11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Room 120 Rouss/Robertson
- Call to Order (11:07am)
Chair Ellen Bassett recognized Provost Liz Magill, who presented the following updates.
- Report from Provost’s Office (Liz Magill)
- Coronavirus – the University is sending out university updates and holding daily briefings for senior leadership, while monitoring conditions in our local community, in Virginia, and the broader world. The International Studies Office is actively managing the process and advised all students currently enrolled in programs in China to depart the country and those scheduled to travel to China to curtail their arrangements. UVA has a central email address that community members can send questions to. uvaem@virginia.edu is being monitored by multiple staff to ensure that we are responsive to incoming and emerging questions and concerns.
- Vice Provost for Global Affairs Steve Mull has also been in contact with students abroad who are in tenuous circumstance due to the Australian fires and unrest in other parts of the world.
- The new VP for Health Affairs Craig Kent, formerly Dean of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, starts February 2020. Magill was very please with the committee’s choice and the work the committee accomplished.
- The McIntire school dean search is going well.
- UVA launched a national search for a Vice Provost of Enrollment to lead an Office of Enrollment which includes: the Office of Undergraduate Admission, Student Financial Services, and the University Registrar’s Office. The search committee is led by Dean Risa Goluboff.
- Pat Lampkin, Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer, has decided to retire after 40 years.
- The Dean’s retreat hosted by President Jim Ryan and Magill was held as a means of advancing UVA’s academic mission and focused on defining ambitions as a university, the University’s financial model, brainstorming about the University’s presence in Northern Virginia, and first steps for implementing key elements of the strategic plan.
- The new President and Provost Fund for Institutionally Related Research had 23 proposals last fall. Two were picked: Hoos Connected and eGlobal UVA.
- Undergrad admissions are up – 41,000 applications. Other schools in UVA’s peer group are seeing a decline. The goal is to enroll a class of 3,700 students.
- Seeking nominations for teaching and public service awards. 2nd year for public service awards.
- Public service week is March 23-28, events all week are planned by many schools.
- Bethany Teachman (Psychology) has earned the lifetime distinction of being elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Approval of the Minutes
The Chair determined the presence of a quorum and moved the approval of minutes from last meeting. Joel Hockensmith seconded. The motion passed by acclamation. - COACHE Survey Overview
The Chair recognized Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Maïté Brandt-Pearce for preview/ overview of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) Survey. This stands for the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education Survey. It is a comparative survey done every 3-4 years, which assesses faculty feelings toward their work and place and employment. There will be a major communication push to Deans to encourage the participation of full-time faculty who have worked at UVA at least one year (excluding the School of Medicine). In 2016 the response rate was 47% (about average for all 89 participating institutions).
The subsequent completed survey data set is useful to compare UVA relative to the other institutions and the five UVA-identified peer institutions. In addition to 180 “deep dive” questions, faculty are asked to identify the two best and two worst aspects of working at UVA.
2016 BEST: Quality of colleagues, undergrad students, grad students, and place.
2016 WORST: Compensation; protections from service; support for research and creative work; diversity *broad institutional response @ university level and at school level.
Q: Susan Kirk, Medical School, pointed out that the senate group representing School of Medicine is not comfortable that they are excluded from UVA faculty and wants to ensure this sentiment is known. She’d like to know why the School of Medicine is excluded.
Brandt-Pearce said the provost talks with the School of Medicine and the kinds of surveys they
do are comparable across med schools. Brandt-Pearce said a reevaluation is fine in the future to
see if it makes sense.Kirk asked Brandt-Pearce to solicit input from the 21 faculty senators when evaluating in future.
Q: Jim Savage asked if the survey questions help identify which parts of compensation faculty are unhappy with.
Brandt-Pearce said UVA does not add questions to the survey because the COACHE survey does a cross- university comparisons thru same question wording. When you look at list of best/worst aspects it’s very broad as to what faculty might find problematic.
There was general discussion about the length of the survey being a barrier to completion. It was pointed out that faculty may be motivated to finish the survey if schools produced written reports about how they responded to the concerns found in the faculty answers.
Brandt-Pearce said her plan is to measure the impact of initiatives by looking at this year’s survey vs 2016’s, the comparison is possible because questions are the same survey to survey.
Q: Hanadi Al-Samman pointed out the initiative to address diversity on behalf of university has created multiple administrative positions which do not report to faculty, creating a burden on faculty by delaying searches and paperwork pertaining to diversity inclusion. She would like for more accountability of what others are doing in their positions.
Brandt-Pearce said each school address diversity in different ways. The Provost holds deans accountable to implementing plans at the university level but more needs to be done at school level.
Q: Rasheed Balogun said in the past the Senate was told specific questions could be included in COACHE survey to eliminate the need for the Faculty Senate to have its own survey.
