-B visas, what is the first step that they should take if their visas are revoked?
    • So for the students response, our legal response is to notify the student through a letter and a call and tell them that they must return to their home country. As a public institution, we cannot provide these students legal council but we can give resources on where they can look for council. We also reach out to them about what they may need help with and to ensure that they are ok. We will look into what this would look like for faculty but it may be similar.
  • Question: Have there been reasons given as to why visa's have been revoked?
    • Based on what we have received, we do not know. They have been vague.
  • Question: How many students do we have on campus with visas?
    • We have 152 students with visas. 4 have been revoked in both undergraduate and graduate student.
  • Question: Have these student come from a particular country/region?
    • With only 4, we cannot say that one area has been targeted more than another. 

 

Report of the President – Joel Tonyan

  • Campus Award Ceremony is next Thursday at 3:30 where we will be celebrating Minette Church. Please stop by if you are able to.
  • Elections: Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to run. Also thank you to everyone in advance for voting!
  • Academic Freedom Forum: We have had 3 meeting so far. We are working to have an event this semester and then more in the Fall. On May 9th after FA there will be a hybrid event from 2:30-4:00 that will be a space to discuss and ask questions around Academic Freedom. This won't be aimed just at faculty but also to students and staff who are interested too. We may not have answers at this event but we are gathering information and questions that we can take and get answers to and even have more events on those subjects in the Fall. More information will be sent out next week.

 

Report of the President-Elect – David Havlick

  • Election: Thank you to everyone that is one the ballot. We are still looking for 2 reps in Nursing and 1 from COB. We are also still confirming nominations for the president-elect position. This continues to be an open nomination process. Please encourage others to nominate themselves/others. The ballot will be finalized next week. If you are interested, please reach out to me.

 

Report of the Past-President – Monica Yoo

  • Nothing New to Report

 

Committee Reports

 

Representative Reports

  • No New Reports

 

Unfinished Business

  • Charge for the Faculty Assembly Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) Committee
    • This will be moved to next meeting.

 

New Business

Guest 1: Dora Chinchilla & Saul Castillo, Employee Services

  1. Open Enrollment for 2025
    1. Open Enrollment will be from April 21st - May 9th
    2. UCCS will have a vendor fair on April 29th from 10-2 in Berger
    3. 25-26 new monthly rates for all plans including Pathway: https://www.cu.edu/doc/faculty-and-staff-2025-26-rate-sheet-v3pdf-1
    4. Anthem's microsite to access "Find Care" https://www.anthem.com/mcr/cuhealthplan/find-care

Guest 2: Discussion - Research during the Federal Transition - OOR/OSP/COR

  • Hillary Fouts - We know that the federal transition has made research a hot topic and many of us are feeling the impacts. We currently have had 3 grant termination notices. Those have come from DoD, NIH, and NEH awards. It has been very difficult for everyone involved including the OOR. We that this is a difficult time and we want to help you all find answers to your questions. Please continue to reach out to our office with your questions and concerns.
    • Termination Notices: When are do get a termination notice, we work closely with legal and really look into all for the options for the PIs. Please do let us know immediately if you receive a termination/stop order so we can start this process.
    • Opportunities: What we are seeing lot of recently are when funding opportunities just disappear. There is a lot of chaos happening at the federal agencies themselves and we are trying to keep up with things as much as we can. You can reach out to the Research Development Coordinator, Kelly McNear, to help find a way to adjust current proposals or find funding. We are also seeing a larger amount of time for agencies to review and award proposals. We have also heard that review panels are being cancelled which is making timelines longer.
    • Current Submissions: Though March, we have been tracking less submission for this period last year. This year we have submitted 103 proposals compared to 131 from last year. Personally believe that this is due to the disappearing opportunities as well as a possible feeling of frustration and low moral. IRB submissions are up by 15% from last year. So there is no question that faculty are still pursuing their research.
    • Resources: OOR & the library are putting together a workshop in early May for Private Funding and other places to find funding. This event will also go over how to use our new tool - PIVOT-RP which is a tool to look for funding opportunities. The library can also help find funding opportunities for your research.
      • We have been working with the Provost's Office to have some other support opportunities. You will learn more about the Revitalization Fellowships in an email next week.
      • Please reach out to our office or Hillary directly if you have any questions. 

 

New Business - Academic Affairs Guidelines

  • This guideline is ready for review by FA. The idea is to use this month to review and then we will vote on it at the next meeting in May. These guidelines will go into effect July 1st if approved.
  • Question: Has there been any discussion on term limits for department chairs?
    • This was discussed but it was ultimately left up to the Deans and the colleges.
  • Question: At my previous institution, there was a practice where TT faculty who have been the chair of a department for 5 years was automatically given tenure. Is there a possibility of discussing this here at UCCS?
    • Not sure if this will work for UCCS. We would need to have a larger, campus wide discussion on a change like this. This doesn't seem like it would comply with Regent law/policy around tenure. 

 

Motion to Adjourn

Les Tekamp motioned to end the meeting; Karin Larkin seconded; passed. 

Next meeting: Friday, May 9th, 2025, 12:00-2:00 pm in Hyflex Format; Dwire 103 or MS Teams