Approval of Previous Minutes —

Approval of Meeting Minutes from October 1, 2024. Evanna Dominic motions to approve the minutes. Marissa Marshall seconds. Minutes approved.

Student Senate Report

Undergraduate (Evanna Dominic)

Student Senate has been doing work on their undergraduate platforms. General Assembly meeting tomorrow.Evanna would like to provide more information on The Hawk’s Nest. This is an initiative that Evanna and DaNae Estabine started last year: 

• Hawk’s Nest is an open pub/games and social area on the first floor of Memorial Union.
• It has games such as connect four, ax throwing (axes are not real but similar concept), snacks, mocktails, beverages, and alcoholic beverages.
• It’s open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Graduate (Brendan Falen)

Graduate Student Advisory Board (GSAB) positions are now filled. GSAB is going through a constitutional review currently.

Staff Senate Report

Good meeting with the provost a couple of weeks ago.

Talked about some of the surveys:

• Great Places to Work survey goes to all faculty, staff, and student employees (undergraduate/graduate).
•  The provost is supportive of having multiple surveys as the data is helpful for going forward and making decisions.

Also talked about professional development fund utilization:

• The chair of Staff Senate Professional Development Committee provided information going back several years to show how much professional development funds are utilized. They are fully utilized and maxed.
• Staff Senate plans to connect with Angie Loving and HR to see how additional professional development funds may potentially be paid for.
• Marissa and Teri plan to meet with Chari Young to discuss the professional development expansion and Wellness Week.

Merging of Student Centers: if there are questions, please follow up with Tammara Durham.

Faculty Senate Report

• Sam went to Campus Constituent Survey Meeting.
  • The COACHE survey will be administered again in Spring 2025. Faculty will likely want to know what has been implemented since the last survey in 2022.
  • Faculty Affairs has made a handout which highlights items that have been implemented since 2022.

University Senate Report

• Josh and Sam also met with Provost and discussed surveys and HLC:
  • Had introduction to Great Places to Work survey. This will be a supplemental survey and will not be replacing other surveys.
  • The COACHE survey will be in Spring 2025 - there will be some discussion in months ahead on the implementation of this survey.
  • HLC: We are still deficient in a couple of areas related to syllabi. There are some courses that still do not have syllabi. There will be an audit for syllabi to see where we are deficient.
• University Senate may receive some Calendar Committee matters coming up relating to the academic calendar.
• The Environmental and Sustainability Committee formation is out for 21-day review.

New Business —

High flex Classes at KU: KU students can attend classes in-person or online. Brendan mentioned the School of Professional Studies was told that KU is currently not offering high flex formats. Any thoughts or insights?

Brendan Falen enjoyed high flex classes as a student. It was part in-person and part online, but the online sections were smaller with the professor, so it was more personable.

KU has proven it can do high flex during the pandemic, but it may not have stuck due to a preference for students to utilize the space we have on campus.

However, there are some situations in which high flex can be beneficial such as graduate students that are doing field work and non-traditional students that are working full-time.

Meeting adjourned