Brandt-Pearce said associate deans decided not to add questions to the survey as it is already long. The survey is very useful because the questions are the same for all universities. Unique questions don’t serve that end. The deans couldn't think of any questions substantially different.
There was discussion about the HR administrative work being a burden. Brandt-Pearce said a major finding from the last survey was lack of protection for service assignments, particularly for associate professors, females and faculty of color. This has been mostly addressed at the school level.
Q: Carol Manning reiterated school of medicine is not part of COACHE survey, they have more faculty than any other school, faculty weren't part of decision to opt out of survey; many of them have offered to spearhead survey of salary equity in terms of gender. She underlined the important of School of Medicine participation in the future.
- Committee Reports A. Academic Affairs Committee The Chair recognized Senator Aaron Bloomfield, Chair Academic Affairs Committee. Bloomfield reported substantive change to Master of Engineering in BME. The ME-BME program is designed for recent engineering graduates who wish to raise their technical skills to the professional level and apply those skills to the development of transformative biomedical technologies in the private sector. SEAS is proposing the following changes to the ME-BME degree: 1. Increase the total credit hour requirements from 30 credit hours to 35 credit hours; and 2.Institute a prescribed sequence for those 35 credit hours. With these changes, ME-BME graduates will gain a deeper understanding of clinical needs-finding, applied data sciences, and advanced design principles. The committee passed the proposal unanimously. Moved. Joel Hockensmith seconded. No discussion. Passed by acclamation. The AAC chair entertained a motion to approve a Global Commerce in Culture and Society track within the Global Studies major. The purpose of this track is to provide a more unified curriculum to students wanting a liberal arts education and desire preparation for graduate training and/or a career in business and related fields. Because this is a track within a major, it doesn't normally go thru SCHEV. Discussed over emails to the Senate. Hockensmith seconded. No discussion. Passed by acclamation. AAC chair also noted that there is a proposal with committee: Global Studies concentration within English. Passed ACC unanimously. Will be a 1 week comment period which will be announced to the Senate. B. Finance Committee The Chair recognized Senator Brian Pusser. The committee report on the Resolution on Liaison Librarians and Course Sites. Resolution developed by the committee is part of broader effort to increase affordability for students as much as can: work with faculty in optional process which gives individual faculty permission for open course requiring individual faculty permission case by case basis. Peter Brunjes moved and Hockensmith seconded. Discussion centered around the opt in or opt out options for faculty. The Chair said the issue came up to make school less expensive for students. After an extensive back and forth in regard to the options, a motion to table was made and the issue was tabled.
- Nominating Committee and BOV Candidates
The Chair Recognized Peter Brunjes, Chair of the Nominating Committee.
Brunjes recognized Joel Hockensmith to speak to the protocols on nominations of a Faculty Representative to the Board of Visitors. Hockensmith noted that under the new system the past chair does not automatically ascend to faculty representative. He outlined a series of issues that we have not determined. (Please see Hockensmith Statement and Motion, appended at the end of these minutes.) As the Faculty Senate has not specified process parameters, so it falls to leadership of the faculty senate to set parameters by/for the Senate. Chair Bassett did so and these were discussed in ExCo.
Hockensmith moved that faculty senate acknowledge the role of the chair of Executive Committee in establishing guidelines and moved that the faculty senate create an ad hoc bylaws committee to define guidelines for selecting the BOV representative. Brian Pusser seconded the motion. (The motion is appended to the minutes at the back.)
Extensive discussion followed the motion. Where our bylaws don't specify, we follow Roberts Rules of Order, so the full body must decide. The nominating body’s responsibilities ends with nominations. There was continuing discussion about the number of candidates to be forwarded to the BOV and how that was determined. There was a sense from some Senators that sending too many nominations, in this case up to five, would not be in the best interest of the senate.
Hockensmith asked the Chair to share how the number (5) came about. She indicated this was a request from the UVA liaison to the BOV, Susan Harris, who indicated 3 to 5 names. The Chair, hoping to keep the process inclusive and open to the widest group of candidates, kept that number in the proposal she sent to the Senate. She noted that the BOV does not have to accept any of the nominations for faculty representative.
There was a vote to cut off debate that passed with a two-thirds majority. Hockensmith’s motion passed 25-13 with one abstention. Candidates E. Bassett, P. Hallowell, C. Manning, K. Neeley will stand for the role of BOV representative and online elections will follow.
(Due to time constraints, no candidate statements were shared.)
The Chair noted that a bylaws committee will be formed to sort out options/changes to bylaws for future elections. She will call for nominations/self-nominations after consulting with the ExCo.
- Chief Operating Officer: J.J. Wagner-Davis:
The Chair introduced J.J. Wagner-Davis Chief Operating Officer for UVA.
Wagner-Davis provided an update for Operations at UVA over the past 14 months.
(Her powerpoint has been subsequently shared.)- Coronavirus: lots of questions coming in about it.
