Approval of Previous Minutes —

Minutes presented from the previous SenEx meeting on February 24th. 

First and second motion made. No objections or clarifications raised. 

Guest Speaker Presentation —

Ward presents on the Gateway Project, and goes over how it relates to finances, athletic implications, challenges in higher education, and concerns with a large stadium investment. 

Student Senate Report

• The required student fee passed Finance Council last week. 
• This includes an increase to areas such as Safe Ride and SAPEC and decrease in the Student Senate activity fee that goes towards the Wednesday Night block funding. 
• Hilltop was decreased and UKD was defunded. However, there are other avenues for the UDK to obtain funding which they are implementing. They have applied for block funding. 

Staff Senate Report

Staff Senate leadership has an upcoming meeting with Provost Mafi. 

Topics to be discussed include the Ombuds Search, and transition for the  Docking Institute Survey and Great Colleges to Work For. 

Faculty Senate Report

• Faculty Senate met last week and discussed and voted on change in policy surrounding restricted research. 
• The Restricted Research Committee is a committee of faculty that review proposals for restricted research. 
• Over the past years there has been difficulty filling this committee due to bandwidth limitations. The committee also doesn’t meet in the summer, so reviews have been delayed. 
• The restricted research applications, reviews, and approvals will now happen in the Office of Research. Once a year, the Office of Research will give Faculty Senate a report on the status of restricted research proposals. This will now go to Provost and Chancellor for approval. 
• Faculty Senate will soon vote on the Open Access policy. 

University Senate Report

• Poppy and Misty drafted a letter regarding a vote of no confidence. 
• The intent was more for voices to be heard and to share with leadership, rather than to request formal action.
• Preliminary results have been shared with Chancellor’s Office and KBOR. 
• Continuing the dean candidate interviews for School of Education and Health Sciences and working on the Ombuds search. 

New Business —

• Poppy wants to put on everyone’s radar that there is an upcoming syllabus policy as it relates to AI Usage. We don’t need to vote, but we could discuss it for feedback.
• Student representatives share feedback that it would be helpful to include Center for Teaching Excellence as a guidance if instructors don’t include information about an AI policy in their syllabus. 
• Having something standard to fall back on would be helpful. Complete prohibition of AI is not realistic. 
• It was also asked about how KU Med Center colleagues will integrate with Governance. 
• KU Med Center and KU Lawrence/Edwards are still two different payroll systems so it may be premature. 
• There is further discussion on the policy process and possibly implementing a Jayhawks Elevate idea that involves a ticketing system. This could take some time but stay tuned. 
• Cinnamon Blair is coming to speak at the next University Senate meeting (March 26).

Meeting adjourned.