Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from Feb. 27, 2024. Motion to approve by Teri Chambers. Seconded by Kevin Barnes. Motion passed unanimously.

Student Senate Report

Student Senate is moving into its block-and-line funding allocations. All of Student Senate funding has passed within that body, and it will move through the Provost’s Office and KBOR. We are continuing to look at environmental impacts on campus and the logistics of the move-out donation program. The Spooner Hall revitalization effort is still ongoing.

Elections are coming up soon in mid-April.

Staff Senate Report

Staff Senate elections are open this week. The organizational meeting will be next month.

Faculty Senate Report

The message requesting nominations for the KBOR award will soon be sent to departments. We are still accepting nominations for Faculty Senate.

University Senate Report

There was discussion of the ethics requirement petition at the last University Senate meeting, where the consensus was to send it back to SenEx for any further action. We could consider sending it on to an additional body for more appropriate action, but we can take this up further in Unfinished Business.

The various parties involved in work on the excused absences policy met a couple weeks ago. There was discussion of survey data and other observations. Our next step will be an educational deliverable, likely developed this summer. Josh suggested waiting until after the close of this semester to see if there is any movement with a testing center. The goal will be to have something prior to the finalization of fall syllabi.

Victor mentioned a survey done by CTE regarding student attendance that had a very high response rate. This data could offer insights into the excused absences work.

Unfinished Business —

International Affairs Committee Membership

Josh reviewed the IA Committee’s recommendation to redistribute its membership equally across constituencies. Suzanne Scales shared a draft of the specific CODE changes.

Josh proposed moving forward with discussion and a vote on this policy change now and waiting to get input from chair of other committees regarding their membership before recommending additional changes. This will allow us to investigate potential limits to equal representation, specifically how the specific responsibilities of each committee would impact faculty control of curriculum.

There was discussion and clarification regarding the proposed student representation on the committee and whether we will be successful in finding volunteers for the additional staff and student spots. Caty shared that we get a decent amount of interest in this committee from staff and that she has spoken with DaNae and Brendan Falen about potential strategies for increasing student interest. Josh will follow up with DaNae about this.

Motion to approve by Brendan Falen. Seconded by Sam Brody.

VOTE: 8 in favor. 0 not in favor. Motion passes.

P&R Committee Recommendation

The former chair of the Planning & Resources Committee recommended the creation of a sub-committee to continue monitoring of the Gateway District Project, as per their charges and the recommendation of the FY2023 P&R Committee. This would enable the P&R Committee to focus on their other, more general charges. The Committee’s business has concluded for the academic year due to a chair vacancy.

Josh would like SenEx input on this matter. One option is to create a University Senate ad hoc committee. Another option is to create a sub-committee of the P&R Committee. Each option involves difference logistics and procedures for establishing the committee, its membership, and its charges. Additional questions include reporting structure and oversight power. Caty pointed out the challenges of asking P&R to create a sub-committee in the fall, given that there will be a brand-new chair.

SenEx concluded that they would send a proposal to the University Senate to create a 6-person ad hoc committee, with membership split evenly amongst faculty, staff, and students. The proposal will specify that specific charges are forthcoming.

No opposition. Approved by acclimation.

New Business —

Brendan shared that the GTA pay increase went out yesterday, which retroactively addresses the 2.5% state employee pay increase. GTAC did not approve this amount and attempted to negotiate further. HR and the Office of Graduate Studies are working on the back-pay process.

Teri Chambers shared that there is a new IT policy that requires any software purchase to be approved by IT. However, there do not seem to be any written guidelines and the form requests seemingly unrelated information. This has also delayed the use of R and Python packages that are KU-authored. Teri asked if anyone else has had issues with this. Chris added that this has come out of the financial initiative to limit redundant licenses. There seems to be issues with the execution.

Brendan asked whether SenEx will be involved in the hiring process for the Vice Chancellor of Research. Amy Mendenhall is the co-chair of that search committee, which includes Victor. They are still reviewing applications and have not begun interviews yet. She anticipates that Governance will be involved in the campus visits.