- There are 47,500 people on grounds each day.
- Demographic changes: The average student carries seven devices (in dorms). Nearly 72% of full and part time employees born between 1965 and 1996.
- COO portfolio: $8.9 billion is current. Restructured loans @ 3.2% interest.
Replacement value of infrastructure on Grounds is $5.1B and includes 10,000+ trees. - IT: almost 53,000 active accounts; 12,950,900 attacks blocked by firewalls in 2018.
- Sustainability: long-term sustainability goals (2030 and 2050 carbon free and fossil fuel free!) -2019-20 operational budget: $3.7B. Tough choices to be made; always will be more asks than resources.
- Increase in state support: have seen increases in capital in recent years; Alderman and Gilmer big projects.
- Emmet-Ivy corner: w construction there is frustration; will go under construction this summer —school of data science and UVA hotel; think about transforming 14.5 acres; underpinning this = better pedestrian walkway (less friction between walkers and drivers)
- 2020 Legislative Session: one notable absence in Commonwealth’s budget: no resources for pay raises — critically important issue they are currently working on.
- 2020 Strategic Plan: clearly gives a vision and strategies for next few years - when there are issues, sooner the better as far as addressing goes. Working with Magill’s team and hers to sort through surface issues fast.
- Living wage: hard critical issue, start with full time employees, contractors came to table to work with UVA. Students are next but will affect tuition.
Wagner-Davis said she is very supportive of bills providing compensation to faculty. The development of campus in Washington (NOVA) needs strategic thinking about UVA’s comprehensive approach and branding, all under development now of the president, provost, and deans. Need to be better at articulating what we are already doing there and thinking about long term trajectory.
There was a question of why administration jobs in clinical medicine are filled quickly but when physicians leave, they are not replaced and create a burden on remaining clinicians.
There was general discussion about diversity trends in top hires and across departments.
Magill said UVA’s mission is excellence and diversity is part of excellence, but history should be discussed.
It was pointed out that Workday has created undue burdens on staff and chairs. Wagner- Davis said that with WorkDay itself some things have gone very well, some things not so well.
Magill has formed a working group to work out pain points. Seeking to address what is most critical, based on what the faculty are feeling and the deans hearing. A lot of work is being done; looking for short-term wins to ease impacts of a system that is by design meant to be self-managed. Administration understands we must do this right to affect success at the mission; it is an urgent concern!
-Chair adjourns meeting 12:53 p.m.
Addendum: Statement and Motion from 31 January meeting
Joel Hockensmith, School of Medicine
Re: FS BOV REP selection
The position of “Faculty Representative to the Board of Visitors” did not exist in the Constitution and Bylaws until we codified it in late spring 2019.
- Enshrining the position in the Bylaws introduced new protocols that superseded past practices:
- There must be at least two nominees.
- A past-Chair does not automatically ascend to the position of Faculty Representative.
- A past-Chair of the FS cannot serve in the year after service as past-chair and therefore cannot serve two successive terms immediately following service as Chair.
- There must be a vote by the full Faculty Senate.
- Beyond those details, the FS did not specify a number of process parameters and therefore they default to the leadership of the FS:
- Maximum number of nominees.
- Eligibility: all faculty, faulty senators only, tenure-track only, etc. (Since postdocs are treated as trainees within a limited time frame and then must be given an appointment as an employee……….do they become eligible if considered as faculty?)
- Method of voting (Ranked choice). Length of open ballot.
- Multiple years of service and/or successive years of service.
- Voting outcomes reported to the public. Details/Ranking?
- Voting outcomes reported to the BOV. Details/Ranking?
- Successive years of representation from one School of the University.
- Length of bio and presentation, along with public posting.
- Timing of nominations/voting/reporting.
- In the absence of specific guidelines, it falls to the leadership of the FS to set forth parameters to exact business by the Faculty Senate. In the interest of full disclosure, the FS chair took her role seriously, crafting detailed guidelines and submitting them to EXCO the day before its January mtg (17th):
- Nomination committee to limit slate to 5 nominees.
- Nominees to present brief biographies and statements of interest (200 word max on each).
- Dates for election, times.
- Reporting. Dissemination to full Senate.
- Modifications to guidelines coming out of EXCO:
- Open to not only Senate membership and leadership but all UVa faculty.
- Report up to 3 but not 5 to BOV.
- The chair, chair-elect, past-chair and every member of the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate are elected and therefore empowered to execute business on behalf of the Faculty Senate until the FS imposes limits.
THEREFORE:
- (Joel W. Hockensmith) motion that the Faculty Senate:
- Defer to the leadership of the Chair and EXCO in setting guidelines for this year’s election AND
- Create an ad hoc Bylaws committee with the charge of recommending an amendment that defines the guidelines which the FS wishes to impose upon its ELECTED officers and Executive Council.