Approval of Previous Minutes —

Approval of Meeting Minutes from SenEx meeting on November 5, 2024: Brendan Falen motions to approve. Trina Weekly seconds the motion. Minutes approved. 

Student Senate Report

Evanna Dominic - Undergraduate 

• Student Executive Council is having meeting at 6pm this evening (Nov 19, 2024). 
• Student Senate working on t-shirts and polos for students – also started a business casual dress code for General Assembly meetings. 
• Evanna will be presenting parking platforms to the Parking Commission including:
  • Free 2-hour parking in front of Rec Center on Game Day
  • Donation option for parking tickets to the KU Campus Cupboard
• Planning collaboration events with faculty and KU campus organizations. As mentioned previously, 110 hand-signed written letters were sent to faculty and staff to promote collaboration. 
• Student Senate had a Narcan and fentanyl test strip tabling event in which Student Senate gave out educational materials to students. Worked with KU HERO organization to put together the research on these materials. 
• At Chancellor’s meeting last week, Evanna proposed idea of having a potential hand sign – like “Beak Em” sign used by KU band. This is still in the works – the goal is to help with unification. 
• Working with Kim Warren and Melinda Fowles on Jayhawk Hub in which resources for students are in one place. 

Brendan Falen - Graduate

• Brendan submitted a full constitutional revision to Graduate Student Advisory Board (GSAB) - this wasn’t received as expected so they’re going back to drawing board and hoping to review again before the end of 2024. 
• Had good meetings with Provost and Chancellor.
• Working on having an open forum for international students to answer questions and hear their concerns. 

Staff Senate Report

• Had a nice conversation with Provost and discussed some of the TDX concerns. Some ideas are in the works. 
• The facilities leadership staff came to the November Staff Senate meeting including David Vranicar, Callie Long, Shawn Harding, and Cameron Lauer. They discussed some of the changes with the One KU initiative. 
• If there is a concern with facilities and operations processes, please report it rather than just talk about it to others. This way it can be addressed. 
• Chari Young and Angie Loving will be speaking at the December Staff Senate meeting. 

Faculty Senate Report

Faculty Senate will meet later in the week to discuss Core 34 and letter of support for Dr. Franklin Tao’s reinstatement. Sam plans to go to KBOR meeting in Manhattan, KS. 

University Senate Report

• Josh met with Chancellor. The Kansas legislature is creating a budget this year in place of using the budget created by Governor Kelly. The governor is still required to present a budget so there will be two budgets in a sense. Much of the budget is fixed in allocation, but it’s unclear if the legislature creating their own budget this year will have any impact on KU. Chancellor mentioned about 80% of budget is fixed but it’s unclear how the remaining 20% put together by legislator will impact KU. 
• Josh also met with Provost. There is discussion about centralized scheduling on campus. This would include standard 50-minute classes on M,W,F and 75-minute classes on T, H. 
• The School of Business currently has M,W classes for 75 minutes so it will significantly impact them if the Centralized Scheduling Model goes into effect. 
• The context around the Centralized Scheduling Model is so that space is efficiently utilized:
  • Currently, there are space challenges with the enrollment/retention increase.
  • The goal is to potentially have models in place for Fall 2025. 
  • Concern that faculty will be spending extra time during the summer attempting to redesign their classes to accommodate the changes, but faculty pay doesn’t start until middle of August. 
• The revised academic calendar was approved by SenEx and has been sent to Provost for review and approval:
  • The goal is for KBOR to review at the December meeting. 

This essentially moves the fall semester start date / end date forward 7 days for Fall 2025. Fall Break stays the same but the semester is more evenly split because Fall Break will be right at  8 weeks into the semester. 
 

Unfinished Business —

Josh met with Jen Roberts in Academic Affairs and other colleagues regarding the Excused Absence Policy and next steps – and how to help everyone involved and find a balance. 

There is concern that there will be no improvement if something isn’t changed.

Additional concern is having enough space for a testing center for excused absence since space is already a challenge. 

• The SAC has moved to the Price Testing Center which may provide space. 
• The centralized scheduling proposal may help with putting people in buildings that don’t need to be renovated, and buildings with deferred maintenance can be tended to. 
• Suggestion brought up about using non-academic buildings for testing such as the lower level of the Kansas Union - to help with space issues. Also, having a hybrid model could potentially help with space. 
• Josh thinks the non-academic building space for testing may be a creative solution. 

Excused Absence Policy: 

• One solution to the Excused Absence Policy is separating the word “illness” out of current section of the Code and making a separate section regarding illnesses. There is support for this. 

• A second option is don’t change anything regarding the policy language itself - but have additional components to accompany the policy that may be needed, such as:
• A testing center
• A centralized body that makes decisions regarding absences for anything in the policy: 
  • Students would submit absence documentation to confidential central place. 
  • The centralized body keeps the information private and  e-mails all the faculty that would need to be informed that an absence meets the requirements for an excused absence saying, “please accommodate this absence.” Peer schools do this which seems to work well. 
  • This helps take pressure off faculty to make the decision of what is excusable. 

• Third option is not specifying illness but referencing that if students feel a legitimate absence isn’t being excused, they can reach out to a particular body.

There could be some concerns regarding ‘privacy’ with a centralized body or board reviewing absences related to illnesses. It’s important to ensure students are aware of resources available to them such as the Student Access Center and Support Case Management Center to address possible concerns regarding needing to be absent and communication to faculty, especially if for a more extended period. 

Other questions from faculty on the policy may surround absence related to conferences, university club sports, and online courses. There have been examples of absences not being excused for delays caused by travel and losing power. 

Students may not know all their options and what their student fees cover regarding Watkins and Student Access Center. 

Students may not always need to go to the doctor but shouldn’t go to class if sick. 

Students also don’t always know what the excused absence policy is or the expectations. It can vary broadly between instructors. 

Overall, the goal is to find the balance of being accommodating to students while also being reasonable to faculty – and to implement the policy with minimal issues or concerns. 

New Business —

New business brought up regarding steps that could be taken to reaffirm commitments surrounding the Student Resolution on the Green New Deal since it may take some time to get the Environmental and Sustainability Committee up and going. 

A “letter of support” was mentioned to share that there is support from faculty and staff, and it’s not solely student support. 

Josh suggests this be presented to the University Senate as a whole and be put on the agenda as a discussion item so that University Senate could review the resolution prior to the next meeting. 

Meeting adjourned.