FACULTY REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY MEETING

November 11, 2022

Attendance: Venkat Reddy, Nancy Marchand-Martella, Minette Church, Monica Yoo, Karin Larkin, David Moon, Melissa Benton, Matthew Jabaily, Kristi McCann, Joanne Delgado, Lynn Gates, Cortny Stark, Jian Ma, Jena Mccollum, Adham Atyabi, Martin Key, Patrick McGuire, Kate Quintana, Robin Kempf, Dylan Harris, Aaron Corcoran, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Elisa Thompson, Lei Zhang, Larry Eames, Claire Rau, Norah Mazel, Erica Allgood, Esther Lamidi, Gordon Stringer, Craig Bubeck, David Anderson, Haleh Abghari, Thomas Wolkow, Karen Markel, Farida Khan, Suzanne Cook, Ilaheva Tuaone, Laura Eurich, Kelsey Perry, Steve Carter, Karl Speiker, Tom Christensen, Kathy Prue-Owens

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes:

Approval of October Minutes Tabled until February

Reports of Visitors:

Venkat Reddy, Chancellor:

The Chancellor reported virtually and thanked veteran faculty who are making a difference in students lives and their service. The Chancellor congratulated Dr. Dorothea Olkoski from the Department of Philosophy and Dr. Carlos Araujo from Electrical and Computer Engineering for receiving the rank of distinguished professors. He also discussed the upcoming candidate campus-wide sessions the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, and Vice Chancellor for Human Resources vacancies at UCCS and thanked staff for serving on search committees. Recognized new staff, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management Jose Cantu and Police Chief Dewayne McCarver. An important note from the campus town hall where the new Budget Model was introduced, the budget cuts are not derived from the Budget Model. There will be a 1% raise, which equals to $1,000,000 for the campus and defining the sources of that money will be instrumental with giving faculty and staff competitive raises. Managing these next transitional years for the new Budget Model will allow for new entrepreneur opportunities and success The chancellor doesn’t want the budget model to create concerns amongst the university, it aims to tackle greater issues within the UC. The Chancellor’s campus town hall introduction of the new Budget Model is attached for further reference.

Karl Spieker, Interim VC for Administration and Finance:

Karl Spieker discussed the upcoming hiring campus-wide sessions for the Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance and encourages faculty and staff to attend the open forums to learn more about the candidates and support hiring decision. There is a construction project for the engineering annex, approved by the Capital Development Committee and Board of Regents Project to be completed by Spring 2024. Construction and controlled maintenance projects will need to be presented to the legislature in December, to be approved by the Governor and Department of Higher Education. The Governor’s office submitted a Some challenges that may impact UCCS are new proposals from the Governor’s office for a cap on tuition that might create limitations, which is about 2/3 of general funding. Also, UCCS will not qualify for the 6.8% increase to fund higher education, which is mainly for 2yr institutions. New strategies will be necessary as one-time funds (American Rescue Plan Act) will impact total base budgets for future/continuing projects.

Nancy Marchand-Martella, Provost:

Provost Nancy Marchand-Martella recognized Patrick McGuire who will be serving as the new Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs starting in January. The new role will acquire establishing the office of Faculty Affairs which is vital for faculty development, mentorship, and the Instructional, research and clinical (IRC) faculty support will ensure that everyone can be successful at UCCS. Addressing differentiative workload, IRC multi-year contracts and there is a need for campus wide grievance committee. The Provost thanked Suzanne Cook and Ralphie Sassower for their leadership and spearheading the initiative. A new faculty record coordinator will be starting soon, and service as Patrick McGuire’s Executive Assistant. Additional initiatives include a faculty revitalization grant, which awarded 37 in over $500,000 worth of one-time initiative funds.

Susan Taylor, Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education & Academic Planning:

Provost Nancy Marchand-Martella presented the report on behalf of Susan Taylor, where she discussed the Colorado Re-Engaged (CORE) Initiative, mandated by the Colorado Department of Higher Education. The initiative enables institutions of higher education to award associate degrees to eligible students. UCCS received a grant of $40,000 to start this initiative to support students who were close to receiving a BA or dropped out to use their credit hours towards an AA- General Education Degree. This initiative will increase the graduate levels in the state and graduates in the workforce. The CORE Initiative report is attached for further reference.

Officer Reports:

President’s Report

Welcome – Dr. Patrick McGuire in the new roll of AVC Faculty Affairs! And Joanne Delgado the new Academic Affairs Program Assistant in the Provost’s office!

Campus news:

• Town Hall TODAY (Wed 11/9) - Have questions about enrollment? Budget Model? Policy revisions or development? Searches and new hires? Submit questions or just attend the Chancellor’s Town Hall Meeting tomorrow (Wed 11/9) at 2-3pm. (See Chancellor’s email from 11/2 to register.)
• Chancellor has announced paid day off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, in addition to Thursday and Friday. (See Chancellor’s email from 11/4.)

