Date / Time / Location: Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 2:00 PM, Zoom Webinar
Members Present: Hanadi Al-Samman, Alan Beckenstein, Aaron Bloomfield, Jim Fitz-Gerald, Bob Hirosky, Joel Hockensmith (Past Chair), Tish Jennings (Chair Elect), Susan Kirk (Chair), Venkataraman Lakshmi, Kathryn Laughon, Carol Manning, Peter Norton, Rob Patterson, Andy Pennock, Eric Ramirez-Weaver, James Savage
Guests/Others Present: Ian Baucom (Provost-designate), Maïté Brandt-Pearce (Vice Provost Faculty Affairs), Mike Citro (Chief of Staff, Provost), Joe Fore (General Faculty Council), Brie Gertler (Vice Provost Academic Affairs), Nicole Thorne Jenkins (Dean, McIntire), Maria Lane (Admin Support), Liz Magill (Provost), Brian Pusser (Parliamentarian)
Meeting Called to Order
2:01 PM
January 2022 EXCO Minutes
Susan Kirk shared minutes from January 2022 EXCO Meeting to review.
Motion to approve minutes: Aaron Bloomfield
Second: Alan Beckenstein
For: 14 Against: 0 Abstain: 0
Motion Passes
Updates from the Provost
Liz Magill, Provost and Ian Baucom, Provost-designate
Brief Covid Update
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Continuing to track Covid data, including hospitalizations at medical center in the region
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Numbers are trending in a positive direction.
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Have been actively considering public health requirements as we track this data.
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Effective March 21 indoor mask mandate will be lifted: mandate will remain in place at UVA Health and in all classrooms for faculty and students.
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This recommendation came from Contingency Planning Group which includes physicians, academic, and operations leaders. Provost office will work with units on implementation.
Ongoing Dean Searches
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Will officially charge committee for new Dean of SCPS. Ian Baucom and Greg Fairchild will co-chair that search.
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Search for the Dean of the College will begin shortly. Ian Baucom and Sarah Kucenas will co-chair that search.
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Ian will recuse himself from the opening stages as immediate past dean.
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Nursing and Education searches are well underway and proceeding well.
BOV meets next Thursday and Friday
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Executive Committee
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Select Student and Faculty Representatives
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HS Board
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Dean Kibbe will talk about vision for the school
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Wendy Horton will present an update on hospital staffing
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Building & Grounds
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Update on Capital Plan
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Fundraising (Advancement)
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Steve Farmer and Robyn Hadley will discuss efforts to raise money for Cavalier Opportunity Fund. Goal is to provide financial assistant to students of limited means to fully participate in University life.
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Mark Luellen will give a report on the capital campaign
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Financial
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UVIMCO Report
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FST Report: Adam Daniel, Melody Bianchetto
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Academic and Student Life
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Robyn Hadley will talk about ideas as new Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer
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Faculty task force report on undergraduate advising
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Tony Elliott, new football coach, will have a quick meet and greet
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Leadership Updates
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Going Well: Community partnerships
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Ongoing Challenge: Fatigue and burnout, health system in particular
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Area Seeking Advice: Sequencing of strategic plan
Government Updates
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Attorney General’s office is managing the search for new University Counsel. President Ryan has had an opportunity to speak with the person running the search in the AG office and has given feedback on the characteristics and skills that he would like to see.
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Dean Pianta and others in the School of Education are following progress of Lab School legislation.
Discussion
Q: Has President Ryan considered creating a statement affirming our commitment to freedom of integrity, research and tenure protections given the political climate? Statement that protects those of us who work on Critical Race Theory?
Liz: As a matter of principle, we as academic leaders of the institution are absolutely committed to the academic freedom of our faculty. Absolutely committed to those principles which actually are embodied in a wide variety of faculty policies and statements that have been made. So please have no question about the commitment. I have not talked to Jim about the possibility of him issuing a statement and you may want to do that as a Faculty Senate.
Ian: We will defend the academic freedom of our faculty students and staff to research whatever they wish to research to teach whatever they wish to teach to pursue whatever methods they wish to pursue. Happy to bring this up with Jim but would also welcome you and the leadership of faculty Senate doing the same.
Q: Are we thinking proactively about how to encourage vaccination for new students next year?
A: I don't think that it will be any ambiguity about where we stand on vaccinations and boosters regardless of limitations on our authority to require them for our students. I would encourage Exco to go back and read the letter we sent after the AG opinion reversing the opinion that gave us the authority to mandate vaccines, it said the issue for us at this moment is moot because 99% of our students have complied with what we asked them to do, which is to say, they were either vaccinated and boosted or had a valid exemption and were testing as a result of that exemption.
Q: How much do we pay attention to the ranking from USNWR and elsewhere when allocating resources? How are you handling unhappiness with the split in the new financial model (75/25, 60/40)?
Liz: We attend to those rankings in ways that are responsible; we don't do anything that we wouldn't want to do educationally in order to change the rankings. Hard to respond without knowing the concern regarding the new split. The actual consequence for any given school is actually very slim.
