Meeting Minutes
ACADEMIC SENATE
Minutes
March 13, 2023
- CALL TO ORDER AND Announcements
The regular meeting of the Academic Senate, held on March 13, 2023, was called to order at 3:00 pm by Senate President Sonia Salari. The meeting was held using the Zoom online meeting platform. Attendance was confirmed by requiring Senate members (and invited guests and public attendees) to register in advance for the online meeting.
Present: Michael Abrahamson, Soheila Amirsoleimani, Andrew Anderson, Michael Battistone, Pinar Bayrak-Toydemir, James Bekker, Matthew Bettini, Melissa Bobick, David Bowling, Jonathan Brogaard, Kenneth Bromberg, Jen Brown, Jessica Brown, Richard Brown, Timothy Brusseau, Marc Calaf, Jon Chaika, Owen Chan, Gerald Cochran, Kevin Coe, Frank Drews, Katie Durante, Nadja Durbach, Atif Ellahie, Melinda Fagan, Zak Fang, Stacy Firth, Julia Franklin, Gina Frey, Kyle Gayliyev, Manu Goyal, Jesse Graham, Lela Graybill, Sara Hart, Tucker Hermans, Anna Hodgson, William Holland, Heather Holmes, Harriet Hopf, Howard Horwitz, Rory Hume, Susan Johnston, Jay Jordan, Sam Judd, Srabani Karmakar, James Karner, Seth Keeton, Sejin Kim, Kai Kuck, Titus Larrieu, Jack Longino, Alysse Loomis, Janis Louie, Sarah Lucas, Kate Lunnen, Mikaila McIntyre, Meeyoung Min, Ed Muñoz, AJ Myers, Anna Neatrour, Will Nesse, Dave Norwood, Adrian Palmer, Robert Parker, Karina Perez, Alek Peterlin, Susie Porter, Codrina Rada, Alessandro Rigolon, Carol Sansone, Nathan Seegert, Xiaoming Sheng, Chris Simon, Jamesina Simpson, Wayne Springer, Casey Tak, Anthony Tenney, Matt Tokson, Patrick Tripeny, Jessica Van Der Volgen, Seetha Veeraghanta, Muskan Walia, Ryan Walker, Jennifer Watt, Peter West, Jaclyn Winter, Zhou Yu, Kilo Zamora
Excused with substitute: Nanette Dudley, Benvin Lozada, Sondra Stegenga , Stacy Manwaring
Excused: Luca Brunelli, Amos Guiora, Jim VanDerslice
Absent: Yoshimi Anzai, Steven Bartlett, Adrian Bell, Simon Brewer, Holden Cheney, Lizabeth Cowgill, Janice Darko, Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, Eric Handman, Bryan Jones, Youjeong Kang, Audrey Laney, Shelley Lawrence, Alyssa Lee, John Lin, Feng Liu, Frank McAlpin, Nancy McLaughlin, Eugene Mishchenko, Yihui Pan, Sean Redmond, Ofer Rog, Paul Shami, Maggie Tesch, Melodie Weller
Ex Officio: Mike Braak, Shanti Deemyad, Robert Fujinami, Savannah Manwill, Paul Mogren, Allyson Mower, Christina Porucznik, Sarah Projansky, Taylor Randall, Lisa Rigtrup, Sonia Salari, Jane Laird
Announcements
Senate President Sonia Salari reminded Senators that 2023-24 Senate leadership self-nominations are due April 14. She offered to consult with anyone who has questions about serving in leadership positions. In addition, the Senate committee member electronic elections ballots will be distributed to voting Senators on April 10. Darryl Butt, currently the Dean of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences, has been named the new Dean of the Graduate School.
- APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes dated February 6, 2023, were approved upon a motion from Julia Franklin and a second from Shanti Deemyad. There was 1 abstention.
