February 2025

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday February 14, 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

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Motion to approve December 13 Minutes

Moved by: Les Tekamp

Seconded by: David Weiss

Motion passes

Motion to suspend the Faculty Assembly Bylaws to allow voting on three proposed motions online at a later date.

- Bylaws suspended

Reports of Visitors:

Jennifer Sobanet, Chancellor - Presented by Interim Provost Lynn Vidler

I want to thank everyone that was on the search committee and participated in the Provost search this last semester. This semester we want to focus on creating stability and getting our higher-up vacancies filled.
Rapid Improvement: Currently working with OOR, SPA, and Advancement offices on improving processes. We will be doing the same thing with enrollment and retention next.
Federal Transition: This something that is consuming a lot of our attention as a university. The CU System is doing a lot to help us understand what is coming out of the federal government. The Government Teams and Legal Teams are doing a lot to help with understanding the various orders coming down. We are working together as a system. Uncertainty is compounding and the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock. We are working to ensure that we continue to work toward our mission and continuing to do our work. With Robin joining our team, we have a great resource that will be help us understand and communicate with everyone.
- Federal Transition Website

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

Federal Transition: I have been meeting with many people about the federal transition. In my previous positions, I have been really involved with how DEI related things look, act, and feel different on different campuses. I have brought my experience from my previous positions, including faculty experience, to help the campus through the transition. The federal transition is creating confusion at all levels from students to faculty. It is a huge thing to have to deal with.
The last couple of weeks since I have started, I have been focusing on two things:
- One: Bringing my team together and getting to know them and UCCS
- Two: Creating a Federal Transition Team that has about 20 people from across campus on it. This team will be working to evaluate and communicate the information that we are getting as well as looking at potential changes that we need to change. There is a Federal Updates webpage that has up-to-date information and resources/policies that are relevant to the transition.
Question: Are there any words that we aren't able to use during the hiring process?
- There are no words that we cannot use as of right now. To my knowledge, there have not been any moves to ban any words.
Comment: So as a campus we have noticed that things are changing. There are people that are worried about preemptive changes. We also have had students that are concerned about the transition and feel like they have not hear anything. We have heard about faculty who have been verbally attacked in their classrooms.
- The Office of Strategic Initiatives is a large office and includes belonging on campus. This is a component of my role and this reorganization can seem like it was preemptive but it has been something in the works before election.
- One of the resources on the Federal Transition Website there is the Managing Classroom Behavior guide and how faculty should deal with threatening behavior from students. If you are being attacked outside of the classroom such as on social media, there are other resources available.
  - The Matrix Center is launching is a series in coordinating how to handle virtual content.
- We are working with OIE and OIT to get more resources to support you as faculty.
- Another aspect of this is seeing students interacting with other students inappropriately. We are mandatory reporters and should step in during these situations if you are comfortable or to report them. Reporting should be done to OIE. The OIE will come and provide training to anyone who would like to get more training.
- MOSAIC is also working closely with student groups during this time.
Question: Can you help us understand where DEI sits within this position?
- I have been doing DEI work since the late 90s and over that timeframe, things have changed vastly. Through by background and the work that I do, my philosophy is that it isn't just one office's job to do DEI work. Everything that we do will be done with equity and inclusion. It must be integrated with everything that we do and using our team's skills to help work with you to do that.
- Jennifer: This position is not half Strategic Initiatives and half Chief of Staff. We want to have this work done in a sustainable way that will be weaved into the fabric of the university.

Lynn Vidler, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Enrollment: Our enrollment is up 1.7% for the Spring Semester which achieves flat enrollment for the year. This means that there will be no additional cuts for FY25. Kudos to everyone for helping with retention and scheduling and adding students from your waitlist.
Dean Searches: We are about to kick off 3 searches for the Deans of LAS, COE, and CSP. We are excited to get these positions filled so that we can have our leadership team completed. We be conducting the search with our own HR staff and not spend money on a search firm. Communication will be coming out about the searches with the postings, timelines, and who is on those committees. Please share with your networks and help get the word out.
Looking forward to working with this group on Regent Policy 5 about Shared Governance and Academic Freedom. Jennifer, Joel and I have begun discussions on this and how we can all come together on what that looks like. On the Academic side of things, we will be working to protect faculty research and faculty pedagogy. Hoping to have shared conversations about this and what it will look like.

Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance

Our 10 Year Facilities plan has been approved by the Regents. This plan guides our development on campus at a very high level while allowing for opportunities for other things to happen.
Budget: You can see more information in the recent Communique Article that discusses the Regent meeting. We are looking at a budget gap of between $2.9-$9 million which is a huge range. We are asking for a $6.5 million gap and asking deans and Vice Chancellors to help plan for this. We currently have $2.7 million in merit increases included in this deficit. We will be going into this more at the UBAC meeting next week.
Sustainability Summit is April 18th. We are pushing out marketing to get attendance at the summit this year. The Theme is Our Power, Our Planet. There will be lunch, research presentations, and prizes.

