Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from September 12, 2024: Brendan Mattingly motions to approve the minutes. Jessica Chilcoat seconds the motion. Minutes approved.

Student Senate Report

Evanna Dominic - Undergraduate

•    Had successful General Assembly meeting last night with many students in attendance from several student organizations. 
•    The student executive members are working on their platforms. 
•    Student Senate is looking for student appointments for the Student Advisory Board. 
•    Recently welcomed freshman student senators to Student Senate. 
 

Brendan Falen - Graduate

•    Brendan is looking at graduate student representation on the university senate committees. 
•    All Graduate Student Advisory Board positions are now filled. 
 

Staff Senate Report

• Staff Senate has been working on potential IT code changes. 
• Want to have open communication about IT changes, such as laptops and international travel policies (and relevant IT changes) – what is the best way to get information out?
• Potentially make connection with University Senate ACEC (Academic Computing and Electronic Communications) Committee to open IT channels. 
• Teri met several people from KU Med Center at the Staff Leadership Summit. 
  • The staff at KU Med don’t have a form of staff governance. 
  • Teri would like to know the interest level at KU Med Center. 
• How will governance evolve in the future? How might governance need to change to accommodate different campuses across the state? 
• The USS/UPS Council met with other reagent institutions. Talk about docking survey in the spring along with Great Places to Work survey. More information is coming soon on this. 
   

Faculty Senate Report

The faculty senate executive committee is continuing to staff committees and looking at redefining some of the committees. There will be more discussion to come relating to the faculty union and governance. 

The Standards and Procedures on Promotion and Tenure (SPPT) Committee has a requirement that one member of the committee also be a member of the AAUP (American Association of University Professors). 

• Previously AAUP on KU campus was more of like a club that consisted of faculty who had additional interest in faculty affairs area, but AAUP will be officially part of the local union level – so everyone who is a member of the union is also a member of AFT/AAUP.
• May need to discuss revising the composition of the committee in some way. 

The ad-hoc subcommittee for Core 34 is working on the impact of Core 34:

• Many statements regarding Core 34 were received last spring.
• Hoping to get one narrative from the various impact statements. This is currently in progress. 

Alex Red Corn will be speaking at the next Faculty Senate meeting. 

University Senate Report

• Many academic discontinuances are going through process currently:
  • AP&P (Academic Policies & Procedures) Committee finishing those. 
  • These will likely be ready for discussion at the November University Senate meeting. 
• Josh is looking at the graduate student representation on University Senate committees:
  • This came from graduate student body president, Brendan Falen. 
  • Some committees explicitly state the student representation and how many representatives are from undergraduate/graduate. 
  • Others do not specify - graduate student representation can be missed. Would like to look at potential changes so graduate student representation is included in the language. 
• Next month will have meeting on excused absence policy updates:
  • There are still some uncertainties around the policy. 
  • Will likely have more updates as work through those. 
• Met with Provost Office regarding HLC:
  • Will see some action items regarding that in the next few months.
  •  More information to come on how campus can volunteer to help with the process. 
• Josh talked with Charlotte Church, chair of the Calendar Committee. There has been some discussion about the fall calendar for next year and the University policy around stop week and finals week. Additional clarification would be helpful for items relating to those two weeks, especially items outside of exams (projects and other assignments). Would like to review some data collected from the student side on this topic. 

Unfinished Business —

The formation of the Environmental and Sustainability Committee is in progress:

 A brief background: the committee was first introduced last spring by the current study body president, DaNae Estabine (who was student body vice president last spring). The study body administration then worked on the committee formation to look at environmental matters on campus. 

University Senate has now taken the proposal up this fall.

This was presented at the last University Senate meeting, and we got a lot of good feedback from stakeholders when it went out for campus review. 

The comments were sent back to Sen Ex and some changes were implemented from the feedback: 

• The title of the committee was changed to Environmental and Sustainability Committee.
• The composition of the members was updated to have a broader range of participation. Subject matter experts may serve as ex-officio members. 
• A faculty member or staff member may be appointed as chair.

New Business —

The University Senate voted to approve changes and implementation of committee: Evanna Dominic motions to approve the installation of the committee. Jessica Chilcoat seconds the motion. 

A poll was sent out to University Senate members to vote on the code amendment change to Article X, Section 1 and Section 2 (CODE 10.1 and 10.2) to establish the new committee. 

The motion passed unanimously.

This will be sent out for 21-day campus review.  Josh thanks the student body for driving this initiative. Josh thinks there will be a lot of good collaboration. 

Meeting adjourned.