Approval of Previous Minutes —

Approval of Minutes from Sept 1, 2026: 

A committee member mentions that Roger Marshall is referred to as Robert Marhsall in the minutes. This was inadvertent and will be corrected. No other corrections or objections. Minutes approved by unanimous consent. 

Student Senate Report

Student Senate has elected its University Senate SenEx representatives : Kianna Csolle, (Graduate Student Body President), Keegan Tuell, and Esperanca Monteiro Henson. 

Staff Senate Report

• Caty and Jessica met with Provost Mafi on September 11th along with Crystal Nevins, University Governance’s new liaison for HR. 
• Talked about new employee lounge for faculty and staff which is being built in Budig. 
• There is new approach for Provost Town Halls in future months. 
• Asked about Wellness Week during winter holiday – should know the outcome soon. 
• The Great Colleges to Work Survey subcommittee is continuing to meet and plans to have engagement sessions this fall. 

• The USS-UPS Council was invited to meet with a KBOR group at their December meeting in Topeka so will be sending delegates to that meeting. Also hope to send delegates to November meeting at K-State. 

   

Faculty Senate Report

We had our first FacEx and Faculty Senate meeting last week and approved Faculty Senate committee charges.

The committees will be meeting soon. 

University Senate Report

• Travis Goff plans to do a presentation at the Oct 1 University Senate meeting. This will be at the stadium. 
• The Chancellor plans to come to University Senate on Jan 28th. 
• Have been communicating with Adam Hamilton’s office but the dates of availability and University Senate schedule aren’t lining up currently. 

Unfinished Business —

Revisions of Academic Policies & Procedures Committee charges : 

This was postponed from the Sept 1st meeting. Charlotte, chair of AP&P, made some revisions to the “specific charges” : 

• “Keep” Work with Office of the Registrar on an updated FacEx form for exceptions to university-wide academic policy”  and  “Collaborate with Office of the Registrar on policy updates relating to grading, withdrawals, and competency based education.” 
• “Remove”  Evaluate the impact of the Excused Absences Policy on constituent workload. Explore what education and university resources can be implemented to facilitate the related processes. Review the make-up quiz component of Article II. Section 2.5.  “Replace this with” Monitor progress on the Jawhawks Elevate proposal to develop a University Wide Excused Absence Request System, provide feedback to workgroup and report back to University Senate as needed. 

Larry asks for motion to approve these changes proposed by the chair of AP&P.

Caty motions to approve. Esperanca seconds. No objections or discussion. The changes are approved by unanimous consent. 

Retirees Rights and Benefits Committee: 

• There isn’t a chair for this committee and currently the chair needs to be an “active” faculty or staff. 
• The number of active faculty/staff members on the committee is small and currently  are all new members. 
• There is discussion about the possibility of a rotating chair.
• There is interest in being on the committee with retirees. An e-mail went out to a subgroup of retiree e-mails. Retirees responded and plan to join the next meeting as guests. 
• There is discussion among the committee about allowing a retiree to chair. There has been previous discussion about retirees having affiliate status, but the Governance Office itself doesn’t have appropriate oversight that is needed. 
• There is discussion among SenEx about changing the RRB membership to say any voting member of the committee may be appointed as chair.

• There also is discussion about clarifying the ex-officio roles so that both Office of the Provost and Endacott Society ex-officio members are non-voting. 

   

The revised proposal to Article X, Section II Membership for RRB is: The Committee shall also include the President of the Endacott Society or designate, who has retired from the University of Kansas, and a member from the Office of the Provost, both of whom are ex-officio, non-voting members. Any voting member may be appointed as chair. 

• Larry asks for motion to approve the revised language : Eric motions to approve. Haiying seconds. No further discussion or objections. Motion is approved unanimously without objections. The motion passes.

• This will go onto University Senate, but SenEx takes a vote to put this temporarily in place until University Senate reviews and votes, so that any voting member can be appointed as chair temporarily until formally reviewed by University Senate : Eric motions to temporarily allow any voting member of RRB to be chair. Caty seconds. The motion passes unanimously.

New Business —

Larry reviews an article about Auburn University and the dissolve of the faculty senate. The committee discusses the article. 

The committee also discusses AAU and its encouragement of shared governance among AAU universities. 

The committee reviews another article about college students losing the ability to read. 

The committee discusses the article along with the role of AI. 

Meeting adjourned.