Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting Minutes from October 10, 2024 – Brendan Falen motions to approve. Trina Weekly seconds the motion. Minutes approved by acclamation. 

Guest Speaker Presentation —

Dr. Nicole Hodges Persley: Vice Provost of Community Impact & Associate Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies

Nicole goes over what the future of the new Office of Community Impact may look like and its relationship with the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX (which is within the Chancellor’s Office):

• How her role may be different going forward from when Nicole was Vice Provost in DEIB Office. 
• Office of Community Impact and Engagement is about creating partnerships and showing the work that the KU community does. 
• Jomella Watson-Thompson will also work with Nicole. 

Student Senate Report

Student Senate is advocating for improvements in campus parking:

Student Body Vice President, Evanna Dominic, is presenting to the Parking Commission at the 11/22/24 meeting the following proposals:

• Free 2-hour parking in the front row of the Rec Center for all students regardless of events occurring on campus, including game days.
• A parking ticket warning system: for the first ticket, there is a payment option to the KU Campus Cupboard.

Student Senate has hand-signed and delivered 110 letters to faculty to create partnerships. Working with Director of Facilities to have hammocks around campus. 

Working to have fentanyl test strips and Narcan readily available across campus. An idea is to put them with the AED kits in residence halls. 

Student Senate is also partnering with HERO to create educational materials about administering Narcan. These materials can then be distributed across campus. 

Staff Senate Report

• Teri has met with Provost twice since last University Senate meeting to talk about DEI climate and the docking survey that will be done again in Spring 2025. Also talked about Professional Development funds as those continue to increase each year. Last year the funding ran out and needed to dip into other funding. 
• Have a meeting coming up with Angie Loving and Chari Young to talk about Professional Development funding and brainstorm ways to move forward. Some units don’t have the funding for staff to obtain professional development. Also plan to talk about governance for staff at KU Med Center since they don’t have staff governance. 
• The Staff Senate Personnel Committee has been looking at the Inclement Weather Policy relating to remote and hybrid workers. This isn’t part of the Senate code so likely won’t come to University Senate. 

Faculty Senate Report

From the Faculty Senate side, several impact statements were gathered from faculty across campus related to Core 34 and its implications in various departments - and the impact it’s having on their curriculums and enrollment.

Sam is working on a report to share regarding this

University Senate Report

SenEx approved the proposed changes for Article X regarding updates to the graduate student membership on University Senate committees – to specify graduate student membership. This will be reviewed at the University Senate meeting in December. 

The Environmental and Sustainability Committee finished its 21-day review. That is being sent to the Provost Office for review and approval. 

Student Senate recently passed a resolution regarding the Green New Deal with respect to environmental requests on campus and working with administration on these initiatives: 

• This will work well with the formation of the Environmental and Sustainability Committee, which began as a student initiative. 
• Charges will be drafted and the Environmental and Sustainability Committee will likely start spring semester 2025. 

Josh and Sam met with Ombuds Office to discuss the annual report. Josh will contribute to the report regarding the governance perspective. 

Josh and Sam met with Provost and talked about faculty perspectives and AI on campus. Also talked about impact of reducing the usage of the 75-minute class model in lieu of 50 minutes classes on M,W,F. This is still in early stages but a centralized scheduling model is being talked about to utilize the space on campus more efficiently. 

Unfinished Business —

Three amendments passed by University Senate passed earlier this year regarding Graduate Research Funding, Open-Access policy, and International Affairs Committee. These amendments are pending Provost approval. Provost is aware of these and taking a further look at a few components. The Environmental and Sustainability Committee just finished 21-day review which has been sent to Provost. 

New Business —

The Calendar Committee has been looking at the Fall 2025 calendar:

• There has been significant feedback regarding this semester – many are not pleased about starting and ending so late. 
• There are only 30 days between the two semesters. 

Because the current Fall 2025 calendar is like Fall 2024, the Calendar Committee looked at possible changes and has made recommendations to Josh:

• The recommendation includes having the start date and end date of the Fall 2025 calendar be a week earlier. 
• This will also put Fall Break right at 8 weeks into the semester. 

Due to the time-sensitive nature, it likely won’t go the regular route of approvals. There may be an e-mail vote to expedite things. This may be discussed at the Board of Regents meeting in December. 

The Calendar Committee has also been looking at policy regarding Stop Week and Finals Week and the expectations regarding those 2 weeks. There have been several questions regarding what is allowable so clarifications of this policy may be helpful. 

The Academic Policies and Procedures (AP&P) Committee had open forums for all the proposed discontinuances: 

• The committee voted to discontinue those programs requesting discontinuance - except for the Undergraduate Certificate in Leadership Studies. There is a delay in that decision. 
• Josh asks the committee if there is any discussion on any of the proposed discontinuances and if there is a motion to accept the recommendations by the AP&P Committee. This will then go to the Provost office for the ultimate decision. 
• Motion made to accept AP&P recommendations. Motion seconded. Approved by acclamation. 

University Senate goes to closed session to discuss items relating to personnel matters. 

University Senate comes out of closed session. Meeting adjourned.