Reports of Officers:

Report of the President – Joel Tonyan

We will have another special meeting of FA. Many joined last week and we felt that it would be good to have another meeting. This time, for the first hour the ELT will be joining us. It will be from 11:30-12:30 on Feb. 28^th. Have the first hour with admin and a second hour with just faculty.
Seeking nomination for the service award. Due March 1^st. If you have questions, please reach out to me.
PRIDE does have leadership! Larry Eames and Stefanie Ungstad will be the co-chairs of PRIDE.

Report of the President-Elect – David Havlick

Next round of elections is coming up. Current reps, I will be reaching out to you about running again. We will also be reaching out to find new faculty to run. I will have the ballot to you before Spring Break.

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 Committee

Representative Reports

No Reports

Unfinished Business

No unfinished business

New Business

Guest 1: Provost Lynn Vidler - Faculty Affairs Office

Faculty Affairs Office PowerPoint
1. We wanted to present this to you so that we can get feedback from you. You can provide feed via email to me or by reaching out to Joel.
2. As you all know, the Faculty Affairs Office was planned and moving forward until funds were withdrawn. Now through a combination of System funds and savings in the Provost Office specifically for this office, we have enough to revisit this office. We received $800k from system and have $800k in reserves.
3. The purpose of this office will be to provide strategic vision, support faculty success, oversight of faculty processes, and compliance/accountability, and cultivate culture. Currently, we do not have a Faculty Affairs Office and the processes are overseen by Jen Poe with a .45FTE staff line. We are the only campus in the system without a Faculty Affairs Office. The recommendations that we have come with are based off of other R2 institutions that are similar to UCCS.
  1. We are recommending a 1.45FTE office with a Vice Provost position and a staff support position. We estimate that we can currently have this office for about 6 years.
4. Question: Do we have a plan for saving for this position or we have to ask for money for this office?
  1. We have $800k from the System and in our reserves. We would have to look at base funding in the figure.
5. Question: Is there a need for this office? I haven't heard about any issues with the promotion/tenure process in my position.
  1. You would not hear about any issues as they are confidential. Currently that .45 FTE is dealing with anything that may come up. The funds that were received are specifically for Faculty Affairs. One thing that I have seen as Provost are errors in procedure, lack of training, mentorship opportunities are scattered, and conflict management. This office can help with all of these things and help with faculty retention.
6. Question: How do you see the responsibility of the Provost compared to this Vice Provost position?
  1. I oversee all of the Vice Provosts so it will be similar to my supervision of the Office of Research and Undergrad Academic Planning. Right now, the Provost Office is doing the work and not overseeing the processes as much as we would like.
7. Question: Where will the funding come from after the $1.6 million?
  1. Ideally the money would come from revenue that we create with recruitment and retention. We are working as a campus at a lot of ways to increase revenue. This would be something that we would build into our base budget.
8. Comment: It seems like we could use the $800k that are in reserves to lessen the cuts for next year.
9. Comment: The Executive Team of Faculty Assembly did ask Faculty Council and the other campuses were shocked that we didn't have a Faculty Affairs Office. When I asked about the value, they said it depends on the person. One thing we can do is bring in some officers from the other campuses to discuss what the office does.

Guest #2: Norah Mazel, FA Constitution Revisions

Red-Line Constitution Proposed Changes
Clean Constitution with Changes
Explanation of Proposed Changes
- Motion to edit Article VIII.B to edit the percentage of Faculty Assembly from 60% to 51%
  - Moved by David Moon
  - Seconded by: Monica Yoo
  - Yes: 23; No: 7; Abstain: 3; Recuse: 0
- Motion approved.
Norah will be sending out the updated FA Constitution to Faculty Assembly. You will be asked about each of the changes separately. You are not voting to approve the changes right now. You are voting on getting each of the changes on the ballot.

Guest #3: Chrissie Bailey, Wellness Center

The Anchor Toolkit: A Classroom Mindfulness Resource for Securing Student Focus and Building Resiliency.
- The primary goal for this toolkit is to give faculty an easy resource that they can use at the beginning of their classes and help students let go of what they are dealing with so they are able to focus on class. Students will also be able to use these tools outside of the classroom. This will help us get a Wellness designation for the university.
- There are 12 modules that are short 2-3 minute exercises that you access through YouTube along with a journal prompt to help students focus.
- These tools are adaptable so you can adjust to make sense for your classroom. We have additional activities listed as well.
- We are also gathering feedback on the toolkit from both faculty and students. There is a quick survey to go out midway through the semester and at the end of the semester.
- There are also several research studies and resources if you want to learn more about how this works and how it has worked elsewhere.
- We have weekly meeting on Tuesdays at 2pm in the K-12 room in Osborne that is open to everyone to discuss the toolkit.
  - Question: Do you need us to tell you if we change it?
    - The surveys do ask if you change anything and if you found it beneficial.
  - Question: How do we access the toolkit?
    - It is on our website (Link to Toolkit above)
- Wellness team will provide presentations to anyone and can customize to what you would like to discuss.
- The NCHA (National College Health Assessment) will be sent out this March. We use this data assess the needs of our students so that we are able to tailor our services to meet their needs. It will be sent out March 1st and closes March 22nd. Students will have a personal link sent to their email. This is 100% anonymous and gets separated from emails ater they submit.

