Meeting Minutes
ACADEMIC SENATE
Minutes
November 4, 2019
CALL TO ORDER
The regular meeting of the Academic Senate, held on November 4, 2019, was called to order at 3:05 pm by Senate President Julio Facelli. The meeting was held in the Moot Courtroom of the Law School.
Present: Alan Abbinanti, Sharon Aiken-Wisniewski, AnnaMarie Barnes, Amy Barrios, Pinar Bayrak-Toydemir, Gunseli Berik, Kirsten Butcher, Laurel Caryn, Mike Caserta, Divya Chandrasekhar, Promothesh Chatterjee, Susanna Cohen, Hilary Coon, Amy Cox, Elizabeth Craft, Ann Engar, Diego Fernandez, Annette Fleckenstein, Candace Floyd, Leslie Francis, Moira Gray, Gema Guevara, Kim Hackford-Peer, Leslie Halpern, Dentistry, Patricia Hanna, Andrew C. Harris, Bill Hesterly, Christel Hohenegger, John Hollerbach, Sierra Holmes, Christopher Hull, Luis Ibarra, Srikanth Iyengar, Thunder Jalili, R. James Keddington, Anne Kirchhoff, Keith Koper, Anne Lair, Rich Landward, Dale Larsen, Stephan LeBohec, Connor Leeming, Erik Lehnardt, Lauren Liang, Gabriel Lozada, Brad Lundahl, Don Ly, Kelly MacArthur, Hunter Mansfield, Maureen Mathison, Staci McIntosh, Rajesh Menon, Krystal Moorman, Damon Ngo, Kathleen Nicoll, Kent Ono, Brandon Patterson, Wanda Pillow, Tom Quinn, Kalani Raphael, Angela Rasmussen, Georgi Rausch, Terry Ring, Jeremy Rosen, Frank Sachse, Sonia Salari, Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, Amnon Schlegel, Jeff Schwartz, Varun Selvam, Peyden Shelton, Helene Shugart, Roger Silvers, Debra Simmons, Sara Simonsen, Brian Snapp, Ryan Steele, Kathryn Stockton, Dustin Stokes, James Sutherland, Thomas Swensen, Emily Thomas, Kent Udell, Hunter Underhill, Brenda Van Der Wiel, Daniel Vargo, Neil Vickers, Jessica Wempen, Julie Wright-Costa, Feng Zhang, Susan Zickmund, Brandon Zielinski
Excused with proxy: Rohit Aggarwal, Shmuel Baruch, Kelly Bricker, Amos Guiora, Rebecca Hardenbrook, Danielle Martinez, Khue Nguyen, Christina Porucznik, Jon Seger, Tim Smith, Sylvia Torti
Excused: Sara Scholes, Joshua Taylor
Absent: Devon Cantwell, Thomas Cheatham, Shanti Deemyad, Kenneth (Bo) Foreman, Thomas Crane Giamo, Franz Goller, Ken Johnson, Kim Korinek, Sharon Mastracci, Dragan Milicic, Rick Paine, Jon Rainier, Alex Terrill, Amrinder Thind, Elpitha Tsoutsounakis, Maria Velasco, Jaehee Yi
Ex Officio: Randy Dryer, Julio Facelli, Robert Flores, Robert Fujinami, Lisa Hutton, Paul Mogren, Sarah Projansky, Thomas Richmond, Billinda Tsuya, Ruth Watkins, Jane Laird
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes dated September 30, 2019 were approved upon a motion from Kathleen Nicoll and a second by Terry Ring.
CONSENT CALENDAR
A discussion about the timeliness of the Senate faculty matters report spurred a suggestion to delay voting on this item until later in the meeting. This would allow time for Senators to review the reports today in lieu of postponing to the next Senate meeting. Senate President Julio Facelli then asked at a later point to return to the Consent Calendar; there were no objections. A motion to approve the faculty matters reports from Debra Simmons passed after a second from Kalani Raphael.
REPORT FROM ADMINSTRATION
President Watkins celebrated a recent transformative gift from the Huntsman family; this historic donation is a $150 million investment in mental health research and services. Top of mind in this gift is developing opportunities to employ research and innovation to collaboratively chart pathways that better meet the mental health needs of not only Utah students, but also the greater community—especially in underserved rural areas.
SafeU Month is over; however, this represents a beginning, not an ending. The University will continue to gather input and build on the array of campus safety trainings, programs, and information-sharing forums organized as part of its ongoing effort and commitment. Searches for the Chief Safety Officer and Chief of Police are also underway; these important positions will help drive change in the institution. She explained to the Senate that she would like members to meet four of the people currently on-staff that are also driving change by helping implement new processes and systems on campus.
