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Faculty Senate Minutes, August 11, 2023

August 11, 2023
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Dome Room, Rotunda & ZOOM WEBINAR

Senators Present: Peter Abramenko, Kim Acquaviva, Alan Beckenstein, Andy Block, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Matthew Bolton, Lisa Colosi Peterson, John Dillery, Rob Garrod, Matt Hedstron, Tish Jennings, Ann Kellams, Michael Kennedy, Jason Kerrigan, Bradley Kesse, James Lambert, Matthew Lazzara, Alicia Lopez Opere, Charlotte Matthews, Amy Ogden, Andrew Pennock, Paul Perrin, Brian Pusser, Susan Saliba, Patrik Sandas, James Savage, Jeri Seidman, Jessica Sewell, David Vander Meulen, June West, Brian Williams

Senators on Zoom: Dana Albon, Lanice Avery, Cathy Campbell, Ming-Jer Chen, Stephen Culp, Eve Danziger, Todd DeLong, Katia Dianina, Maxim Engers, Jay Fox, Avik Ghosh, Jennifer Greeson, Bryon Gustafson, Natoya Haskins, Robert Hirosky, Rich Hynes, Jamie Jirout, Matthew Lazzara, Craig Lefanowicz, Ted Lendon, Stephen Macko, Alyssa Mixon, Sara Riggs, Anne Rotich, Ryan Smith, Martk Whittle, Jeff Young

Ex-Officio & Guests Present or on Zoom: Maite Brandt Pierce, Wynne Stuart, Uma Paila, Hadi Connor, Judith Thomas, Meredith Hayden, Phillip Bourne, Jonee Wilson, Suna Onengut-Gumuscu, Sunil Verma, Jerilyn Teahan, Ryne Ackard, JJ Davis, Susan Harris, John McNeil, Jeannie Lalonde, Brie Gertler, President Ryan, Provost Baucom

Chair called the meeting to order at 2:01 PM.

Review and Approval of Minutes
Chair requests approval of meeting minutes from May, 2023.
First:  Kim Acquaviva
Second:  Jim Savage
Vote:  All Approve
Result: Motion passes

Report from the President / Provost

President Ryan Priorities:

  • Continue to focus on the health and safety, mental health issues and accesss to help.

  • Continue to respond to aftermath of November 22 shooting which means reviewing and releasing the external review. Continue to work with families and Carla Williams.

  • Advance key initiatives of 2030 plan. Continue to build out Emmett Street corridor. open up the Contemplative Commons next to the School of Education and Human Development, and break ground on the Biotech Institute. Continue to expand Northern Virginia and online presence.  Planning for second year housing and moving forward to provide more affordable housing.

  • Reach $5B for capital campaign. Two years are left and we are confident we will surpass the $5 billion dollars mark.  If and when, we will pause to celebrate.

  • Next round of CIF investments with a focus on  research infrastructure and develop innovations in teaching.

  • Continue to advance DEI  continue programs with respect to faculty, staff, and students.

  • Recruiting and retaining best team in higher education which means recruiting several key leaders.

  • UVA Health with implementing their strategic plan.

  • UVA Wise with implementing their strategic plan.

  • Focus on Alumni and external relations. 

Provost Baucom
Congratulations to Michael Kennedy on being Chair of the Faculty Senate.

Three Key Priorities for the year

  1. Advance the 2030 Plan:

    1. Advancing research (see more details below)

    2. Undergraduate advising

    3. Moving forward on the All-Virginia Plan in Undergraduate Admission (increasing applications from the 40 most economically disadvantaged high schools in VA)

    4. Expanding the Public Service Pathways Program (500+ first-year students last year, will grow annually)

    5. Recommitting ourselves to:

        • Free expression/free inquiry

        • Diversity/Equity/and Inclusion

    1. And launching some new projects

        • Pan-University Entrepreneurship Initiative

        • “Beyond 8 Semesters on Grounds” - focused on thinking about how to use summers differently, our northern Virginia presence, and our global and online/digital strategies

  1. Support the Deans/Schools/Faculty and Staff: understanding the highest priorities of each school and seeing how we can help advance those together.

  2. Continue Supreme Court Follow-up: We will continue to follow up on the recent SCOTUS rulings with the clear determination that we will follow the law and work to understand what we cannot do and what we can do that is compliant with the law and our mission, strategy, and values. As Jim and I said in our statement to the University community: “We will follow the law.  We also will do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVA.”

Advancing Research

  • Continued focus on advancing research after a record year for sponsored research (up from $450M in FY22 to $530M in FY23)

  • Implementing our new Grand Challenges Investments

    1. In Digital Tech and Democracy

    2. Digital Tech and Youth Mental Health

    3. And Precision Health for underserved/rural populations (cancer in rural areas)

  • Continuing to advance progress on the Biotechnology Institute. Next steps include launching a search for the institute director, building faculty cohorts, and completing the building design.

  • Working to strengthen our existing Pan-University Institutes

    • Democracy

    • Environment

    • Neuroscience

  • Finding ways to help the institute directors build strategies for partnership and collaboration with one another and with the deans.

