Faculty Council Minutes - Oct. 25, 2022
College of Arts and Letters
2022-2023 Faculty Council Meeting Minutes
October 25, 2022, Webex
- Call to Order
Motion to begin; Second; Motion Approved; Meeting begins. - Roll Call
Present: Allred, Amialchuk, Baltus, Beatty, Benton, Black, Branson, Caceres, Carpenter, Cook, Crookston, Damschroder, Dudley, Emonds, Feldmeier, Foss, Gamble, Geiger, Grazzini, Heberle, Hey, Jin, Kistner, Lawrence (for Alam), McBane, McNamara, Mezo, Miner, Monteleone, Montpetit, Nemeth, Peralta, Sakowski, Sapci, Schlemper, Smith, Stauch, Stover, Taylor, Whittaker, Yaklin (41)
Absent: Alamina, Christman, Ferris, Semaan, Thompson-Casado (6)
Guests: Gregory, Keith, Lingan, Montes, Sullivan (5) - Approval of Agenda and Minutes
Meeting agenda submitted for approval; Motion to approve; Second; Vote: Agenda Approved.
Minutes from September 27, 2022, meetings submitted for approval; Motion to approve; Second; Vote: Minutes Approved. - Dean’s Report: Mel Gregory
Academic Personnel Calendar:
Oct. 3: pre-tenure dossiers from candidates forwarded to DPCs;
Oct. 19: tenure (years 3-5) & promotion dossiers forwarded from DPCs to department chairs;
Oct. 21: sabbaticals forwarded from CAL Dean’s office to University Committee on Sabbaticals;
Nov. 14: University Committee on Sabbaticals forwards sabbaticals to Provost;
Nov. 14: tenure/promotion dossiers from chairs to CCAP;
Nov. 14: 5-year post-tenure dossiers to DPCs;
Nov. 30: sabbaticals from Provost to President Postel;
Dec. 12: tenure/promotion dossiers from CCAP to Dean.
With 3 CAL Council meetings and 4 Faculty Senate meetings remaining, please submit Curriculum items now.
Address student issues now; a reminder that the University has an extensive website outlining steps students should take before withdrawing from a class. Direct students whose success in a course is unrecoverable to the website and remind them to follow the steps. Enrollment notes: application waivers restricted to students who express financial need. Students were not admitted at this time of year last year, so percentage differences are not given.
December 3: Rocket Scholarship Day. Students will be with their departments from 10 AM – 1 PM, so please consider helping during this event.
Budget notes:
▪ University still under significant financial stress
▪ Current hiring freeze
▪ Anticipate FY24 cuts
▪ Opportunities for growth are a powerful argument because bringing in new students is a priority
Palmers’ Global Fellows: $250,000 for CAL Global Program, a competitive, multi-disciplinary cohort program at UToledo in CAL. Prioritizes students with financial need, who will integrate global engagement, including impactful global travel, into a 4-year degree. Call for applications to current first-year students are forthcoming. - Executive Committee Report: Melissa Baltus
The committee met and discussed Agenda for today, updates on election results and the elaborations vote, and new business regarding a proposal to amend the Bylaws regarding standing committee chairs. The committee also discussed the posting of the Constitution, Bylaws, and Minutes on the CAL website; the default is now HTML and a new university policy requires approval for PDFs. The approval process is in progress, and a link will be posted for those PDFs. Provost Dickson will be coming to Council on Dec. 6. - Faculty Senate Report: Suzanne Smith
October 4 Senate meeting: Jason Toth, Senior Associate Vice President for Administration in Facilities & Construction and Supply Chain, gave a report on some ongoing and completed projects:
▪ Classrooms in HHS with tiered seating have been updated.
▪ Improvements to the Parks Tower chilled water system are in progress.
▪ Bowman-Oddy research labs innovations should be completed in March.
▪ The North Engineering industrial space, formerly used by Owens-Illinois, is being turned into labs and classrooms so that Palmer Hall can be demolished.
▪ Palmer Hall is slated for demolition in August 2023.
▪ A pedestrian bridge over Douglas Avenue has received funding and is anticipated to be completed in late fall of 2023.
▪ ADA accessibility projects in Ritter Planetarium and Carlson Library restrooms are underway/complete. The Scott Park campus baseball fields will be improved; they are slated to be moved back to Main Campus but not for about 5 years.