- REQUEST FOR NEW BUSINESS
There were no requests for New Business
- CONSENT CALENDAR
Senate President Salari identified the items on the meeting’s Consent Calendar:
- Faculty Appointments
- Revised Policy 6-313: Terminations and Program Discontinuation Proposed Edits
- Awards for Senate Approval
Sonia Salari congratulated the faculty award nominees and presented the following awards for Senate approval:
University Professors 2023-25
Cynthia Furse, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michael Scarpulla, Electrical and Computer Engineering & Materials Science and Engineering
2023 Early Career Teaching Awards
Claudia De Grandi Physics & Astronomy
Ashley Guajardo Entertainment Arts & Engineering
Jacob Hochhalter Mechanical Engineering
Lauren Barth-Cohen Educational Psychology
Sean Howe Mathematics
Talia Dajes World Languages & Cultures
University of Utah Distinguished Professors
Karen Wilcox, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology
Kent Ono, Department of Communication
Mary Ann Christison, Department of Linguistics
Michael Morse, Department of Chemistry
Richard Brown, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Kahlert School of Computing
RonNell Andersen Jones, S.J. Quinney College of Law
All items on the Consent Calendar were approved after a motion from Harriet Hopf and a second from Jen Brown. There were 2 abstentions.
- REPORTS
Report from Administration
President Randall gave a brief summary of the programming from the first annual Campus Safety Conference held on March 2nd and thanked Jill McCluskey for her keynote address. He also thanked those senators who had participated in the honorary degree selection process review. He announced that Darryl Butt has agreed to be the new Dean of the Graduate School and that there will not be tuition increases next year for any of the Utah colleges or universities.
Other results from this year’s legislative session will be coming in April, but he noted specifically that the bill regarding limiting EDI efforts on campuses is on hold pending discussion with the Utah Senate Interim Education Committee. Senators queried about how students can get involved with that discussion and how discussion results might impact becoming an Hispanic Serving Institution.
Executive Committee Report
Senate President-elect Shanti Deemyad summarized the disposition of the items presented at the Senate Executive Committee February 13 meeting, outlining the matters placed on the Consent, Intent, Information, and Debate calendars. In addition, she noted that Executive committee members were briefed by President Randall, SVP Good and SVP Montoya at that meeting.
Report from ASUU
ASUU President Taylor Vandertoolen highlighted the upcoming annual March 23rd Conference on Diversity Excellence (CODE) with guest speaker John Quiñones. He also discussed Wellness Week, the transition to the incoming ASUU administration and encouraged stakeholders to reach out if they need to schedule introductory meetings. ASUU Senate Chair Muskan Walia updated the Senate about recent ASUU legislative initiatives and resolutions.
- NOTICE OF INTENT CALENDAR
Revised Policy 6-400: Student Rights and Responsibilities
Dean of Students Jason Ramirez presented proposed revisions to Policy 6-400: Student Rights and Responsibilities. Substantive reasons for these updates to the current Student Code include moving towards a more restorative and less punitive code; focusing on support and accountability; creating additional routes for informal resolution; adding amnesty language for certain circumstances; specifying procedures for off campus conduct situations; and moving initial student behavior referrals to a single officer hearing model. The Student Behavior Committee would still act as an appellant body after these changes. Jason noted that it has been a 4-year project to update the Student Code; the code updates also have support from ASUU, the Senate Advisory Committee on Academic Policy, Council of Academic Deans, Office of General Counsel, Housing and Residential Education, and other related university groups including affinity groups. After discussion, Senate President Salari asked Senators to take the Student Code documents and summary memo to their colleagues. They can contact Jason with any questions that come up before the Senate votes on the policy change at its next meeting.
- DEBATE CALENDAR
New Division: Division of Medical Education
Christy Porucznik, Vice Dean for Faculty, School of Medicine, presented a proposed new division, the Division of Medical Education. The new Division would serve as the academic home for faculty appointments for community faculty engaged with medical student education. These faculty are currently appointed in various departments, and consolidating the community faculty appointments into one division will facilitate efficiency, enhance faculty development, retention, and evaluation activities, and improve the quality of experience for trainees. Harriet Hopf moved to approve this proposal to develop a free-standing division for medical education. After a second from Seetha Veeraghanta, the motion was approved.
