New Business —

1. Welcome and introductions
   1. Including Victor Gonzalez, Faculty Senate President
2. Schedule for the Fall semester
   1. Oct 20, 3:00 – 4:00pm, Zoom
   2. Nov 10, 3:00 – 4:00pm
   3. Dec. 1, 3:00 – 4:00pm
3. Teams site for document sharing – Faculty Senate Research Committee
4. Review & discuss charges (see attached ppt slides):
   1. Standing charges
   2. Specific charges
   3. Last year the committee focused primarily on the GRF
5. General Research Fund (see ppt slides)
   1. Overview and history
      1. This is given to individual units. Units decide how to use it. Each entity may add additional proposal criteria as they deem appropriate. Prior to 1994, it was centralized. All proposals were submitted to the same place. In 1994, it was distributed to units. The distribution has not changed since 1994.
   2. Next 3-year review will be in Fall 2025
   3. Previous committee considerations and activities
      1. The committee, by majority, said that there is no basis for staying with the historical way of doing this. The 2023 committee came up with requirements: transparency, evolve as needed, and needs based on advancement of the university’s research program. The committee evaluated and discussed the different metrics for allocation.
      2. The committee had varying opinions on needs and metrics. The recommendation was based on the size of the unit (size was by number of individuals in each unit with PI status). He showed the shift by units with old and new allocations.
      3. The change was recommended over a 3-year transitional period. Another challenge was equality versus equity. This was given to FacEx. FacEx decided not to put it before a vote to Faculty Senate because some people thought it was unfair. FacEx decided in May 2023 to ask faculty to see if they want a change.
   4. Faculty survey
      1. Part of charge this year to look at and analyze survey results (see full report in Teams, esp. to see the comments)
      2. Survey response indicates desire for change to GRF
      3. Survey indicates keeping GRF at unit level (not centralized with Office of Research)
6. Where we are now and possible next steps with the GRF
   1. What’s next, do we submit another recommendation for the GRF?
   2. Anything from the COACHE survey that could be useful (is this something Suzanne could perhaps assist with? (Suzanne can help)
   3. Building Faculty Senate buy-in and working with them to mutually develop a plan, and also with (assoc) deans and chairs (possibly each member connecting with their departments)
   4. Examples from other institutions for perspective and possible models – what do they have and how do they administer their funds?
7. Discussion
   1. Issues of funding
   2. What kinds of cuts looking at?
   3. Why does size of unit matter? (instead of, for example, productivity)
   4. Strive for continuous improvement
   5. Statement that there would be regular review/assessment and development every X number years
   6. Have breakdown of CLAS adjust to align with current CLAS divisions (e.g. Life Sciences)
      1. Get updated list for current year
   7. Push forward again with new FacEx and be more prepared, garnering support from individual units, bring back concerns from units so we can figure out how to address
   8. Try another survey to get more responses? Overall numbers are relatively low
8. Next Steps
   1. Discuss with your individual units
   2. Committee vote on next steps
   3. Questions or concerns, reach out to Josh or Celka
   4. Office of Research currently making allocations for next year; any changes will take place in 2025