March 25, 2020 Minutes

A printable PDF of this information can be found here. 

Faculty Senate Minutes

March 25^th, 2020

WebEx Meeting

3:10- 4:30 pm

I.       Call to Order

a.      Meeting was called to order at 3:10pm

i.        Meeting was called to order at 3:10pm

II.      Approval of the March 11th meeting minutes

a.      None opposed. No abstentions. Minutes are approved.

III.     Interim Faculty Senate Processes

a.      WebEx format

b.      Discussion processes and format-synchronous and asynchronous

i.        Discussion in D2L

ii.       Course shell just for Faculty Senate discussion

iii.     Should be active now

iv.     Senators and Alternates are ‘enrolled’ and should be able to see it in your D2L

v.       One for informational items and one for discussion

c.       Voting

i.        Those items will be moved into D2L. A ‘quiz’ will be created and it will be multiple choice: Approve, Oppose, Abstain

ii.       If we need to action really quickly, and it seems it would be unanimously passed, we may do it through ‘hand waves’, but we’ll see how it goes.

iii.     Questions:

A.      We won’t vote in real time? Probably not. Will try out the polling feature when we know it will be successful.

d.      Questions:

i.        Will we use the WebEx Chat feature? Would prefer not too at this point.

ii.       Is there a ‘code’ to get into D2L? You just need to log in with your MSU credentials you should see it there.

iii.     Faculty feedback is saying that WebEx isn’t conducive to this meeting and that Zoom may work better.

iv.     Just got word that all sabbaticals have been rescinded.

A.      Provost Mokwa: Thank you for all of your hard work on this transition. Appreciate comments about making sure we can hang on to our students and give them the opportunity to finish out the semester. Keep focused on that mission and prioritize. What we are hearing from students is that faculty are doing a great job. We need to preserve the employees that we have, recognizing that there are many budgetary uncertainties that we will be faced with next year. We are incurring cost getting through this semester and down the road. Expectation nationwide is universities will have a 20-25% decline in enrollment. Many of those will be out of state students. Keeping our eyes on the stimulus package, hoping that will trickle down to the states. Much of that money will go to health care efforts and our economy. State senators have been reaching out to the President. We are being cautious. We will be careful and conservative in efforts to protect the faculty we have here. Don’t want to get to a point where we need to cut programs to save our faculty. That will not happen. We are taking steps so that won’t happen. MUS is on a hiring moratorium. There is a pause in our hiring. Rather than pulling back funds from all of the units, we are going to do what we can with vacancy savings, with the idea that next year we can put things in place to get back to where we were. We need all hands on deck. Don’t know what study abroad will look like.

Sabbatical call was not an easy one to make. Some had already asked to postpone theirs, due to travel involved. Doing everything we can, and are trying to minimize the impact.

B.      Is this for next year’s sabbaticals? Correct. Next academic year. Those currently on sabbatical will continue.

C.      Have a lot of research undergraduates. In teams of 2-3. Having issues dealing with them and their research.

1.      We need to be creative and make sure they are getting the information they need.

2.      Allow for social distancing.

3.      It is challenging

D.     Are sabbaticals going to be cancelled, or just postponed? Right now it has been rescinded and those faculty are encouraged to apply again next year. The scope of work may change between now and then. We are hoping the funding situation will be more positive and we can award to more faculty, but we just don’t know for sure.

E.      S&C grants will not be rescinded. Will be working to finish them out.

F.       Will future decisions on sabbaticals will those that were rescinded be prioritized. We just don’t know what it’s going to look like next year. If we can get ahead of this current crisis we may know more.

IV.      COVID-19 Transitions and Check-In

a.      Remote Teaching – technology and systems

i.        Made all his courses asynchronous. Impressed with how well the students are taking the changes.

ii.       Been hard to set up online exams so that they are graded automatically.

iii.     Concerns about how much of a time burden it is to do this online. Imploring administration to allow faculty to eliminated unnecessary activities.

iv.     Agree with above. We didn’t get a spring break this year, last week was a work week. For people without experience teaching online it is hard. We need to prioritize.

b.      Student Communications and Support

i.        Have students who do not have the bandwidth to access videos, etc.

ii.       I did a poll in my 110 student class and 23% said they won't have broadband access. I upload a video capture (no live stream), and an audio online file. The latter is small enough (15-40 Mb) that even without broadband students can download it.

iii.     Charter is offering 60 days of free internet because of this issues. It does take a couple of days to get access. https://corporate.charter.com/newsroom/charter-to-offer-free-access-to-spectrum-broadband-and-wifi-for-60-days-for-new-K12-and-college-student-households-and-more

Do we know who is managing the student info on the learnanywhere site? Will pass it onto the Dean of Student’s office to get that info posted.

c.       Policies, Processes and Procedures

d.      Other Questions and Concerns

i.        Faculty with school age kids at home. Would love to see some recognition of those struggling to juggle both being an instructor and a parent.

A.      Don’t forget you can do this asynchronously. Be flexible. You don’t have to deliver a live WebEx at the time of your normal class meeting time.

ii.       A department review of Plant Sciences is scheduled for two weeks and the committee is lobbying that this be postponed given teaching and research time constraints.

