Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from February 14, 2023 and February 28, 2023. Motion to approve by Teri Chambers. Seconded by Chris Wallace. Motion passed unanimously.

Student Senate Report

1. A couple small funding bills. One funded a student organization (Her Campus) to host a formal for all KU students.
2. Constitutional amendment to reduce duplication in the budget code, which is currently overly complex.
3. Elections are upcoming (week of April 18th). Students can vote on Rock Chalk Central. Joint senate meeting will be April 26th.
   1. March and April are important turnover months. Student Senate has binders for all the leadership positions, which provide roles and resources.

Staff Senate Report

1. Elections are ongoing. The ballot is currently open. We had more nominees than openings. As of yesterday morning, we already had 200 votes.
   1. Transition meeting will be on April 12th, when we will elect the new University Senate representatives.
2. We had our second meeting to work on the Staff Docking survey process. The group will be a standing committee and will be co-chaired by Chris Wallace and Jeff Chasen. It will review staff surveys and provide recommendations. The goals it to have 1 or 2 presentations to campus before the end of the semester, work on recommendations over the summer, and be ready to take action in the fall.
3. Jessica met with the Chancellor yesterday and discussed the survey response team. Jessica also proposed having a KBOR-debriefing meeting with all the Governance leaders. The Chancellor was supportive and will discuss with others. Other universities do this and find it very useful.

Faculty Senate Report

1. Nate thinks a KBOR-debriefing meeting is a good idea.
2. We finished the COACHE public engagement sessions. The working groups are working on recommendations, which will be presented at a public presentation with the Provost.
3. KBOR meeting is tomorrow. The rpk Group recommendations are on the agenda.

University Senate Report

1. Shared Governance
   1. We have a draft of a vision statement that came out of the visioning event. We will share this and gather more feedback from campus. The hope is that this document/vision statement will integrate the strategic plan into the community.
      1. Alessia suggested various ways to increase visibility of the vision statement, such as having the various points play as an alternative to “hold music.”
   2. As part of Charge 4, the P&R Committee will host an annual public forum with the CFO.
   3. We will also be working on Charge 2, which is defining roles and responsibilities.
   4. Charge 3 will be closely connected with COACHE, as we heard that faculty really want transparency.
2. The Excused Absences policy was approved by the Chancellor. We will have an informational session for campus.

Unfinished Business —

Discussed the ongoing issue of having quorum in FacEx.

University Senate Reorganization

1. Ani has started working on revising the CODE to reflect the planned changes:
   1. Each senate sends 18 representatives to University Senate
   2. Amendments to the USRR must go through an additional Faculty Senate vote to maintain faculty control over academic policy.
      1. This vote will occur during the 21-day campus review so that the additional vote does not delay the process.
2. What happens if Faculty Senate rejects an amendment? It would go back to SenEx/University Senate for further discussion and changes.
   1. Some concern about the optics of this.
3. What about changes to non-academic policy? It wouldn’t go to Faculty Senate. This isn’t currently reflected in the policy edits, so we need to add clarification. Ani will delineate the articles concerning academic policy and that will therefore require a Faculty Senate vote. This will help with optics.

Academic Forgiveness Policy

SenEx has already approved this for a University Senate vote, but since the senate didn’t have quorum at the last meeting, this has been moved to the next meeting.

New Business —

Bachelor’s Degree – Capstone Requirement

1. In response to the KU Core alignment with KBOR Gen Ed, we are updating the USRR requirements for the bachelor’s degree to cover the old Core Goal 6 (capstone requirement).
2. Do we need to specify the number of capstone credits?
   1. Yes, 3 credits
3. Does this mean that units that do not have defined capstone courses must create them? Many smaller units do not have the capacity to do this.
   1. Whatever units are doing now for students to satisfy Core Goal 6 (such as using a different course), will still satisfy this.
   2. We should edit the language to formally state this option (e.g., “… or equivalent, as determined by the relevant academic unit”).
   3. Ani will show this language to Susan Klusmeier and Jon Brumberg from UCCC to get their input as well.