October 2019
October 2019
FACULTY REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY MEETING
October 11, 2019
Attendance: Venkat Reddy, Tom Christensen, Chuck Litchfield, David Moon, Roger Martinez, Mary Coussons-Read, David Weiss, Melissa Benton, Monique French, Andrea Hutchins, Lynn Gates, Deborah Kenny, Martin Key, James Van Scotter, Andrea Bingham, Monica Yoo, Pam Carter, Darshika Perera, David Havlick, Leilani Feliciano, Christine Robinson Coon, Kristi McCann, Wendy Haggren, Matthew Jabaily, Michael Landon-Murray, Tabatha Farney, Scott van Ness, Tisha Mendiola Jessop, Dave Anderson, Joel Tonyan
Call to Order / Approval of Minutes:
Motion to approve the minutes from September 13, 2019 meeting by Pam Carter
Seconded by Melissa Benton
Motion passed with 19 in favor, 0 opposed and 4 abstentions
Reports of Visitors:
Venkat Reddy, Chancellor:
The Mountain Lion women’s soccer team is ranked number one in a national coaches poll. This is the first time ever any UCCS team has made it to that level! President Kennedy was on campus yesterday and attended the UCCS Economic Forum, met with the MOSAIC office and also met with five of our faculty members. He intends to have various quarterly meetings on campus. He is taking on strategic priorities for CU and is heading up a CU strategic planning process for the CU system to focus on those priorities for the next five years and beyond. Four pillars of emphasis have been identified for focus areas: 1) Access, Affordability & Student Success, 2) Discovery & Impact, 3) Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Access, and 4) Fiscal Strength. All four campuses are working together in this process and they just had their kick-off meeting on October 3rd. Our campus strategic plan is ongoing and aligning well with the system plan, which will give us opportunities for funding and system support. The online education initiative interest is high. Programs have been suggested in Cybersecurity and technology enablement. We have strategic initiative teams consisting of many interested and involved members who are moving those teams forward. The Vice President of SGA, Philip Oke-Thomas, has been working on getting student approval for transforming the pool table area on the first floor of the University Center into an area for the relocation of the Career Center in the spring of 2020. This development will give the Career Center more accessibility for the students, and ultimately should help in benefitting our retention and graduation rates in the future and aid in increasing enrollment.
Tom Christensen, Provost:
The revised Regent Article V will take effect on July 1, 2020. The CU system has been working on drafting revised Administrative Policy Statements (APS) and the provosts reviewed those drafts and offered suggestions. Then these revised drafts go to Faculty Council, EPUS and become open for public comment. The policies under review can be found on the CU website and it is recommended that you take some time to review them, especially APS 1022, which deals with RPT. The goal is to have APS’s finalized by February 2020. We will start revising campus RPT policy soon, mainly just to bring it into alignment with system changes. Faculty Assembly and the Provost’s office will sponsor faculty RPT forums later this fall to discuss the impact on primary unit RPT criteria and on instructor policies. Tom is finalizing a document containing input and suggestions collected last spring and this fall to revise RPT and instructor reappointment and will distribute that to the faculty. The goal is for campus RPT to be revised by July 1 when Article V takes effect. This is also an opportunity to review what campus policies we have that are not system policies.
Chuck Litchfield, Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance:
Enrollment and budget are two main areas of concentration right now and the college deans have been briefed on current conditions. Fifty-seven percent of UCCS’ operating budget comes from resident tuition, which means that we are highly sensitive to enrollment figures. A 1% increase in SCH equals a $1 million shift in budget. Unfortunately, we planned for a 1.9% increase in SCH, but due to a decrease in SCH by 2.9% this fall, we have a budget deficit of approximately $5 million for the current academic year, which we must address now. We had previously set aside $1 million as a safety net, which reduces our deficit to $4 million. We did have better student retention this year, but enrollment was lower. There was a smaller incoming freshmen class, down by 4.5%, which may be due to a small alteration to the admission policy. Transfer students and out-of-state students were also lower. We are looking into all of these factors. Enrollment was also down at other CU campuses, with the exception of CU Boulder. We will need to make budget cuts for the current year and plan for reduced operating budgets for the next fiscal year as well. We still need to see how enrollments go for spring 2020 to see if those help make up for the lower enrollments we had for fall 2019. There are several alternatives for allocating budget cuts: 1) even, across the board; 2) proportional by SCH; 3) look at the amount of base budget going into reserves and look to normalize it; 4) look at a mixture of flat rate and SCH. We do not have to take a cut to the base all at once and it can be a combination of base cuts and reserves.
