October 2023

October 2023

October 2023

UCCS Faculty Representative Assembly Meeting

Friday October 10, 2023

Attendance: Lynn Gates, Karin Larkin, Scott VanNess, Esther Lamidi, Norah Mazel, Jon Caudill, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Kylie Rogalla, Margaret Harris, Matthew Jabaily, Lei Zhang, Camilla Troudt, Kevin Laudner, David Anderson, Zhe (Cliff) Li, Robin Kempf, Susan Taylor, Ilaheva Tuaone, Haleh Abghari, Andrew Subudhi, Mary Martinez, Darshika G. Perera, Emily Mooney, Jessi Smith, Suman Lakkakula, Claire Rau, Assma Sawani, Dylan Harris, Elisa Thompson, David Moon, Joel Tonyan, Laura Austin-Eurich, Jena McCollum, Minette Church, Kristi McCann, Monica Yoo, David Weiss, Michael Kisley, Jennifer Zohn, Gordon Stringer, Suzanne Cook, Willow Meyers, Mike Kisley, Leslie Tekamp, Rosely Conz, Janet Giddings, Angus Chassels,

 

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes

Call to Order by Monica Yoo

Motion to approve the minutes from September 2023 meeting by Mike Kisley

Seconded by Les Tekamp

Minutes approved: 27 – approved, 0 – against, 1 - abstained

 

Reports of Visitors:

Jennifer Sobanet, Interim Chancellor

I want to acknowledge the week we have all been through, both geopolitically and the passing of Professor Robert von Dassanowky. Nancy, Carlos, and I were at the Student Government Association last night and it was an interesting conversation. They wanted to know about: AI and ChatGPT in the classroom, Food Insecurity and how that is being addressed on campus. The Dean of Students Office and Disability Services offices have received a 150% increase in requests from students for support and help. State of the Campus is next week so please attend.

We are hosting the Board of Regents on November 7 – 8. The Regents asked us to do the host report about our work with our military partners across Colorado Springs. This will be at 4 pm in Berger Hall on November 7th.

Quick update on three areas that President Solomon has asked me to focus on as Interim Chancellor: (Enhancing Enrollment Efforts)

  • Currently doing Active-Duty Military Tuition Assistance which will kick in the Spring of ‘24.
  • We are deep into a retention plan with Nancy’s team including Susan Taylor and Kimberly Guyer
  • Will be focusing on concurrent students and retaining them.

Shared Governance:

  • We are continuing cascading communications to shared governance leaders. Want to share a proposal about pausing the new budget model, Nancy and Cathy will be sharing more about that.
  • Will be working with project managers to help with moving projects forward to move them from a “stalled” status to “active”.
  • Will be doing an open call for people with project management skills that will help with a project. Ex: Compensation Strategies

Financial Transparency:

      • Will be doing Budget 101 Sessions with each of the colleges where the budget team will host a Q&A and provide information.
      • Will be having a book club in the Spring of ’24 about Higher Education Budgeting and Finance

Cyber Security:

      • For the past six years UCCS has been receiving $2.8 Million from the state legislature to fund a cyber-security program office. It has been used for outreach (business, industry, internships, career opportunities, and pipelines for student outreaches). It also gone to faculty members working in cyber-security, scholarships for students, and the National Cybersecurity Center which is located on our campus on Nevada Ave. This is part of a nonprofit organization that helps to promote the growth of cybersecurity professions in Colorado Springs and southern Colorado.
      • That funding is currently set to end on June 30, 2024. There is a large push legislative team at the system office. President Solomon has committed to this.
      • We've already started working with our legislators on this and we are joining forces with eight or seven other institutions of higher Ed across the state to push for these dollars to be renewed for us and for the other institutions across the state who are working in cybersecurity.