  • Finalizing recommendations for further research investment coming from the work of the Strategic Research Infrastructure Initiative (SRII) to lift the research enterprise as a whole and provide support to individual faculty.

    • Added support for the VPR’s office, including OSP, research development, and other areas

    • Research Computing and Data Analytics

    • A range of research/scholarship/and creativity cores (common good/ common cores)

      • In the STEM disciplines,

      • Social Sciences,

      • and the Humanities and Arts

    • Enhanced cross-University support for individual faculty research and entrepreneurship

  • Planning to launch a task force on the impacts of AI on research to complement the work of the taskforce on AI and pedagogy. (What new fields of research can we pursue?)

  • Grateful for all that Ram has done over his years as VPR and looking forward to working with Fred Epstein. Will continue to provide updates over the course of the year.

Introduction of Faculty Chair Michael Kennedy
Michael Kennedy introduced himself.  He received his PhD from the University of Kansas. He was a special education teacher for nine years.  He joined the UVA faculty in 2011 and was elected to the faculty senate in 2019. He’s been married to his wife Maureen for 21 years and they have three children.

Michaels’ first introduction to faculty senate was when the BOV fired President Sullivan only to have the faculty senate speak out and advocate for her and she was reinstated by the BOV.  He noted that advocacy made a difference in outcome of President Sullivan’s situation. Three rules to follow from Lou Holtz:  Do the right thing, do your best, and always show people you care.

Faculty senate is here to shine a light on opportunities that exist that can elevate everybody, represent academic, advise President, Provost, and BOV, be a deliberative body, and steer the direction of exco. Does the faculty know what faculty senate does?

Faculty Senate statistics: 86 senators representing 12 schools, 32 from Arts & Sciences, 21 from Medicine, 10 from Engineering, 4 from Education, 3 each from Darden, McIntire, and Law. Two each from Batten, Architecture, SCPS, Nursing, and Data Science

Professor and Faculty Senator Brian Pusser from the School of Education and Human Development introduces UNC Case for consideration. 
On September 29, UNC’s past chair of faculty senate will visit UVA’s Faculty Senate meeting to discuss the what the role of faculty senate is.  Professor Pusser share three documents that look at the UNC changes over last decade from how UNC is governed to challenging policies.

Dr. Brad Kesser and Faculty Senator from the School of Medicine and Co-Chair of the FRRRW committee discussed a webinar that will be hosted discussing open enrollment for benefits. It will be October 3 at 4:00.  The webinar will be recorded.  Dr. Kesser then discussed the FRRRW committee initiatives:  would like to take an inventory of faculty exit interviews to see what could be changed to retain staff. FRRRW will also look into childcare issues facing staff.  They’ll look at centralize waiting lists versus each location keeping an independent list. Dr. Kesser took questions from the attendees.  The committee will also look into a lifestyle allowance to spend on nanny, childcare, medical procedure, elder care. 

Michael Kennedy Presented Key Issues for Faculty Senate to Undertake for 2023 – 2024 Session
Think about your committee and what issues are important to your constituents. What issues need to be added to this list?

  • Should Faculty Senate have a Communications Committee?  UVA staff receive a lot of scheduled emails from various offices but nothing is received from Faculty Senate.  Faculty Senate does powerful things like gun violence resolution but did that go out to the general faculty?  Let Michael know if you’re interested in being on the Communications Committee. A point was made to loop University Communications in.

  • What is our role in engaging our colleagues around ground? What specific actions can we take to better inform and engage faculty about Senate business?  Need to make communicatin easier meaning access to faculty lists versus going through each school and a review process. 

  • Should there be consistency in how Senators are elected vs appointed. Does that manner in which you became a Senator change who you represent? Who is eligible to be a faculty senator? Are there term limits for senators?

  • Amanda Flora, Chair of General Faculty Council, raised the question that is you are a Lecturer or Instructor you are not represented in Faculty Senate.  These titles have different meanings in different schools and not all schools have these roles. This means some are left without representation.

  • New Financial model at University level has resulted in a range of outcomes for the schools. Can Faculty Senate work on a response to Administration and suggest improvements? Kim A. mentioned that there is a presentation in the end of year files of the Finance Committee explaining the new system.

  • Can/should Faculty Senate put pressure on local and state leaders regarding gun violence as it impacts the University?  Last Senate passed the resolution as it relates to work. Voice for the community. 

  •  OSP post award needs improvement. What is FS role in putting pressure on Administration to make the improvements.

New topics from the members.
Student-Faculty relations, There’s been an increase in number of special student requests “SDACs” but not additional support for professors. Always told to think about the student and how things affect them but not the reverse.

Michael charged everyone to think about these issues and talk to their colleagues. Think about which committee could handle these issues.

Reminded Senators and invited guests to go to Carr’s Hill after the meeting.

Introduced Kelly Craig as the Administrative Assistant for Faculty Staff.

EXCO is meeting on September 22 in Madison Hall then the full Senate will meet on September 29 in a location yet to be determined.

Tish Jennings makes a motion to adjourn.
Second:  Jeri Seidman
Vote: All agree
Result: Motion passes

Meeting adjourned at 4:01 PM