David Moon, Professor of Political Science and Compass Curriculum Director:
Assessment testing results in the Compass Curriculum program are currently down, especially for seniors. It is very important to obtain this data in assessing the overall success of the program. Therefore, starting spring 2020 there will be a default Canvas course module placed in every 4000-level course to collect assessments for seniors. Further, students will be offered compensation ($20 per course up to 3 courses) to participate. Faculty can control this feature, if desired, but the default selection will be set to gather assessment data. (Note: When asked for comments, input and reaction, the FRA seemed to be fine with this information and procedure). Representatives were asked to take this information back to their colleges.
Roger Martinez, Associate Professor of History and Faculty Director of Online & Digital Education:
Roger reported on the current state of the online education initiative and how it has evolved under the new leadership of CU President Kennedy. Faculty efforts to develop online programs have undergone some changes since his arrival and the process of advancing online degree programs is currently in a fluid state. This is due to the fact that the University of Colorado is in the process of selecting an external consultant to make recommendations to the president on how to develop a system-wide initiative. The consultant will be selected in the next two weeks, and that individual will prepare an initial analysis by the end of 2019 and continue working into spring 2020. This is a very accelerated process and our faculty should stay involved in collecting online proposals. Therefore, the draft Resolution on Online Education Collaboration is being put forth to the FRA for consideration and review, to communicate to the CU system and its consultant to collaborate with UCCS faculty leadership on all matters pertaining to online education programs.
Officer Reports:
President-Elect’s Report
Have visited with all colleges except LAS regarding the report update from the FCQ task force and its results; feedback received indicated more specific recommendations would be appreciated. Discussion included whether we could have a repository somewhere to centralize best practices and share what others are doing. Should we be duplicating efforts; (for example, how best to do peer reviews)? It must be faculty-driven. The report from the task force on how to use FCQs is on the Faculty Assembly website and the Provost’s website.
Past President’s Report
No report
Reports from Standing Committees:
EPUS:
Encourage faculty feedback on APS’s under review. Representatives should take this back to their colleges.
Faculty Advisory Committee on the Budget:
Not present – no report
Faculty Minority Affairs Committee
Women’s Committee:
Next meeting on 10/25/19; need representatives from COE and COB
PRIDE:
Not present – no report
Intercollegiate Athletics:
Not present – no report
Misconduct in Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities:
Not present – no report
Reports from Representatives:
- Follow-up on new testing system procedures sent out by Disability Services – paper exams can still be used and you can give them an advanced list; call them and they will work with you.
- Executive Director of Parking and Transportation, Jim Spice, will come to a future FRA meeting to discuss parking issues – please send any items of concern to Monique French.
- Research faculty have questions and concerns about lab conditions during the winter break while the campus is shut down. Jessi Smith, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, will be sending out a faculty survey to gather that information.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
None
NEW BUSINESS
Item 1: Discussion of Online Education Collaboration Resolution
After some discussion and review of the document submitted to FRA, it was decided that additional feedback should be sent to the Faculty Assembly Executive Committee and further detailed review will be done after more comments are received for future action at the next meeting.
Item 2: Discussion of Healthy Campus
This initiative will be incorporated into the campus strategic plan. It is important to remember that outcome reality is needed.
Adjournment:
Motion to adjourn the Faculty Assembly Meeting by Andrea Hutchins
Seconded by Pam Carter
Motion passed unanimously
Meeting adjourned at 1:56 p.m.