Faculty Council Minutes - Nov. 22, 2022
College of Arts and Letters
2022-2023 Faculty Council Meeting Minutes
November 22, 2022, Webex
- Call to Order
Motion to begin; Second; Motion Approved; Meeting begins. - Roll Call
Present: Alamina, Allred, Amialchuk, Baltus, Beatty, Benton, Black, Branson, Caceres, Carpenter, Christman, Cook, Crookston, Damschroder, Emonds, Foss, Gamble, Grazzini, Heberle, Kistner, Lawrence (for Alam), McBane, McNamara, Mezo, Monteleone, Montpetit, Nemeth, Peralta, Sakowski, Sapci, Schlemper, Smith, Stauch, Stover, Taylor, Whittaker, Yaklin (38)
Absent: Dudley, Feldmeier, Ferris, Geiger, Hey, Jin, Miner, Semaan, Thompson-Casado (9)
Guests: Abdel-Halim, Gregory, Haase, Keith, Lingan, Montes, Sullivan (7) - Approval of Agenda and Minutes
Meeting agenda submitted for approval; Motion to approve; Second; Vote: Agenda Approved.
Minutes from November 8, 2022, meeting submitted for approval; Motion to approve; Second; Vote: Minutes Approved. - Dean’s Report: Mel Gregory
CAL’s enrollment practices are designed to complement Enrollment Management; we have a specific CAL communication plan and intervene strategically into the enrollment funnel. Budget concerns have us focusing on low cost but high impact practices. Chairs always receive lists of students who have been admitted to their respective departments and programs. Faculty participation is best at the yield stage – when students have been admitted but not yet enrolled – when contact from faculty can close the deal.
Faculty can also support enrollment by sharing student success stories with the College Key Communicator private web form, tracking students’ placement in jobs, internships, and graduate programs, identifying key data points, and integrating high impact practices, such as internships, and study abroad, applied, and service-learning experiences.
Program prioritization asks if a program aligns with the needs of current students, if it has a robust or declining student population, what its costs and revenues are, does it bring in new students, what resources are required, and if it advances the success of the university. It is not meant to be defined as top-down, cost-cutting, or firing of faculty. Program prioritization should mean the opportunity for self- determination in colleges and departments, targeting of resources, cost-saving, and demonstrating concrete value of programs. It is not a philosophical argument about the “intrinsic value of individual disciplines. It is a data driven process that assesses whether degree programs are thriving and contributing to the university’s overall financial and strategic health.”
Successful arguments by CAL to the Provost and Finance include a strong vision for the future and supportive quantitative data. Compelling data points are robust enrollment, stability or growth, and efficiency.
CAL generated “over $3 million in earned ad value from positive news stories in Q1 of fiscal year 2023”— more than any other college.
Deans recently met with Huron in preparation for the Provost’s meeting with the Board of Trustees on December 7. Topics included reduction of PT instruction, a proposal to reduce CAL’s student computer labs and reallocate tech fee money to technical needs connected to innovative new curriculum, and redesigned, reinvigorated, and new programs that show growth potential with minimal resource allocation. - Executive Committee Report: Melissa Baltus
The committee met and discussed the agenda for today and updates from Committees including today’s Curriculum Committee report. Provost Dickson will be coming to Council on Dec. 6. A question was raised regarding procedures for making and seconding motions in the online meeting environment. - Faculty Senate Report: Suzanne Smith
November 15 Senate meeting: the Faculty Senate Recruitment subcommittee is gathering data via an email survey for faculty who might have family members currently going through the recruitment process or have done so in the past 5 years.
Provost Dickson announced that the implementation of the new model is presenting tangible results in terms of streamlining and cleaning up the budgeting process. The Office of Institutional Research is now tracking retention and the tools and data will be available on their web page soon. Faculty development funds are available; funding is awarded once per fiscal year per faculty member. Faculty 180 has experienced some glitches; please email the Provost’s office if you are experiencing any problems.
Faculty Senate approved courses for a radiation therapy program on the Health Science Campus.
The Faculty Senate Ad-Hoc Budget Committee is gathering information from college budget committees regarding their response to the IBB model. So far, about half of the colleges are happy but the other half are not and want more transparency.
The Faculty Student Affairs Committee reported on their work with Student Government. Issues presented included complaints from students that faculty are not responding to emails. The committee presented suggestions including a syllabus email policy with a 48-hour response window and email etiquette training for students in classes or through the Writing Center. The Committee also suggested faculty develop “best practices” for managing email workload, including refresher training in Outlook.
Interim Dean of the College of Graduate Studies Scott Molitor spoke about the reorganization of COGS and requested input from Faculty Senate on how COGS would operate in the new budget model. Colleges are now responsible for funding of graduate and teaching assistants. COGS will have an office within the Provost’s office to handle the paperwork for new assistants, their offers, and other paperwork. Going forward, all graduate program degrees will be awarded by the colleges, not COGS, and focus should be on colleges to manage and market their own graduate programs.
Note: Full Faculty Senate Minutes are available on their website. - Graduate Council Report: Jami Taylor
President Postel attended the November 22 meeting. He said that the University is exploring cost-effective health insurance options for students. The ProMedica situation was discussed – the agreement will be smaller and replacement funding for the College of Medicine is still unknown. He said that UT has strong health and engineering fields and graduate programs and made a comment that we are “too broad” of a university. - Curriculum Committee Report: Renee Heberle
Program modifications:
AR-GEOG-BA: Geography – Urban and Regional Planning Concentration;
AR-GEOG-BA: Geography – Geography Information Science & Technology Concentration;
AR-GEOG-BA: Geography – Human & Environmental Geography Concentration. Vote: approved.
AR-GEOG-MA: Geography. Vote: approved.
Course modification: COMM 3720 – Introduction to Public Relations. Vote: approved.
Deadlines for proposals:
▪ Submit to Curriculum committee by
▫ November 25 for Dec. 6 Council meeting,
▫ January 15 for Jan. 24 Council meeting.
▪ The final deadline for Senate consideration is February 11, so anything submitted after January 15 will not make it into the Fall 2023 schedule. - Elections Committee Report: Pam Stover
No report. - Constitution and Bylaws Committee Report: Jami Taylor
No report. - Old Business
Provost Dickson will be speaking from 4:00-4:30 at the December 6 CAL Council Meeting.
An At-large Social Sciences representative will be needed for spring 2023.
Motions made in chat must be acknowledged by whoever has the floor of the meeting before the motion gets voted on. - New Business
Dwight Haase, on behalf of the Committee of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, requests feedback on the priorities for the DEI for the 2022-2023 year. The Chairs have been contacted and a survey will be sent to all. Suggestions and questions can also be emailed directly to dwight.haase@utoledo.edu. - Announcements
None. - Adjournment
Motion to Adjourn; Second; Motion Approved; Meeting Adjourned
Minutes Prepared: 11/29/22, subject to change