 

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

We are deeply saddened for the loss of Robert von Dassanowky in LAS and VAPA and Language and Cultures. The Differentiated Workload Group is in full swing and being led by David Moon. There’s a meeting on Monday and another one in the month of November. We are making progress on the campus grievance policy and the working draft is being reviewed by HR and Legal. Mary Coussons-Reed has been hired as Faculty Relations Manager. Continuing to have conversations about Working Titles, working with HR right now. The Faculty Success Panel will be pushed to Spring of ’24. We are looking at having a small group of faculty who would help review annual review and RPT criteria documents from different depts on campus. The purpose is to get another set of eyes on these materials across campus.

I will now be the Budget Redesign Taskforce Co-Chair. We have a model, but it has been recommended to put it on hold given the transition that is happening on campus with leadership.

Do you agree we should put this on hold for a year until we can have more stability in leadership?

  • Audience: If we pause the process, there is a concern that things will still happen without input? We will still be right-sizing the budget but with no input if the model is paused.

 

Kathy Kaoudis, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance

The Office of Sustainability is not being unfunded, defunded, or discontinued or anything else. We have actually increased funding around those efforts. There are two parts to sustainability: Student Outreach and Community Outreach. Currently do not have technical expertise on our team related to extremely extensive reporting on engineering metrics. Looking to hire for that role. We had talked about shifting to student life and reframing what that fee is. Budget for UBAC: All of those items listed came from the budget redesign task team

As we move with a new model, we want to be sure our data is accurate because it comes from different areas. How long is it going to take to resolve our questions around enrollment data? Jenny and Dr. Paluzzi are working on that right now and reconciling the data and making sure we are accurately reporting the data. Our accounting and finance data are different depending on the office it comes from because some use cash and some use accrual. Not suggesting centralization but suggesting standardization across the campus. It will probably take a full year to get this established. Need to be presented to the BOR by next June so it can be implemented by Fall ’25.

 

Reports of Officers:

Report of the President – Monica Yoo

The TAAP folks came last time to the FA meeting. Will be working with the Registrar to better coordinator their dates, especially in relation to course scheduling. They will be looking into that for the Fall. They are looking to meet with chairs and department chairs. Please reach out to Larry Lee if you are looking to connect with TAAP. CVS Piece: People have reached out about the difficulty of accessing prescriptions from CVS now that we have switched over to them. I am sending this information over to System PMB and HR. The Grievance Policy Committee have been meeting regularly, we are hoping to get them on our agenda for one of the meetings this fall. Will be voting on Policy 100-022 later today. The Grievance Committee still needs members. The Provost mentioned she is putting together a committee to review RPT Criteria across campus. If you’ve had experience serving on an RPT Committee in the past, please consider joining. Need people for the Program Discontinuance Committee from Nursing & Health Sciences, Business, and Engineering. Communications Committee and LGBTQIA committee. FA and SA have some join projects that they’re thinking about for the year and one is possibly holding a mixer.

Report of the President-Elect – Joel Tonyan

Would like to be invited to attend other committee meetings to learn more about the work being done.

Report of the Past-President – Minette Church

No Report.

Committee Reports

    1. CMRSC REPORT
    2. EPUS REPORT
    3. FACT Report PT 1.
    4. FAWC REPORT
    5. SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

New Business

  1. Motion 1: The EPUS Committee moves that the Faculty Representative Assembly endorse UCCS Campus Policy 100-022: Information Security for Research Compliance. (attached) (1:00-1:15) (James May & Jessi Smith)
    1. This is the policy that Faculty Assembly voted on and approved unanimously last spring.
    2. A small group spent 7 weeks reviewing the materials and decided to keep the intent but re-frame for what we will do, not what we will not do.
    3. This applies to Section C.
  2. EPUS Committee moves that Faculty Assembly endorses UCCS Campus Policy 100-022
  3. Votes
    1. Approvals: 27
    2. Opposed: 0
    3. Abstain: 1

Representative Reports

  1. Human Resources – Angela Bender (CHRO) and Team
    1. UCCS Compensation

 

Motion to Adjourn

Les Tekemp motioned to adjourn.

Angus Chassels seconded.

Meeting adjourned at 1:55 pm.