February 2024

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday February 9, 2024

Attendance:  Monica Yoo (President), Minette Church (Past President), Joel Tonyan (President Elect), Lynn Gates (Secretary), James Ma, Laura Austin-Eurich, David Weiss, Suzanne Cook, Lindsay Coppa, Nancy Marchand-Martella, Jennifer Zohn, Karin Larkin, Elisa Thompson, David Moon, Emily Mooney, Kylie Rogalla, Matthew Jabaily, Jena McCollum, Todd Endres, Norah Mazel, Janet Giddings, Ilaheva Tuaone, Kristi McCann, Kevin Laudner, Andrew Subudhi, Julie Torres, Aaron Corcoran, Darshika Perera, Suman Lakkakula, Robin Kempf, Thomas Wolkow, Angus Chassels, David Anderson, David Weis, Marek Grabowski, Margaret Harris, Claire Rau, Haleh Abghari, Jon Caudill, Dylan Harris, Raphael Sassower, Suzanne Cook, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Gordon Stringer, Christina Jimenez, Kathy Kaoudis, Camilla Troudt, 

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve December 2023 Minutes

            Moved by: Les Tekamp

            Seconded by: Minette Church

            Motion passes 

Reports of Visitors:

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor Report Presented by Nancy Marchand-Martella, Provost

The Chancellor wishes she could have attended Faculty Assembly today but she is in Boulder for the February BOR meeting. 

• I would like to thank Monica and the executive committee for their leadership and the attention they are giving to our financial situation. Monica’s participation in the UBAC retreat was noticed by the attendees and we are grateful for her thoughtfulness and her leadership.
  • As we go through this difficult work, know that I am fully committed to our academic and research mission all in service of our students’ success.  The deans and cabinet are working closely together on this (including bi-weekly meetings and retreats together) and we are very intentionally including shared governance and UBAC.  I know that we will have better outcomes from this work because we are working together. Our goal is to provide transparency (which admittedly can be unsettling) and give space for sense-making with the information we share so we can all be strategic and intentional with our decisions.  This will take leadership from us all which is why I’m so committed to transparency and sharing information and giving space to idea generation at the local and university level. Thank you all for caring and engaging so much.   
• Thank you Carole Woodall for the work that went into such a successful Teach In. This is such a great example of a university serving its campus and its community.  It was an amazing panel and it went really well.  
• Update from the BOR meeting:
  • Our Sabbaticals were approved
  • Our new Certificates (G and UG) were approved
  • The three scenarios of our budget were proposed to the BOR and will be discussed in depth at the Feb 21 UBAC meeting.  At the April BOR meeting the BOR will vote on the tuition, fee, and salary changes.  There was no pushback on the increased Student Activity Fee.  
  • We presented on the CU system Strategic Plan metrics about Staff and Faculty New Hires and Retention.  The only metric where we are not meeting our goals in the New Faculty Veteran hires metric and New Staff Veteran hires metric.  Rame Hanna, Emily Skop and Angela Bender presented and were fantastic!  Huge kudos to them!
     

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

• Looking forward to reviewing feedback for the 3 candidates for Dean of the College of Engineering. Thank you to the search committee and everyone involved in the search process. 
• The search for the Dean of the College of Public Service is in progress. Please keep an eye out for an announcement of when candidates will be visiting campus.
• Reminder about the Campus Class Attendance Policy 200-018. What we have been hearing is that there is not an attendance policy appearing in syllabus but students are losing attendance points. Reminder that this policy requires that students must be provided with explicit written information about attendance if it affects grades.
• HB21-1110 will be taking effect July 1^st. This bill requires all online courses to comply with web accessibility standards. Using temporary funds, a Digital Accessibility Specialist will be hired to help UCCS comply with this law. FRC & Dave Anderson are helping faculty with digital compliance for classes. Canvas has a tool called UDOIT that can scan Canvas courses. There will be a $3500 fine for each violation.
  • Question: Who is the point of contact for this?
    • FRC will be the point of contact for Digital Accessibility 
• Update on Grievance Policy: it is currently being reviewed by legal. Currently, the legal office is short staff so it may take longer than usual for policies to be reviewed. 
• I have accepted the Grievance Committee bylaws.
• Update on Differentiated Workload Policy: The policy is going through committees for feedback. The plan is for EPUS to review in March. 
• Chair Guidelines update: Went through and provided additional edits to David Moon & David Weiss.
• Updating Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Policy 200-001. Our current policy is in violation of the APS. 
  • Our policy lists that when you go up for initial comprehensive review you are either “on track for tenure” or “not on track for tenure.” We need to add in a “to meet standards with appropriate corrects” option so that it matches the requirements in the APS.
  • Cannot add “meritorious” or “excellent” during the comprehensive review.
• Cabinet, along with Angela Bender, is currently looking at early retirement incentives for all levels. Hoping to have information about this by the end of the semester.
• Update on APS 5060: This policy that moves all instructors to new teaching title series – instructor goes to assistant, senior instructor goes to associate, and principal instructor goes to full instructor - has been vetted by Angela & Jennifer. It is now being sent for the Dean’s consideration/feedback.
   

Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance (Joined meeting at 1:30)

• Debrief on budget scenarios for FY25
  • Budget Update Presentation
  • Budget Scenarios for FY25
    • Timeline – BOR reviewed our scenarios today
    • BOR meeting in April will be the official vote
    • Must have figures by March
    • BOR meeting in June will vote on our General Fund and Auxiliary Fund Budgets
• Two issues we need to consider.

1. FY25 Base (On-Going) General Fund Budget
2. Additional Expenditures that are funded from temporary sources

• FY24: We took $3,381,989 in cuts through base budget cuts. During the pandemic, reserves were used to help cover a huge deficits. About $20M covered by campus reserves during COVID which means that we do not have reserves to go back to. 
• Question: What is Risk Pool? – 
  • Answered by Kathy: It is insurance for the university.

Motion to extend meeting by 5 minutes

Moved by: Laura Austin-Eurich; Second by: Minette Church

Motion passes unanimously

• There are three scenarios to consider. All scenarios shown in the presentation include a 2% merit pool OR a 2% adjustment pool. Each are $2.5M in costs. We believe that we are likely going to land between Scenario B or C. 
• Question: Do these scenarios include promotion and tenure raises? –
  • Answered by Kathy: Yes that is included in there. There is also a small pool added for classified staff for compression.
• Question: There are rumors about retirement incentives? If those lines retire, would they be replaced with the same kind of position or would it be, for example, replacing an assistant professor with an instructor?
  • Answered by Kathy: Yes. So we have been starting to talk about early retirement incentives and are in the draft stages. As for replacement, there is one scenario we have considered where those lines go back to the Provost and the Provost would determine the best way to allocate it. Another option is that a tenure or tenure-track line could be replaced with a lower level professor position. The goal is to reduce the number of lines across the campus so that we reduce our overall base budget. 

Reports of Officers:

Report of the President – Monica Yoo

• Thanks to faculty and staff for coming out to the basketball games. It was a lot of fun and our teams did great so it was extra fun. 
• Faculty & Staff mixer will be happening later this semester.
• Enrollment is looking good after the first week of classes but we will know exact numbers after census. There will be an update at our next meeting.
• HR compensation task force is working through some of the issues that have been identified while keeping the budget in mind.
• Professional, Rights, and Responsibilities Policy is still in the works. 
• Policy 200-015 is with legal for review before going to the cabinet. 
• APS 5060 is currently in front of the Deans (See Provost update)
  • With this update, we will need to be updated to reflect correct titles.
• Office Space Policy has been moving forward and will be turning into an Academic Affairs Guideline instead of a policy.
• System Faculty Council has been asking questions about CU President’s appointment process for UCCS’s Chancellor. While the President did not violate Regent policy, there are questions on if any state laws were violated. System Faculty Council has been working with System Legal and we will see what is found from that inquiry.
• System is having a Faculty Council retreat next week.
• Folx in Cybersecurity will be coming next month.
  • Thanks to everyone with pre-submitted questions. They have been sent. 
  • Will ask the Chancellor about an update on Cyber funding source.

Report of the President-Elect – Joel Tonyan

Elections will be later in this semester. Encourage you all to get involved. If you have any questions, please reach out. This also includes all of the committee vacancies. 

Report of the Past-President – Minette Church

Academic Affairs Guideline Committee – It is in process but want to make sure that campus policy know what Academic Affairs policies is trying to do with the guidelines idea. We are setting up a meeting with campus policy and once we have that meeting, we will then be able to start moving forward. 

