September 2, 2020

Faculty Senate Meeting

September 2, 2020

Held via Teams due to Covid

Members began joining meeting at 3:00 PM.

Attending: Jennifer Fowler, Brad Harden, Ashley Dockens, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Cristina Rios, Dorothy Sisk, Wen Liu, Lisa Wines, Eunjin Kwon, John McCollough, Cynthia Cummings, Donna Azodi, John Gossage, Kelly Weeks, Vivek Natarajan, JP Nelson, Jennifer, Cheng, Awais Saleem, Berna Tokgoz, Carmen Doering, Cengiz Sen, Christopher Martin, Chun-Wei Yao, Paul Hemenway, Edgardo Pujold, Eric Shannon, Eunjin Kwon, James Armacost, Jennifer Fowler, Jing Zhang, Kelli White, Lawrence Osborne, Matthew Hoch, Melissa Riley, Millicent Musyoka, Nicki Michalski, Pat Heintzelman, Praphul Joshi, Ricardo Tovar-Silos, Jeremy Shelton, Sujing Wang, Suying Wei, Travis Prokop, Trina Nolen, Virginia Shelton, Xenia Fedorchenko, Yasuko Sato, Gwnyai Muzorewa

Call to Order:  3:30 PM.

Approval of the Minutes: Motion to approve made by Travis Prokop. Seconded by Wen Liu and Brad Harden simultaneously. Motion passed.

Faculty Senate President’s Report:

• Provost Kickoff speech about shared governance and looked into and thinks we need to be clearer with what we mean by shared governance.
• Why reopen campus? Reach out to students – don’t worry about class but
• Checked with executive committee on revised schedule
• Intro new committee heads
• Sent out committees and tried to make committees even with colleges even as possible

Academic Issues:

• No meeting yet – meeting 2 weeks from today
• Nothing else to report, but requests lists of members of committees be sent out
• Discussion – consideration for Academic Issues? Look into moving MWF courses to MW/TR and have Fridays available for labs, meeting times for faculty – may be helpful for scheduling. Discussion from group: may need to learn from Provost Nichols about how this could affect room usage on campus to understand its impact on formula funding.

Faculty Issues:

• No meeting yet – meeting in two weeks online via Teams
• Discussion brought up issues re: post-covid world and workload increase related to working from home as an issue to consider reviewing
• Member brought up issues re: online class numbers expanding past reasonable class sizes (e.g., some courses with 180 students or more); also now that classes are online some students are taking from other locations and may be working at unusual hours to participate in the courses
• Xenia (committee chair) requests Faculty Senate members send her concerns for this committee to address

Budget and Compensation:

• No meeting yet, meeting in two weeks
• Expectation of financial concerns from higher administration in current times

Events:  

• DFL: $7000 has been raised for the DFL for this year
• Committee will meet in next two weeks

Research and Creative Activity:

• No major work over summer – has not yet met – will meet in next two weeks
• Not certain if faculty development leaves will be available but will request information from Provost Nichols and if available will see how to market them (Should last year’s applicants be considered or new applicants?)

Student Success:

• Meeting virtually in next two weeks
• Concerns: technology and internet on both sides (student and faculty); faculty being called on to play larger and larger roles in overall student success

Handbook:

• Meeting in two weeks
• Discussed differences in the full University committee makeup and MAPP committee makeup

F2.08:

• Meeting in next two weeks
• No current report

Investigation:

• Did not meet as much this summer as last summer
• Was able to obtain some information from the open records office, but only once this summer
• Sent out letters re: workloads and chair wrote and wanted to know “who [committee chair] was” re: requesting the info
  • Deans and Provost became involved and Provost Nichols mentioned that she did not know the investigation was still ongoing and wanted to know why faculty were being contacted directly
  • Committee noted that if the information that had been paid for had been received that this would not be necessary
  • Majority of information requested is related to F3.2s to investigate if workload distribution fair, teaching responsibilities upheld, equitable workload, etc.
  • Also requested information regarding reappointment of a dean and received some information
• Of note, Pat Heintzelman has been appointed TX President of Faculty (TFA) statewide association
  • Reports:
    • Press releases have been sent out calling on governor to provide more guidelines re: Covid,
    • Concerns noted: Faculty uncertain on how to proceed with Covid positive students/faculty, K-12 org is doing a report on what is being done for safety and responsibility, but reporting is low
      • Noted in discussion –
        • Texas State only reports if you bring a positive test and show it to them; perhaps we need to say “this is what we want reported”, maybe an ad hoc committee?
        • Overheard that TSUS made a ruling that we cannot release those numbers
        • Overheard numbers cannot be released because they are all self-reported and thus unreliable
        • Questions regarding who is responsible for time off if we get COVID arose
        • Questions regarding if LU moved too quickly to in person
        • Noted that international students were not going to be able to be on campus – maybe a reason to have in-person,
        • Noted that students being on-campus has financial implications
        • Concerns arose re: instructors/faculty feeling prepared to deliver courses online
        • health/conditions/quality enriched course and competence teaching online
        • Question arose that some dept/colleges offered faculty a choice, but some are reporting they did not get that option – is policy consistent>
        • Concern arose re: if a program is offering some online and some face to face, how is a student protected in this case, live in dorm or home, what should students do if classes are half/half

New Business:

No New Business reported

Adjournment:

Motion to adjourn was made by Vivek Natarajan. Seconded by Matt Hoch. Passed. Meeting adjourned at 4:30 PM.