Searches:

• On Friday Nov. 11 candidate for Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance (VCAF) Ken Kline will be on campus. Evaluation Form Responses will be due by 5 p.m. on Monday, November 14.
• The Provost has gotten agreement from the Cabinet on the expectation that in future faculty will be asked whether or not they want representation on a given campus-level search committee, and have the opportunity to have representation.

Policy:

• Aaron Burton has asked Faculty Assembly which FA Committees should have representation on the development committees for revising or creating new policy, and I gave him a list with suggested faculty representation. 
• Again, we are all overburdened with service, but if the policy directly affects faculty groups, then we are being asked to the table and have the opportunity to re-prioritize our service commitments accordingly if we feel it is important.
• Norah Mazel points out that Policy 700-001, (OIT) says that “Faculty may determine how e-mail will be used in their classes,” which seems to imply that students could be cut off from using such a common form of communication. We (FRA) could ask for a revision of 700-001 (Email as Official Means of Communication) to reflect the growth in electronic communication mediums since it was last revised in 2016. Please send feedback on this to me – thanks!
• Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) – The latest wording of this policy, including mention of DEI in the introduction/preamble, is included with the agenda that FA Secretary Karin Larkin sent out with the agenda for this Friday’s Faculty Rep Assembly meeting, and faculty discussion of the policy document will happen at the meeting in hopes that we can vote on it in December.
• Faculty Assembly DEI committees (FAWC, FEIC, PRIDE, Disabilities) are going to work together to come up with recommendations or a possible referendum for discussion about DEI and unit Annual Merit Review criteria. Stay tuned, and thank you DEI committee Chairs for working on wording for a referendum.
• Professional Rights and Responsibilities (PRR) is the topic of discussion for this month’s FRA meeting on Friday. I have attached the Task Force report and a Policy Draft so far. THANK YOU to Suzanne Cook for agreeing to lead this discussion as she was on the task force and is on the policy development committee as well.
• Grievance Policy committee is undergoing personnel changes but did create a draft policy and will be back underway soon.
• Professional Rights and Responsibilities Policy is getting underway, and thank you to all on the committee and to David Moon who has agreed to Chair it.
• FA Governance – motion tabled by FA EC, but there is progress. Stay tuned.
• There’s more – thank you to David Weiss for keeping us updated on it all

Teaching:

• See David Weiss’s FACT report. Among other things they are working with others on campus and the bookstore on an equitable access initiative for student access to course textbook and materials. A great goal and important to get right.
• Phil Haisley and Compass assessment survey – Phil will report briefly on upcoming survey at our December meeting, then on results in the spring.

Research:

• Conversations continue with Deans and Provost about how to provide new TT hires with a 2:2 research load until Comprehensive review or even (eventually) promotion to tenure. 
• The Deans and Provost are doing their best in an uncertain budget model year to figure out what can be done. 
• After tenure there could be renegotiated workloads (policy in development committee Chaired by David Moon). 
• The critical issue here is that some research active faculty on campus already have a 2:2 load, and others who are equally research active do not. Many of the latter are doing unpaid research work in summer, not working with students in the way they would like, burning out altogether, or leaving UCCS. Research expectations have changed in the last 15 years and loads largely have not. We are losing excellent junior faculty – many from minoritized populations – which has a demonstrated effect on student retention. This is a question of equity.

Service:

• Thank you to the FA PRIDE Committee for initiating conversation with the VCAF about providing more inclusive restroom options on campus.
• Stay tuned for more service asks for faculty representation on searches and all the backlog of policy revisions. Take a moment to think hard about what service YOU value and prioritize. Some of these hires and policies are going to be very important to future faculty work and  life on campus.
• Heather Albenesi, Chair of the FA Disabilities Advisory Committee Is refocusing her working with Denver’s parallel committee Chair, Colleen O’Donnell to advocate for accessibility on our campus. Thank you, Heather!
• THANK YOU ALL for the service you do.

Professional development opportunities:

• TODAY 11/9: From Robin Kempf (see today’s email 11/9 – thanks, Robin!) – Please consider attending the virtual panel on unconscious bias in the workplace, presented by the student group, Women in the Public Sector (WPS). Details can be found on the attached document, but you will see that we will have speakers from UCCS faculty, UCCS staff, and a Colorado Springs community member. WPS is asking for RSVPs, which will get you the zoom link. 
• TOMORROW 11/10: from Grant Clayton (see email 11/4) – Safe Work Environments – A virtual Responsible Conduct of Research Panel Hosted by: Rame Hanna – Vice Chancellor of DEI; Lynn Vidler – Dean of LAS; and Jessi L. Smith – Vice Provost of Research

News from system council:

• System EPUS needed feedback for significant revisions to faculty and university rights to intellectual property including teaching materials articulated in APS 1014. He thanked us for providing a lot of feedback, concerns, and thinking about unforeseen consequences of the proposed changes. They are still working on it.
• FEEDBACK NEEDED to system EPUS by Nov 23 on APS 1020-02 Tenure Accountability.  I can make the draft documents available upon request.