V.      New Business

a.      Tenure Clock for Probationary Faculty

i.        Ad hoc Amendment of University Review procedures for currently employed probationary faculty.

Responsible Party: Provost and Office of Academic Affairs

Effective Date: March 25, 2020

Scope of Applicability: Applies to faculty with probationary tenure status in the Spring of 2020, except those reviewed for tenure in AY 2020.

In consideration of faculty whose normal responsibility and distribution of effort were shifted in the spring semester of 2020, the normal timing of university reviews of probationary faculty shall be amended to allow flexibility as follows:

A.      All faculty with probationary tenure status in the Spring of 2020, except those reviewed for tenure in AY 2020, will be allowed to extend the tenure review period and the date of their next-scheduled mandatory review by one calendar year.

B.      Faculty wishing to exercise this option must notify their primary review administrator, who in turn shall notify their Dean and the Provost. 

C.      Faculty shall provide notification if they intend to exercise this option in the academic year prior to their scheduled review, at least one month before the deadline established for submission of dossiers.

D.     Candidates who exercise this option for their retention review will have their tenure review extended by one year; they may however, opt for an “early” tenure review, according to the existing provisions of the faculty handbook.

E.      The extension of the tenure clock by the exercise of this option is independent of any other accommodations made in conjunction with existing Family Medical Leave or Faculty modified Duties policies.

F.       The calendar dates associated with the various stages of the review cycle in each academic year will not be adjusted as part of this policy. 

G.     This policy applies only to reviews of probationary faculty; it does not apply to reviews for the promotion of tenured associate professors to the rank of full professor or to post tenure review.

ii.       Discussion/Questions:

A.      Questions?

1.      Deadline is in April, so timing is important

2.      Conversations online that pushing out to one year is not effective. Those people fall short by one year of pay increases. Could they go up for tenure within the same time frame, but with a lower standard? No.

Ø  The extension is an opt-in extension. Have worked this into our policy within the restriction from the Board of Regents. This is an extension, or another category, that ads to the FMLA policy. This allows us to make this adjustment considering that we are asking our faculty to do a lot of extra work. Meant to relieve anxieties, not add to it.

3.      Feel that this could cause some complaints of inequality. If everyone is up against the same policy, then how is it unfair? A faculty member may opt for a later review due to circumstances and not lower the standards. To have an ‘opposite’ policy would be confusing. Not if you offered it to everyone.

4.      Timeline: Want to get this plan out tomorrow. Doing everything we can to minimize the extra anxiety created by these circumstances. There will continue to be changes. As well as extra burden of teaching online with short notice. MUS campuses will probably do the same. As long as we don’t hear any fatal flaws, we want to move forward and make this policy.

B.      Is there anything missing?

1.      Clarification of E: If someone had already extended it for personal reasons, would this then extend it out again? Short answer is yes. What we want to avoid is someone using the COVID-19 extension and then ALSO an FMLA for the same reasons. Cannot double ask- ask for two years for the same set of circumstances.

2.      Can you decide to take the extension and then decide you don’t want to and go up under your old timeline? Absolutely, they can go back. The standards don’t change.

Ø  A faculty won’t make this decision until the time where they are scheduled for review. You don’t have to decide now. If you decide for retention, you don’t need to apply again. The changes will be made to the entire timeline as a whole.

3.      F: Can you shift by a few weeks, just to get in some in-person observation that would be missed this semester? There is no imposed deadline on the candidate for that. May be possible to do those observations in the Fall and still stay within the timeline dates. Departments should consider alternative ways for this to happen during the rest of this semester, and the Summer. Not sure what Fall will bring.

C.      Are there any things you “cannot live with” or that are fatal flaws?

VI.     Old Business

a.      Faculty Senate Delphi Update

i.        Know this is not top priority

ii.       Please consider contributing to this survey

iii.     We don’t have this information and it will be very valuable

iv.     Do we focus on the general MSU experience, or focus on what is going on now with this crisis? Think there is room for both comments in this process. How you are feeling and what you are doing during this time is the kind of information can only help us.

v.       Survey will be left open for the indefinite future.

vi.     Please contribute your ideas so we can move forward with better decision making.

vii.   Eric agrees. Makes sense to push forward and continue with the process. Want to set up the new Chair and Chair Elect and the senate as a whole for success.

viii. It’s hard not think about what’s going on in the world and participate in your work without being distracted. It does take effort.

VII.   Announcements and Updates

a.      Honorary Degree Candidate – Process and Timeline

i.        The committee has a candidate they want to bring forward for consideration. They want to get it on to the May regents meeting agenda. Want to be more detailed in our review and not act on nominations the day they are introduced. Given the timing, we will use D2L to review candidate. Will have discussion in two weeks.

ii.       Anytime we consider honorary degree candidates, we do it in executive session. You cannot share it with your colleagues or anyone else. It is confidential. Please bear that in mind. We will give you some notice when this is available.

VIII.    Public Comment

a.      None

IX.      Adjournment

a.      Meeting was adjourned at 4:33pm

Reminder: Next Faculty Senate Meeting

                                                April 8, 2020

                                                3:10-4:30 PM