Ian: Rankings are a fact of our existence but not the reason we exist. We exist to pursue research, to pursue knowledge, and to teach. We do it as a public university because we believe that knowledge is a public good, and we do it as a public university because we believe that knowledge serves the public and so that's what drives us. Beginning meetings with Deans, Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts to discuss priorities moving forward. Interested in finding ways to increase our support for graduate education particularly, to try to get a sense of how we might best of how we might best be able to do that. Alost talking about return to recommendations of Racial Equity Task Force about faculty diversity and thinking about the support that we can be providing to schools. Looking forward to working with this group.
Faculty Input into PROV-004
Maïté Brandt-Pearce, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
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About 90% of the changes that we made were based on faculty feedback.
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We got the summary from the various schools, comments from the Faculty Senate Policy Committee, comments from General Faculty Council so we're taking all of that and going to make some changes.
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Prefer to have the discussions much earlier on, and not make substantive changes based on the 30-day review.
Susan Kirk: Concern that feedback that was provided was largely rejected. This process has been going on for such a long time, some feel there was little feedback incorporated to the version that went out for review.
Maïté: Happy to show the policy changes and go element by element and show how each came about.
Joe Fore: I would echo and support Maïté’s statement from the GFC perspective as chair who was leading a lot of this from our point of view I’ve been really impressed and frankly and appreciative of the Provost efforts. I would say a very large number of the changes we suggested were implemented. There are some people who have some fundamental objections to the policy. Those were considered and rejected. That’s just a matter of policy. The changes that have been made in the policy are going to achieve many of the same goals in terms of providing protections and protecting academic freedom.
Aaron Bloomfield: Giving a concrete example of something somebody said that was ignored or discarded or not included would really help focus this conversation.
Peter Norton shared background information on one potential area of concern: review/promotion process and timeline for non-tenure track faculty. Maïté shared that the proportion of academic general faculty being promoted is the same as tenure-track faculty. She shared that she is happy to provide more data as requested.
Maïté: I appreciate feedback on the process-we had to feedback sessions, open feedback website for faculty, and a town hall. I’ve been very interested in making the process more open. That doesn't mean I’m necessarily going to say that the Provost’s Office is going to agree with everything that is being asked, but we certainly want as many mechanisms for collecting feedback and opinions as we can.
Faculty Governance at UVA
Susan Kirk, Chair
Susan provided a brief history of the Faculty Senate and the General Faculty Council and shared information about faculty governance at other institutions.
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How are the faculty at UVA best served regarding faculty governance?
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Is there interest in forming a working group to explore this option?
Susan noted she is happy to have a conversation offline with anybody who might either be interested in exploring going forward with this or has concerns.
Upcoming FS elections
Joel Hockensmith, Past Chair
Procedure for voting has evolved over the past few years. Most recently we have utilized Collab for voting. We can utilize Collab again this year; one vote to fill one position (although there may be multiple candidates). For EXCO there are two positions, there are four candidates (would have two votes).
Susan: This has to occur at the March meeting, right?
Joel: It would occur after the march meeting. I will send a notice to each nominee and request a written statement to be posted next week. They will have the opportunity to make a statement at the next faculty Senate meeting. Open voting after the meeting.
Brian: Have we made any provisions for replacing the parliamentarian? Spelled out in the in the constitution and bylaws as an elected position but doesn't have any term.
Susan: The bylaws probably need to be amended to put a term on that.
Committee Reports
Grievance Committee
Have concluded case from the fall semester. May have a consultation for another case.
Jim Savage: Finance committee has not met this year.
Susan Kirk: That might be something that we want to take on as EXCO winds up for the year, what is the appropriate process for choosing chairs. Often there are new senators who are coming into these committees that are being assigned and they wouldn't necessarily have the knowledge to make a decision about voting so I think that that's an issue where there's some room for improvement, and maybe we could all give that some thought over the next couple of weeks.
Resumption of In-Person FS Meetings
Susan Kirk, Chair
March 23rd EXCO meeting could be in-person only or hybrid.
Interest in hybrid meeting expressed.
Old/New Business
Tish Jennings shared concern about lack of engagement with Senate. Lack of reports from committee members, lack of activity among committees, lack of interest in leadership roles.
Hanadi Al-Samman shared that is has been challenging to engage committee members, schedule committee meetings when members can attend.
Hanadi Al-Samman: Would like to talk about adding to FS agenda a motion for a statement about appointment of the new Provost without faculty consultation.
Susan Kirk: I've been in conversation with a person who raised that issue. He is considering whether he wants to bring it forward or not. However, if he decides that he does not want to do that, if you would still to put that on the agenda, you'll have the option to do it.
Hanadi Al-Samman: From my understanding, there was a quite a sizable number of people who are interested in this I don't think that we need to put it up for discussion, it is just something that people could vote it down up or down.
Joel Hockensmith: If you're going to put it on the agenda, it would be best if you had a motion.
Brian Pusser: It would be reasonable for the chair to report out about an issue at EXCO which would then put people on the same page to subsequently either ask for a committee to take it up n or to make a motion before the full Senate, which couldn't be acted on it that meeting, but could be acted on subsequently.
Joel Hockensmith: EXCO is a committee. If there is someone who wants to make a motion, we can put that on the agenda.
No motion was made.
Meeting Adjourned
Motion to Adjourn: Aaron Bloomfield
Second: Joel Hockensmith
Meeting adjourned: 4:05 PM