Meeting Minutes, December 11, 2018

The Arts and Sciences Council/Faculty of Arts and Sciences Meeting, December 11, 2018, 3:30-5:00, Old Main Chapel

Meeting Minutes

Representatives present: Daniel Appelö, APPM; Barbara Buttenfield, GEOG; Cathy Comstock, RAPS; Tanja Cuk, CHEM; Françoise Duresse-Stimilli, AAH; Erica Ellingson, APS; Michaele Ferguson, PSCI; John Gibert, CLAS; Jim Goodrich, BCHM; Paul Gordon, HUMN; Gerardo Gutierrez, ANTH; Saskia Hintz, GSLL; Jon Hughes, ECON; Janet Jacobs, WGST; Daniel Jones, HNRS; Dan Kaufman, PHIL; Ramesh Mallipeddi, ENGL; Matt McQueen, IPHY; Akira Miyake, PSYC; Stephen Mojzsis, GEOL; Christina Meyers-Denman, SLHS; Lonni Pearce, PWR; Patricia Rankin, PHYS; Hanna Shell, CINE; Ted Stark, THDN; David Stock, EBIO; Tim Weston, HIST; Deborah Whitehead, RLST; Masano Yamashita, FRIT

Representatives not present: James Cowell, LING; Françoise Duresse-Stimilli, AAH; Juan Herrero-Senes, SPAN; Kwame Holmes, ETHN; Joanna Lambert, ENVS; Julie Lundquist, ATOC; Mike Radelet, SOCY; Evelyn Shih, ALC; Rob Tubbs, MATH; Ding Xue, MCDB

Ex-officios present: Bob Ferry, (BFA); Alicia Turchette, (SAC)

Also in attendance: Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, CINE; Scott Adler, PSCI; Sarah Altshuler, CUSG; Leilani Arthurs, GEOL; Kara Bajdas, GEOL; Lorraine Bayard de Volo, WGST; Carol Bender, PSCI; Denise Bender, A&S Marilynn Bender, GEOL; Audrey Blankenheim, AAC; David Brown, A&S John Carroll, PSYC; Robert Clarke, A&S Laurie Conway, ATOC; Bud Coleman, THDN; Sandy Crowell, CLAS; Erin Cunningham, A&S Roshanne Ebrahimian, MASP; Patrick Greaney, GSLL; Vicki Grove, GSLL;  Karen Hawley, GSLL; Leisa Hesebeck, FSC;  Arne Hoecker, GSLL; Amy Lavens, A&S Rebecca Keisler, PSYC; Ruth Mansbach, GEOL; Meghan Perez, JWST; Tamara Perez, A&S Hillary Potter, A&S Stephanie Preo, CHEM; Paul Quist, A&S Matthias Richter, ALC; Vicky Romano, A&S Katherine Rousseau, IAFS; Raul San Agustin, SLHS; Jason Sanford, AAH; Ruth Seaholm, PSYC; Kelly Sears, CINE; Jason Sanford, AAH; Bernadette Stewart, A&S Carly Anderson Stewart, EBIO; Paul Sutter, HIST; Dmitri Uzdensky, PHYS; Jim White, A&S Doreen Williams, SPAN

Stephen Mojzsis called the meeting to order at 3:35 PM.

Chair’s remarks, Stephen Mojzsis

Professor Mojzsis started the meeting by welcoming the ASC, FAS and guests to the final meeting of the semester. A brief overview of the ASC was given outlining its main work including providing counsel and advice to the dean and overseeing seven standing committees that cover areas essential to the governance and functioning of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dean’s remarks, Jim White

Dean White outlined the current visioning and implementation initiatives going on in the University and strongly encouraged the A&S community to make themselves familiar this them:

Dean White said all the initiatives intersect and are working to make the college and university better.

ASC Committee Reports

Budget Committee, Patricia Rankin

The Budget Committee works to develop a detailed understanding of the college budget which will help develop the best arguments to advocate for Arts and Sciences' needs. Arts and Sciences is the major revenue driver for the campus so what makes Arts and Sciences healthy and competitive makes the campus health and competitive. The budget Committee is currently working on:

  • Course fee replacements,
  • Campus budget transparency, and 
  • How our staff to faculty/staff to student rations compare to other universities.

Please contact Professor Rankin with any budget questions or issues you would like the Budget Committee to take up.

Curriculum Committee, Stephen Mojzsis for Juan Herrero-Senés

The Curriculum Committee makes recommendations to the FAC, the ASC and the Dean on curricular matters in the College. This year the committee recruited three new members, has held seven meetings and reviewed 58 proposals: revision of major; revision of B.A.; new certificates; nominations for Gen Ed distribution requirements; 40 nominations for Diversity requirement; nominations the Skills Requirements; First year Seminars.

The Diversity Committee, Daniel Jones

The Diversity Committee has been working with the Curriculum Committee reviewing First Year Seminars that are proposed for the Gen Ed Diversity requirement and have been working on making it an ongoing process. The Diversity Committee is also working on a response to the IDEA Plan.