President-Elect’s Report

No Report

Past-President’s Report

No Report

Reports from Standing Committees:

Educational Policy and University Standards (EPUS)

Personnel & Benefits

Sept. 16, 2022

1. Membership updates: Joe Craig (econ) & Sheri Colcun-Trumpfheller (business) will not be returning. We are working on finding a replacement for Sheri. 
2. Need replacement for Joe Craig on System P&B, Lynn filled in for a year but can't continue. 
3. Parking paid by campus, we are all appreciative of benefit.
4. Update on stipend research. As discussed last year there is concern about equity with the secrecy around how stipends are granted on campus.
5. Invitations to future meetings: 
   1. Oct-HR to talk about EPEW act, where they are, findings, etc.  
   2. Nov-Provost to introduce the committee, what we do, how can we work together, etc. introduce concerns about communication with us and stipends 
6. Mulit-Year Contract Policy is coming, we should have it in Oct. to review and provide feedback on. 

Oct. 21, 2022

1. Announcements 
   1. New member from business – Todd Endres 
   2. Volunteer for System P&B – Thomas Wahl 
2. HR – update on EPEW act work 
3. Discuss Multi-Year Contracts Policy, comments added to draft and sent to David W. 

Faculty Advisory Committee on the Budget

Faculty Equity and Inclusion Committee

Faculty Equity and Inclusion Committee (FEIC) met on Friday, October 14. The members in attendance reviewed applications and determined grantees for the Fall 2022 FEIC Diversity Grant. The committee greatly appreciates the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research. Your support made it possible for FEIC to fund more events/programs/projects this semester. Please join me in congratulating the following grantees.

1.    George Wu Bayuga

2.    Kim Dyer

3.    Malikah Marrus

4.    Karen deVries

5.    Patty Witkowsky

6.    Alison Christofferson

7.    Lily DiSilverio

8.    Brittany Rancour

Faculty Assembly Women’s Committee

IRC Faculty

No new updates to report.

Faculty Assembly Committee on Teaching

FACT Meeting Report (Faculty assembly committee on teaching)

November 3, 2022

Attended: David Weiss, David Mullin, Ella Gibson, Regina Winters. David Anderson, Thomas Amundson, Andrew Czaplewski, and Martin Key joined later

Guests- Tracy Barber attended and Larry Lee and Paul Denison/ Kara (VP with a service partner and industry expert)

Discussions:

1. Does UCCS want to adopt the S/U grading basis to replace the Pass/Fail Only (PF1) grading basis?

A.  Two kinds of Pass fail going on. One is P/F only. Candidate for degree and Port 3000. Some courses P/F only like experiential, externships, COB resume writing. More common is student convert (PF4) which is P+ grading during COVID because need to differentiate between transferable pass and others. This is still in place and these are for letter graded courses where students opted in.

B. Boulder and Denver switched to S/U instead of P/F to differentiated between P+ courses/ and P courses. F impacts GPA but U doesn’t. Experiential learning and internship courses could have a U and doesn’t touch GPA.

• Because these classes are only graded on a Pass/Fail basis (the P+ grade was not included in the PF1 grading basis), there is no easy way to distinguish P grades earned in these classes from P grades earned in Student Option graded classes and which signify D-quality work.

C. Neither S nor U grades carry any quality points. This means that grades of S are considered passing grades and are included in credit totals, but are not calculated into student GPAs. Grades of U are considered not passing and are not included in either credit totals or student GPAs. S/U grades are to be assigned based on requirements or expectations being met according to an instructor’s course grading schema.

D. Exploration, experiential and/or participation-based, including: Candidate for Degree, Independent Study, Seminar, Practicum and Internships.

E. Applies to about 100 courses

• Recommend to faculty assembly that S/U grading scheme be used for PF1 courses, and that the colleges consider using this for their exploration, experiential and/or participation-based, including: Candidate for Degree, Independent Study, Seminar, Practicum and Internships.

2. Equitable Access at the bookstore for students- this is an ongoing discussion 

Presentation by Larry Lee:

What is Equitable Access:

EA programs allow students to access all course materials on or before the first day of class for one low per-credit-hour price charged to the student account.