Committee Reports

1.  
   1. EPUS Report
   2. CMRSCA Report
   3. FEIC Report
   4. UBAC Report 
   5. COR Report
   6. FACT Report
   7. SUSTAINABILITY Report 
   8. FAWC Report 

Unfinished Business

None

New Business

1. Call for Parking & Transportation Advisory Board (PTAB) members – Matthew Beckwith (12:25-12:30)
   1. Looking for 1-2 more faculty board members to sit on this board. Meets 2^nd Friday of every month from 12-1. Once a year we do a luncheon. This board provides recommendations and advisory for parking and sustainability practices/policies. This board hears appeals and also votes once a year on fees. Reach out to parking or Matt Beckwith if you are interested. 
2. Grievance Committee introduces bylaw updates (vote in March) – Suzanne Cook (12:30-12:40)
   1. We are submitting some revisions to the bylaws for the committee. Grievances should be reviewed instead of investigated by the committee. The committee’s findings & recommendations should go to FA President instead of the Provost. Next meeting in March we will be going over the bylaw format changes. There is no campus wide policy on grievances. The committee will suggest to faculty the appropriate place to address issues. 
   2. Faculty rights and responsibility document update. That committee is still meeting and working on finalizing that document by the end of February. 
3. UBAC retreat information & questions – David Moon (12:40-1:00)
   1. UBAC, Deans, and Cabinet had a retreat to talk about budget. 
   2. UBAC Budget Talking Points 
   3. Summary: We are looking at three possible budget scenarios. We do know that there will be cuts and they will be larger than last year’s $3.3M and it could be as high as $7.5M depending on state support and what the campus chooses to fund.
   4. Looking for feedback on merit pool/adjustment pool
      1. Funding a 2% merit pool will cost about $2.5M in ongoing base expenses
      2. Funding a 2% adjustment will cost about $2.5M in ongoing base expense
      3. Options for feedback:
         1. Fund merit pool & adjustment pool. Cost of $5M to base budget
         2. Fund EITHER merit pool or adjustment pool. Cost of $2.5M to base budget
         3. Connect funding of merit OR adjustment to enrollment increase of 2.5% or 3% above the Fall Census student credit hour budget. No additional budget cut.
         4. Connect BOTH merit and adjustment to a 5% enrollment increase above Fall Census student credit hour budget. No additional budget cut.
   5. Each College has representation on UBAC. Please reach out to your representative with feedback/questions. You can also reach out to Christina Jimenez, Chair of UBAC.
   6. Question: If enrollment is flat, why would we still be out multiple millions of dollars?
      1. Answered by David Moon: With merit increases and increase for classified staff and student employee wages along with some inflation costs, our flat enrollment does not cover all of our costs. We have not recovered enrollment from before the pandemic but we are increasing our expenses. This leads to us spending more while still not being back to where we were at before COVID.
4. Micro-Credentials – Janice Thorpe & Martin Key (1:00- 1: 25)
   1. Micro-Credential PowerPoint 
   2. Micro-Credential is an umbrella term for small-scale, skill-based, recognition of proficiency in a designated competency or set of competencies.
   3. There is a campus-wide committee that is currently looking into the benefits and logistics of offering micro-credentials to UCCS. 67% of people in Colorado have a partial degree and these badges can help them see their progress towards finishing their degrees. It is also an incentive for employers to send their employees here to acquire these smaller badges instead of an entire degree. We are still in the preliminary process of what this looks like at the institutional level. Our committee believes that it provides additional value to our existing students. 
   4. Currently UCCS uses Credly where all of our current badges that are offered can be found. Badges get added to LinkedIn where employers can search for. 
   5. Question: Can they be copied and posted without going through the website?
      1. Answer by Martin: If there are fake badges on a profile, it will not come with the metadata that give more information to employers. They would not be searchable and could easily be found to be fake.
   6. To request a badge, there is a for that you can fill out for approval. You can get this form by reaching out to either Janice or Martin or your department representative. All forms need to be submitted to Janice and Martin.
   7. If you would like for us to come talk to your department, we are happy to do that.
5. Announcement: We will be meeting in Dwire 114 for all meetings this semester, except April when lunch will be served and we will meet in Kettle Creek 108. Watch for an RSVP in March.

Motion to Adjourn

Les Tekamp motioned to end the meeting; Minette Church seconded; passed. 

Next meeting: Friday, March 9, 2024, 12:00-2:00 pm in Hyflex Format; Dwire 114 or MS Teams