Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from July 17, 2024. Motion to approve by Evanna Dominic. Seconded by Trina Weekly. Motion passed unanimously

Guest Speaker Presentation —

Jean Redeker gave presentation on the Preparation for the Mock Site Review Team Visit on Sept 9, 2024: Higher Learning Commission Comprehensive Evaluation.

The actual Peer Review Team Visit will be March 3-4, 2025

Jessica Chilcoat plans to go to the mock visit on Sept 9, 2024 (in the KS Union 5th floor Ballroom) from 3:20 – 3:50pm as a representative from University Governance.

University Governance specifically invited to attend this session, but there are also multiple forums throughout the day that people may attend.

Student Senate Report

Evanna Dominic, Student Body Vice President, mentions the Student Senate is working on all the committee appointments to the University Senate. Evanna along with DaNae and Brendan have been finalizing these appointments. They recently elected their University Senators so are matching up University Senators to appropriate committees, including SenEx.

Staff Senate Report

Staff Senate has had two full regular Senate meetings in August and a Staff Senate Executive meeting so far. Working on approving the charges. A primary item on the agenda currently is the Strategic Hiring process. There are a lot of questions that staff have and the impact this may have on them.

Although it has been said people are not being laid off, there is concern that if a position is not filled - or it’s put somewhere else- what will the impact of the workload be on staff. There are several other questions that Teri plans to discuss with the Provost during their meeting on Friday. The Staff Senate is also working on information about voting. The Public Relations team is working on this as it is an election year

Faculty Senate Report

Preview of some items Faculty Senate will be hearing about soon: The Asian American Faculty Staff Council (AAFSC) unanimously voted to call for a reinstatement of Dr. Franklin Tao who was let go many years ago. He has been found not guilty of all charges in the eyes of the law so there is an effort to have Dr. Tao reinstated so Faculty Senate will likely be hearing from a representative from the AAFSC about this. The Faculty Senate will either sign their statement or issue its own statement.

Sam talked with Ric Steele, the Vice Provost of Graduate Affairs. Dr. Steele mentioned there is a new graduate mentoring policy they are working on. This relates to when students have a problem with an advisor. It is not clear to whom graduate students can talk to. Faculty Senate will likely be hearing more about this soon.

There will likely be discussion about the Union as well.

University Senate Report

We are still finalizing some committee appointments across University and Faculty Senate committees. Josh, Terri, Sam, and DaNae all attended the Provost retreat in early August and did some training with matrix management and horizontal alignment; and rewriting the Jayhawks Rising initiatives on the fly. Some of the Jayhawks Rising wording may be changing.

A big takeaway from the retreat was getting to interact with many deans, assistant deans, vice provosts and units across campus. Other general updates from the summer meetings are that we took out all the excused absence charges from all the committees that were discussing them (to bring back to SenEx) and began again. We have charges now on this topic and a FAQ document, but it is not a finished product. Many items still need to be addressed but there is some momentum that there may be a testing center in 2025 and an expansion of testing centers across campus.

A guideline on best practices and recommendations around AI is another item we are looking at. Doug Ward and Kathryn Conrad have a lot of valuable insights

Unfinished Business —

The Environmental Committee was introduced in Spring 2024 by the Student Senate. The idea is to have a new University Senate committee related to environmental sustainability.

During the Spring it had been drafted out but ran out of time to propose it. The main questions on this committee formation are related to what the membership is composed of and what departments have representation. Jessica Chilcoat asked if either a faculty or a staff member could chair this committee.

This needs to go to the University Senate and they vote, and then it goes for 21-day campus review.

Josh will reach out to DaNae by e-mail and ask about the committee structure changes that are proposed and make sure it is ok for either Faculty or Staff to chair. Then SenEx will vote by e-mail.

The Gateway District Ad Hoc Committee came out of the Planning & Resources (P&R) Committee. The P & R Committee recommended breaking off charges related to the Gateway District and the crossing at 23rd & Iowa to solely be part of an Ad Hoc Gateway District Committee. The Ad Hoc Committee can then have discussions with the related offices to make sure all campus constituents are thought about. There is not a P & R Chair yet.

Vote to approve charge(s) for Ad Hoc - Sam moves and Brendan seconds.

Ad Hoc Committee charges approved - will be sent to University Senate for approval.

New Business —

General questions about Simple Syllabus and getting Faculty input regarding how it’s going. Josh has some questions because it almost seems less accessible to students because they must use a web browser to use it. Josh has questions that he’d like to run by people. 

Be on the lookout for a Fall gathering in the evening hours.

Meeting adjourned