Approval of Previous Minutes —

The meeting from March 5, 2024, were distributed before the meeting. Hearing no corrections, the minutes were approved.

Faculty Senate Report

Victor reported that he and Sam met with Amy Mendenhall in the Office of Faculty Affairs. They discussed student evaluations and the declining response when it moved from paper based to electronic. There is a list of faculty workshops through Faculty Affairs. The chair for AP&P will send the survey data.

We are collecting nominations for the KBOR Faculty Award. Governance sent a call for nominations to chairs and program directors last week.

University Senate Report

Excused Absence Policy. We are waiting to see the survey results from AP&P. We’ll send out a refresher of best practices in the fall about the policy.

Josh will send the ethics petition to UCCC.

Upcoming University Senate meetings. The provost is the guest speaker. We will also discuss the international affairs committee membership change. We will also talk about the ad hoc committee for the Gateway District. We will be voting for a President-elect for University Senate in the organizational meeting. We will also be voting for the Vice President which will be a staff member in FY 25. Regarding online evaluations, the Business School has found these to be ineffective. The participation rate is low.

Unfinished Business —

Faculty Research Committee Recommendation. This committee is looking at the reallocation of the General Research Fund (GRF). The chairs presented at the last FacEx and Faculty Senate meetings. This is a major decision and should be a discussion again on April 4. Mugur Geana gave an update, as a research committee member. Mugur discussed that the committee is eager to move this recommendation forward. The final committee decision is to allocate based on PIs per unit. There is no other way to do this. This really needs to be moved forward and something needs to be done. It was postponed last year. FacEx members decided to send a message to faculty senators with a timeline of the committee’s recommendations to various bodies and let them know it will be discussed at the April 4 meeting.

Faculty Senate nominations. Seven people have been nominated and voting is open. We have 13 open spots, with spots held for Education and Law.  We need more faculty senators.

Faculty Senate President-Elect FY25. The position will need to be filled in the planning meeting.

New Business —

Victor shared the latest policy reviews from the policy office: academic program review policy and online policy review. Victor said the comment period ends on April 9 and if applicable, members and their departments should comment.

Sam Brody shared a draft email of a letter to be sent to faculty with a request to share stories about Core 34. This can lead to a potential meeting with KBOR leaders. When these stories are gathered, a statement can be defined. A suggestion was made to add that both positive and negative stories can be shared. When presenting an argument, both sides should be documented. Sam will share this with Faculty Senate on April 4.

Centralized syllabi repository. Victor shared a link to an article in Chronicles of Higher Education on this. KU is trying to centralize the syllabi, which raises questions. Faculty senators will be interested as it is a critical concern. A centralized repository is convenient for administrators and students in transfer processes. There could be unintended consequences. There are academic freedom issues, as well.

Meeting adjourned.