Cathy Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, introduced Interim Chief of Police Rick McLenon and some key members of the public safety team: Lieutenant Jason Hinojosa, Victim Advocate Jamie Justice, and Detective Keldon Arrington. Rick offered that his office’s immediate goal is to improve processes and rebuild trust among the campus community. Public safety team members discussed key improvements in their respective areas and explained that they will meet with any individual or group to discuss safety, procedure, and system enhancements. Rick added that members of his department would like to be educated by community recommendations and are eager to offer education to the community, such as ways to implement safety in the workplace and other topics of interest.
SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT
The Senate Executive Committee met October 14, 2019 to set today’s Senate agenda, reported Senate President-elect Randy Dryer. One change is that the presentation of proposed revisions to individual conflict of interest disclosure policies and procedures (COI Policy 1-006) that had been on today’s Intent Calendar has been postponed. There will be time in later Senate meetings, when it returns, to discuss and offer recommendations. In response to Terry Ring’s question about where to send notes made on the current policy revision proposal, Vice President of Research Andy Weyrich said to send those comments to Kevin Whitty and himself. Randy recommended sending copies to the Senate Executive Committee also (which can be sent by means of a message to Jane Laird).
REPORT FROM ASUU
ASUU President Anna Barnes expressed that the ASUU had another busy month that included organizing events and listening sessions during SafeU Month and continuing to develop legislation to support students and student groups. Each ASUU College Council meeting, chaired by ASUU Senators, during the month had focused on how to create spaces for more students to interact with student leadership on campus safety issues. In addition, ASUU partnered with the University’s counseling center to host workshops on healthy relationships and interpersonal violence. Civic engagement continues to be important to the ASUU, and the Marriott Library would again be a polling place this year. She is excited about being a part of the search team for a new Chief Safety Officer as this position will be actively addressing campus safety and student needs.
NOTICE OF INTENT CALENDAR
There were no items for the Notice of Intent Calendar
DEBATE CALENDAR
Undergraduate Certificate in Computational Linguistics
Faculty members and undergraduate advisors from the School of Computing and the Department of Linguistics collaborated to develop the proposed Undergraduate Certificate in Computational Linguistics, explained Scott Jarvis, Chair of the Department of Linguistics. This is an emerging interdisciplinary field and demand for students with specialized skills in language-related technologies is strong. The certificate being proposed requires four courses from linguistics and five from computer science. The courses offered from both areas of study already exist, and the linguistics department is conducting a search for a computational linguist to join its faculty. Responding to questions, there was some discussion about the adequacy of the data demonstrating a need for this certificate at this time. Pat Hanna motioned to approve this certificate. The motion passed after being seconded by Maureen Mathison, with 4 opposed and 10 abstentions.
INFORMATION & RECOMMENDATIONS CALENDAR
Senate Advisory Committee on Diversity Update
Senate Advisory Committee on Diversity (SACD) Chair David Derezotes–along with members Kalani Raphael, Anna Barnes, Billi Tsuya, and Mo Laguan–updated the Academic Senate on SACD activities and asked for feedback. SACD had formed four subcommittees that would further research areas of interest to its members. These subcommittees are: Review of sister institutions and the literature; Work on creating statements that link diversity with hiring, RPT, and other annual evaluations of campus staff, faculty, and administrators; Land acknowledgment; Student safety and university culture. Each subcommittee is working on research and recommendations and will report back to entire committee at its monthly meetings. In the discussion following, Senators offered thoughts on ways to assess campus climate and promote cultural change at a meaningful level.
CIB2 Committee Progress Report
Andrea Rorrer, the Centers, Institutes and Bureaus Phase 2 (CIB2) Committee Chair, and Bob Flores, Academic Senate Policy Liaison, reviewed a draft guidance document developed by the CIB2 Committee. The guidance document outlined proposed principles and processes for establishing and renewing University Academic Centers and Institutes (UACI). Input gathered from Senate and other community members will be used to help the Committee with the next steps of further refining the guidance document and drafting a University policy revision proposal for review and approval in about four months.
James Sutherland suggested that faculty associated with a center or institute be able to ratify the appointment or dismissal of its director. In addition, adding mechanisms for 1) reviewing the director and 2) for the faculty to be able to initiate removal of a director might be considered. Identifying that both the UACI members and the University experience the benefit of the work done by the center or institute, Ryan Steele offered ideas about codifying the University’s role in supporting them.
Gabriel Lozada pointed out that it may be problematic for those writing a UACI proposal to list all the academic units where there may be considerable overlap. There is no formal way to object in these cases, and there does not appear to be an adequate mechanism to catch this in the early part of the process. Although overlap might be identified when presented to the Council of Academic Deans, a time constraint of notifying the review committee within 15 days would hinder departments’ ability to respond.
Andrea and Bob thanked the commenters and explained that this feedback would go back to the CIB2 Committee. The Senate will be able to review a revised guidance document and final policy proposal early in 2020.
NEW BUSINESS
There were no items for New Business.
OPEN DISCUSSION
There were no items for Open Discussion
ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 4:29 pm.