• Regardless of major, the format of materials, or financial aid status!
• Our EA program will be a fully opt-out opportunity for all enrolled students.
• 17% changed major due to textbook prices, and 33% opted not to take a specific course, Studies show students often must choose between buying textbooks and buying food
• Opt-in all students (opportunity to opt-out before aid or census – allowing a test drive)
• Charge each student a flat rate per credit hour
• Discussion: Opt out at any time and a la cart purchase their materials in a student portal
• This initiative is about equitable access as a model to expand on inclusive access (which we currently use), but it is a different model than only IA
• The bookstore and their partner would broker the best price for the materials on behalf of the institution and students, they are able to access significant discounts similar to the idea of buying in bulk at  Costco

Why Consider EA:

• This is about affordability for students, timely access, and leveraging economies of scale. Not about digital vs hard copy, it is format agnostic. 
• Course items are charged to student’s accounts, and they can opt-out.
• The program is designed to reduce costs for all students, complexity, improve retention and graduation rates.
• Designed to reduce inequity so cost is equal for all students
• For Example: compare NURS $1.665 in 2022 but would be $320 in 2023. For ECON $405 now, $300 in 2023
• When implemented more students were retained and higher pass rates and course completion rates increased for black, Hispanic, etc., all ages for students who have used this program
• 70% of students in the study said would do better if had course materials before classes started
• EA removes the confusion about acquiring what is adopted
• Allows for timely use of financial aid

What Is Needed From Faculty & Faculty Questions:

• What do the faculty members have to do differently? No change for faculty, just ask that you adopt something, but don’t send students to the publisher, do it through the bookstore
• format agnostic (print vs electric) you decide
• What percent of students need to stay opted in, and how easy is it to opt out? Probably 30% of students opt out typically in the first year, and the participation numbers will go up each subsequent year 
• Can you keep digital copies forever?  Depends on the course if can keep it forever. Usually for the length of time needed, but sometimes a lifetime
• Can they opt out of the course or have to do it for the semester? They would need to out of the program and buy materials for an individual course

The committee will revisit this discussion in December.

PRIDE

No new updates to report.

Misconduct in Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities

No new updates to report.

Committee on Research

No new updates to report

Intercollegiate Athletics

No new updates to report.

Sustainability

Committee on Disability

The Faculty Assembly Disability Committee (DisC) last met on October 10^th and will meet again on Monday, November 14^th, so there are no new updates at this time.

We still would welcome more members to serve on this committee. Thank you to those who reached out with interest after our last update. If anyone is interested or has any questions, please contact Katie McCabe (kmccabe@uccs.edu) or Heather Albanesi (halbanes@uccs.edu). We meet the 2^nd Monday of the month at 3 p.m. via Teams.

Reports from Representatives:

No new updates to report.

Unfinished Business:

Motion 1: vote on the Faculty Governance policy (200-15) revision (Tabled)

1. Continuing discussions with Provost.

NEW BUSINESS

American Associate of University Professors (AAUP):  The AAUP UCCS Chapter president report

American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—UCCS Campus Chapter Steve Carter, Associate Professor of English, Chapter President (2022) The AAUP is the primary professional association for all college and university faculty, of whatever rank or discipline, in the country. The Association addresses concerns around academic freedom and faculty governance, though its policies and reports cover university matters from working conditions and due process to online education, among many other topics. Advocating for higher education as a public good is central to the AAUP’s project. The UCCS chapter of the AAUP has, since its founding in 2015, spearheaded a successful campaign to raise salaries for IRC faculty, been central in working to establish fair and safe grievance procedures for the latter, and participated in conversations around campus policies during COVID. The chapter has worked with Faculty Assembly, and has met with CU Regents, UCCS administrators, and various faculty committees (e.g., those working on the new campus budget model), advocating for UCCS faculty concerns. The chapter meets once or twice a semester. Chapter members collectively set the specific priorities and agenda each year. AAUP dues run from roughly $6 / month (for salaries under $30K) up to $25 / month (for salaries over $120K), and include a subscription to the AAUP’s journal, Academe, among other publications. For anyone who would like to join (or to renew) but cannot cover the cost, the chapter will cover dues for at least the first year. If you have questions, would like to attend a chapter meeting, or would like to become a member, you can email me (scarter2@uccs.edu) or email the chapter (aaup.uccs@gmail.com). You can also find out more at www.aaup.or

PRR Taskforce/Policy Committee

Report on Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure policy

Establish new FRA Standing Faculty Assembly Grievance Committee: Minette Church presented the committee guidelines and expectations for grievance reports on behalf of Raphael Sassower.

Adjournment:

Motion to adjourn the Faculty Assembly Meeting by Laura Eurich

Seconded by Steve Carter

Motion passed unanimously

Meeting adjourned at 1:53pm