Grievance Committee, John Gibert

The Grievance committee has a narrow purview to review faculty salary grievances and non-salary grievances such as those stemming from annual merit evaluations and make recommendations to the dean. They are currently reviewing the first grievance of the season.

Online Education and Information Technology Committee, Vilja Hulden

The Committee has been working to understand how budget and Continuing Ed work to affect online education and what online courses look like across the departments. To better understand the departments’ online education practices, the committee has sent out a survey and Dr. Hulden encouraged those present to make sure the departments have completed it. At the end of the semester, the Online Education Committee hopes to have a set of recommendations concerning online courses.

Personnel Committee, Stephen Mojzsis for Kristy Tiampo

The Personnel Committee reviews re-appointment, promotion and tenure files and makes recommendations to the dean. So far this year the committee has met eight times and reviewed 25 comprehensive review files, seven promotion to associate with tenure files, one extensive review and one hire with tenure.

Planning Committee, David Stock

This fall the Planning Committee worked primarily on advising. Lily Board is the new Assistant Dean in charge of advising and the Planning Committee met with her to convey some of the faculty’s concerns. Assistant Dean Board has been invited to present at the January ASC meeting. The Strategic Plan asks that the Planning Committee oversee the progress of implementing the Strategic Plan so the committee has discussed how they will be involved.

A petition from the graduate students concerning fees, Vilja Hulden

Dr. Hulden asked the Arts and Sciences Community to be aware of the Committee on Rights and Compensation (CRC): a group of graduate students working to eliminate or reduce the approximately $2,000 in fees they spend each year. These fees are higher than all but one of the Pac 12 institutions.

A dialogue on the Strategic Plan

Background: Previous Dean Steven Leigh asked the ASC to develop a Strategic Plan and the ASC unanimously endorsed forming a strategic planning committee in 2016. The ASC views the Strategic Plan as a “Living Document” and as such, changes can be made to it before any attempt is made towards implementation.

The goal behind constituting the committee was to “…assemble a group of energetic, respected, and representative faculty, staff, and students who have a strong stake in the future of the college.” Membership to the committee was by appointment for approximately one year, with approval by the relevant faculty governance bodies.

The charge of the SPC

A successful strategic plan will express our collective vision, by clear articulation of where the College wants to be in 10 years. To accomplish this, we must identify a concrete set of strategic imperatives that will move the College in that direction. 

A successful strategic plan will have the following characteristics:

  1. Bold, concise, and clear statements that inform future action;
  2. Assumes all members of the College have an important and integral role to play in its construction and execution (this includes faculty, staff, students, and academic leadership); and 
  3. Helps guide resource allocations designed to reach goals established through the process.

The over-riding principle of the strategic planning process is transparency.

Professor Mojzsis opened the floor for comment.

Alicia Turchette, chair of the Staff Advisory Committee read a statement from the SAC [Addendum A] expressing “concern and disappointment” at the exclusion of the staff’s requirements in the strategic plan.  

  • Arts and Sciences staff salaries are on average 15 percent less than the staff salaries at the College of Engineering.
  • The staff to faculty ratio at Arts and Sciences is lower than all other colleges on campus.
  • The staff should have strong representation during the implementation phase of the Strategic Plan.
  • The lack of mention and consideration of staff issues in the Strategic Plan sends a message to the 300+ staff members of Arts and Sciences.
  • The SAC asks the faculty if it can, in good conscious, endorse a plan that excludes staff.

Samples of additional comments from the assembled Arts and Sciences community members: 

  • There has been a lack of transparency to students of the Strategic Plan and lack of robust student representation.
  • The Strategic Plan needs to be amended using the feedback provided by the constituencies on campus before any prioritization or implementation is discussed.
  • A strategic plan is needed; this one missed important steps but valuable ideas in it can be retained while incorporating additional input from staff and students.
  • The next committee needs staff and faculty co-chairs.
  • A partnership with all Arts and Sciences constituencies and frank discussion is key to the success of the Strategic Plan.
  • Several departments reviewed the Strategic Plan and voted to find it unacceptable. Among the issues that were found unacceptable was the emphasis on disturbance rather than stability that seemed to reflect the views of tenured faculty and not those whose employment is not guaranteed. 
  • The language in the Strategic Plan was thought to reflect the business world rather than the language of the academic world. Some departments felt the Strategic Plan didn’t relate to the experience of teaching and learning and working at the university.
  • The use of the word “compassion” in the Strategic Plan rings hollow when the staff was excluded from any significant participation.
  • The necessity of the Strategic Plan was questioned.
  • A good Strategic Plan reflects an organization’s values.
  • The ASC can only offer this document, it cannot make the changes in the college. The Strategic Plan has started valuable conversations in the college.
  • The timing of continuing with the Strategic Plan while other initiatives are ongoing and the Arts and Sciences dean position is in flux was questioned.
  • The existence of a robust Strategic Plan, endorsed by all constituencies of Arts and Sciences will allow a strong Arts and Sciences representation in other initiatives. The over-riding principle of the strategic planning process is transparency.
  • A Strategic Plan Committee member told the assembled community that the spirit of the SPC wasn’t industrial and feels that the spirit was lost when put to paper. The committee represented a very complex college. The process felt like it was created by people who “worked in a place you wanted to work.” 
  • The lack of response from the Natural Sciences was questioned.
  • The members of the Strategic Planning Committee are still on campus; if you are wondering “What were they thinking?” you can contact them and ask.
  • An Arts and Sciences community member tried to get clarification concerning some specifics of the plan and was told the committee was disbanded.
  • There is no time in the departments to formulate detailed responses by the end of the academic year.
  • It was suggested that participants in student government be included in the next steps rather than members of the general student population.