▪ Faculty are encouraged to submit work orders, but the transition to the new budget model is creating some billing problems.
▪ The University may need to consider reducing its footprint by divesting property to be a more efficient user of space as enrollment shrinks.
October 18 Senate meeting: agenda tabled except for the visit from President Postel:
▪ The Strategic Plan Committee has been working on outlining some overarching themes, including student success, relevant curriculum, the recognition of the University regionally, nationally, and internationally, and making UToledo sustainable financially.
▪ There has been an enrollment decline since 2010; UToledo’s is greater than the national average but not unusual in Northwest Ohio. Key factors include deficiencies in recruitment, leadership turnover in the last several years, COVID, loss of international students, and at the same time an increase in graduation rates from 42% to 57%. The students who have been lost at UToledo are unlikely to finish their education; our aspiration is not to return to the “good old days” of expanding the number of students but to bring in students who are successful. The objective should be to increase enrollment but not at the expense of graduation rates.
▪ Plans to increase enrollment at UT include expanding our online programs, creating international partnerships with agencies such as Wellspring to recruit international students, improving the transfer process, forging articulation agreements with community colleges, and improving marketing of online programs.
Note: Faculty Senate Minutes are available on their website. - Graduate Council Report: Jami Taylor
The pipeline programs can be posted again – that process had been shut down briefly. The Provost visited Grad Council and discussed the strategic planning process. She is fighting with finance about more money for academics and noted that the administration is working on the collective bargaining agreement and trying to “fix” some things that haven’t worked well for the institution. She said that graduate programs are important for us getting to R1 status, particularly in terms of research dollars. - Curriculum Committee Report: Renee Heberle
Program modifications: AR-PRCM-CER – Public Relations Communication Certificate; AR-MPCM-CER – Media Production Communication Certificate; AR-ORCM-CER – Organizational Communication Certificate; AR-SMCM-CER – Social Media Communication Certificate. Vote: all approved.
Program modifications: AR-PSYC-PHD-CLPH – Concentration in Clinical Psychology, specialization in Health Psychology; AR-PSYC-PHD-CLPP – Concentration in Clinical Psychology, specialization in Experimental Psychopathology; AR-PSYC-PHD-CLPQ – Concentration in Clinical Psychology, specialization in Quantitative Psychology; AR-PSYC-PHD-CLPS – Concentration in Clinical Psychology, no specialization. Vote: all approved.
Course proposal: ENGL 4670 – Asian American Literature. Discussion and vote to table proposal until the corresponding ENGL 5670 course is brought forward for vote.
Course modifications: THR 3710 – Directing I; GEPL 2110 – Maps and Map Analysis. Vote: approved. - Elections Committee Report: Pam Stover
Election results: Aliaksandr Amialchuk (Economics) is the at-large Social Sciences representative (1 year term) and Mysoon Rizk is the CCAP Arts Representative (2-year term). - Constitution and Bylaws Committee Report: Jami Taylor
Review of inconsistencies in Bylaws of who can be appointed chair of standing committees. Holly Hey proposed a Bylaw amendment to make the language consistent. - Old Business
College of Arts and Letters Elaborations for Faculty Evaluation of Tenure and Promotion vote: Passed: 40 – yes; 0 – No; 2 – Abstain. These will now go to the Dean’s and Provost’s offices for approval. - New Business
Amendment proposal for Bylaws will be voted on at the November 8 meeting. A request was made to have Provost Dickson speak to Council; shewill be speaking at the December 6 meeting from 4:00-4:30 PM. Aliaksandr Amialchuk, the new at-large Social Sciences rep, will be on sabbatical spring 2023, so please let a member of the Executive Committee know if you know of anyone in social sciences who is willing to sub for him that semester. Charles Beatty-Medina had to step down from Curriculum Committee, so a new Humanities rep is needed. This is an appointed position, so please nominate yourself or someone who may be interested to the Executive Committee. President Postel said that Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Risa Dickson has agreed to extend her role through AY 2023-2024. A national search will be conducted for a permanent Provost.
- Announcements
None - Adjournment
Motion to Adjourn; Second; Motion Approved; Meeting Adjourned
Meeting Minutes Prepared: 11/1/2022 - Subject to change