Senate Campus Contraception Initiative Resolution
Representatives from ASCENT Center for Reproductive Health presented a Campus Contraceptive Initiative (CCI) Resolution. David Turok Jessica Sanders, and Sarah Elliott asked the Senate to consider giving its support to the effort by approving the Initiative, which will increase contraceptive access and reproductive health education at the University of Utah. They
explained that members of the EC had formed a subcommittee to refine the Resolution’s text for the most optimal wording. Harriet Hopf, seconded by Jennifer Watt, moved to affirm the CCI Resolution with a request for a typographical error correction. The motion passed.
- INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS CALENDAR
Revised Policy 5-211: Procedures for Complaints Under the Utah Protection of Public Employees Act
Human Resources is proposing changes to Policy 5-211 Procedures for Complaints under the Utah Protection of Public Employees Act, explained Director of Employee Relations Bob Thompson. This is a necessary response to a Utah legislature statutory update that changed the scope of the types of complaints that are subject to the policy from complaints of “adverse actions” to complaints of “retaliatory action.” Other revisions noted are for clarification of the process. The policy revisions were reviewed by the Institutional Policy Committee and the Senate Advisory Committee on Academic Policy.
Senior Associate Athletics Director for Academic Services Report
Senior Associate Athletics Director for Academic Services Cathy Badger and Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) Jason Burrows Sanchez presented the annual Athletics Academics report. Cathy reviewed student-athlete academic support services, including her office of academic advisors and learning specialists; the goal is to ensure that student athletes finish college and graduate. Cathy then reviewed the Fall 2022 student-athlete academic metrics, highlighting areas of notable success.
SACAP Annual Report
The Senate Advisory Committee on Academic Policy (SACAP) annual report reviewed SACAP’s 2022-23 activities. Senate President Salari, standing in for its Chair Mary Beth Vogel-Ferguson, explained that projects included reporting its conclusions on the Thesis Office issues to the VP Research, collaborating with Human Resources for faculty representation on benefits and retirement committees, addressing the challenges of jointly appointed faculty, and reviewing policies governing Distinguished Professor designations. Senate Policy Liaison Allyson Mower was thanked for her valuable help this year.
SACSCF Annual Report
Jim Agutter, Chair of the Senate Advisory Committee on Student Course Feedback (SACSCF), discussed the work of the committee this year. The Committee met four times in Fall 2022 to design and conduct an evaluation of the current student course feedback instrument. Those findings were also included in a separate report. The committee was also briefed on the Teaching Effectiveness Framework. SACSCF will continue to meet in Spring 2023 to discuss recommendations for course feedback improvements. Senators also discussed faculty views on the feedback reports, difficulties with quantifying feedback in meaningful ways, and issues with response rates.
SFRSC Annual Report
The Senate Faculty Review Standards Committee (SFRSC) has continued to update faculty review templates and evaluate review guidelines developed by departments, programs, colleges, and schools reported Chair Howard Horwitz. This academic year, it has reviewed ten guidelines and approved seven. The SFRSC report also thanked Trina Rich, Director, University & Academic Affairs Policy Administration, for her invaluable help.
- NEW BUSINESS
There was no new business offered at this meeting.
- OPEN DISCUSSION
Sonia told the Senate that she continues to follow up on Senators’ questions on ensuring that teaching support and student support services quality levels continue to improve and also keep up with increasing enrollments. President Randall was advised about Senator concerns, and there will be some follow up reports in future Senate meetings, such as from Housing and Residential Education Director Sean Grube. Senators also offered viewpoints on the academic and ethical impacts that AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, could have on student instruction methods and assessments.
- ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 4:50 pm.