Motion to add 10 minutes to the meeting

Moved by: Laura Austin-Eurich
Seconded by: Les Tekamp

Approved

Guest #4: Joel Tonyan, Laurel Bidwell, Assma Sawani - RPT Criteria Review Advisory Committee

Charge for RPT Criteria Review Advisory Committee
The executive team met with Laurel, IRC, the Provost, and have addressed the original concerns that came up last fall about this semester.
This is now an advisory committee that has no authority over the RPT process
Will focus on departments that would like to have their RPT criteria reviewed. There was a lot of work done by Project CREST to help give an outside resource to departments to review their criteria.
The Provost Office is not connected with this committee
The committee will have a report-out function. They will send out information about best practices and provide a space to have discussions about RPT criteria.
Question: In terms of the data of promotion decisions, will that be for campus as a whole? How will they protect individuals based on the demographic?
- We have made it so that it is across campus. No demographic information would be published as part of that. The idea was to get broad trends to see how the promotion outcomes across campus.
Comment: I do not feel comfortable to #6. I feel it is inappropriate for a committee to handle this kind of data. Reviewing criteria is very different from gathering data.
- We do not have a Faculty Affairs Office that would gather this information with the goal of understanding trends across campus. We did meet with Lynn and they are supportive with this FA committee gathering this data.
Comment: I believe that this data is something that the system needs. I think it should be done by Academic Affairs.
Comment: The idea behind #6 is to measure that these are best practices and gives us a way to measure the outcomes that we are suggesting so that we able to adjust as needed.
Comment: My understanding is that faculty want there to be transparency. This committee would be a committee that can give data for other faculty to see so that faculty can see what we are counting and receiving as research. The suggested reason for #6 is to develop a way to make data transparent. This has been an issue at UCCS and would be a way to publish this data and make it transparent.
Comment: Publishing anonymous trends isn't going to help us evaluate. It is just too mushy and doesn't work.
Comment: With the national environment, there are a lot of fear that this data could be used to find DEI practices and prove that they aren't beneficial
- That is not the purpose of this committee. This committee was originally intended for the exact opposite.
Question: What is the purpose of this data? How is it going to be handled?
- It would be to help give faculty some transparent data which has been requested in the past.
Comment: This committee is not part of the RPT process and there are no legal consequences of using this committee or not. The Provost is supportive of this work.
Comment: Why don't we take a look and have a better definition of "data" to make it more clear. We will adjust and bring it back next FA meeting.

Guest #5: David Weiss: Assignment of Academic Office Space Policy (200-024) Revision

Policy 200-024: Assignment of Academic Office Space
We reviewed this last meeting. The bottom line is that the Deans have final authority on offices. This was passed by EPUS, Deans, Provost, and just needs FA approval.
Does not include a 50% FTE requirement. You work with your Dean to figure out offices.
Question: Since IRC Faculty carry significant teaching and student facing service responsibilities, it is important for them to have a space. What is the logic behind them having a lower priority and needing to share offices if they spend so much time with students?
- The policy states that "Full time TT and IRC Faculty shall be assigned an office". The bottom line is that we have more faculty than office space. Dean's work with chairs to help find office space. That is a consideration that the committee did consider when looking at the policy. It comes down to the Dean and the office space that is available.

Results of Online Voting received 2/25/2025

Do you vote to approve the Assignment of Academic Office Space Policy (#200-024)?

Yes - 14 votes (Motion Passed)
- No - 2 votes
- Abstain - 1 vote

Referring Changes to the Faculty Assembly Constitution to the Full Faculty Assembly for a Vote

1. The Faculty Assembly Executive Committee moves that the Faculty Representative Assembly propose the following amendment to the Constitution of the Faculty Assembly and refer it to the full Faculty Assembly for a vote:

Shall Article I.A of the Constitution of the Faculty Assembly, which defines the regular members of the Assembly as

“1. All persons holding the rank of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, senior instructor, or instructor with at least a 0.5 instructional or administrative appointment.

2. All faculty emeriti.

3. The Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and all academic deans (i.e. - those deans who report to the VCAA).

4. Other regular members designated by the Representative Assembly, as provided for in the By-Laws.”

Be amended to define the regular members as:

1. All persons holding a title defined in University of Colorado APS 5060 Appendix A.A (Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty), B.1.a (Teaching Professor Track), B.1.b (Instructor Track), B.2.a (Research Professor Track), B.3.a (Clinical Teaching Track), B.3.b (Clinical Practice Track), or D.1 (Emeritus/Emerita) whose appointments at that title are fifty percent or more.

2. Other regular members designated by the Representative Assembly, as provided for in the By-Laws.”