It was moved and seconded that the motion previously accepted by the ASC [Addendum B] be suspended.

The vote was 47 yes, 0 no, 1 abstention

Patricia Rankin suggested a motion:

Motion: That ASC form a Task Force with faculty, staff and student involvement to review and modify the current draft of the ASC Strategic Plan document to ensure that current concerns of faculty, staff and students have been heard and considered; and that an update on such modifications be brought forward to the April ASC/FAS meeting for discussion prior to prioritization and implementation.

The motion was moved and seconded.

The vote was 45 yes, 0 no, 1 abstention

FAS faculty and staff also requested at the meeting that when a final approval vote is taken, it is voted on by all FAS faculty, FAS staff (through the Staff Advisory Council) and students (through CUSG and UGGS). The first two bodies are straightforward, but how to address the student vote will require more planning. Bob Ferry offered after the meeting to talk with Professor Mojzsis about how to proceed on a student vote with UGGS and CUSG to accomplish a student vote in manageable fashion, based on his experience working on BFA matters with those two student organizations.

Meeting adjourned at 5:05.

Approved by the ASC 12/21/18

Submitted by Janice Jeffryes

Addendum A

ASC/FAS Meeting, December 11, 2018

Arts and Sciences Dean’s Staff Advisory Committee (SAC) Chair Statement

Thank you, I will be sharing staff feedback to the strategic plan (SP). I am a department program assistant, with 15 years of service to CU. I am currently serving as chair of the Arts and Sciences Dean’s Staff Advisory Committee. We are 17 members from across the units of the college and the dean’s office, and our central mission is to address issues of importance to the staff of the college. It very recently came to our attention that staff input was not actively solicited on the complete SP document and that staff are not adequately included in college and campus decision making such as this planning process. In a small window of time, we were able to solicit meaningful feedback from the greater staff, which we submitted to the ASC’s executive committee. It included our committee’s proposed edits to the SP, along with feedback from 55 staff members. I invite you to take a look through these copies of the responses received. Collectively, this feedback strongly emphasizes the concern and disappointment that issues affecting staffs’ ability to succeed are notably absent from the strategic plan. This exclusion and lack of acknowledgement reinforce a common feeling by many college staff that our voices and contributions to the mission of the college and the campus are not heard, respected, or valued. One focus of our concern in the document – the first section of the first strategic imperative – purports to outline resources and programs to attract and retain students, faculty, and staff; however, no resources or any detail regarding staff were included. Staff in our college are paid on average 15 percent less than in the College of Engineering, at the same time we in Arts and Sciences have the lowest staff to faculty ratio of any college on campus (half that of Engineering). The knowledge, experience, and work that the Arts and Sciences staff contribute toward our shared mission of teaching, learning, and research are vital to the success of students and of the college as a whole. To create and hopefully maintain a culture of partnership in achieving our shared mission, an acknowledgement of the value of our staff needs to be included in writing in a critical guiding document such as the SP.

We remain highly concerned that this is not the case at this stage. We welcome meaningful and equitable representation and inclusion as staff on the Implementation Task Force, and understand that the plan is still being referred to as a “living document.” However, we lack confidence that the input that many staff put time and effort toward will be given full consideration. A task force charged with prioritization toward implementation will not look first to prioritize something that is not there. The SP document contains little to no acknowledgement of the importance of the recruitment, retention, or ongoing success of college staff. This sends a message to the 300+ staff – those who contribute to the college mission, in each of your departments, every day. We ask that you question whether you can endorse a plan, even in vision or spirit, that excludes the voice and by extension silences a vital constituency of our college

Addendum B

Motion: That ASC vote to endorse the vision and direction in the current version of the Strategic Plan, and to request that the ASC Chair form an advisory Task Force to recommend on the prioritization of a set of activities that will address the implementation of this Strategic Plan. The Task Force will present its findings to ASC members for discussion and possible revision, targeting a final vote on adoption by ASC no later than the final ASC All-Hands meeting on April 16, 2019.