Behrend Faculty Council Meeting Minutes

Monday, April 15, 2024
8:00–9:00 a.m.
112 Reed

  1. Call to Order – Lena Surzhko-Harned, Faculty Council Chair
    Approval of the minutes from previous Faculty Council Meeting
    1. Motion: Glenn Kumhera
    2. Second: Mike Rutter
  2. Welcome and Comments from the Chair
  3. Updates from the Leadership Team:
    1. Comments by the Chancellor, Ralph Ford
      1. Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs search is ongoing. There are 3 candidates thus the committee has done their work. Should be getting an email from committee chair early this week. Likely before finals. Council will likely have a meeting with the candidates as well.
      2. Budget update – not much as of yet. Still no campus number. Not sure if we will get it soon – University is going to submit a budget to Board of Trustees on which the campuses will be aggregate number. Will be releasing more budget information and more info on budget model soon, meeting with Faculty Senate tomorrow (4/16) for a presentation.
      3. Office of Vice President of Commonwealth Campus (OVPCC) will be implementing Integrative Design Teams – not much information as of yet. We will form teams at campuses to look at the future. Until we receive guidance we can’t do much with this, there may be some movement over the summer.
      4. Question: Thoughts on fact that Justin Schwartz left and how that might impact us?
        1. Neeli has met with a lot of groups to get input on who she might want to appoint as interim. She will move quickly, likely we will hear soon.
      5. Note: We get ‘credit’ for Nursing students and they count for our headcount. Hoping to see movement with second degree nursing depending on how the interim Provost process goes.
    2. Comments by the Interim Vice Chancellor and Dean of Academic Affairs, Greg Filbeck
      1. Articulation Agreements
        1. Working with Butler Community College. Westmoreland Community College, moving forward with them. Things have opened up in OVPCC world – have a strategy across the community colleges in the Greater Pittsburgh area. There is a lot of opportunities for 2+2 transfers to us.
        2. New Kensington trip next week, things are paying off. A lot more buzz about sending students to Behrend rather than UP.
        3. Greater Allegheny reached out interested in a meeting as well, likely in September.
        4. International efforts are taking place with 3 Indian Universities being looked at. Looking for most prominent 3 India universities to target.
        5. Opportunities in South America as well.
      2. Program Reviews
        1. Across all 4 colleges, reviews are done or currently taking place. Working to make them digestible and accessible to Faculty Senate. Working with school directors – coming up with a 1-to-2-page template. By April could likely get all existing program reviews into this format so Council can look over and provide feedback
        2. Program reviews are looking like they will continue at the University level.
          1. For our 10 lowest enrolled majors, we are putting an analysis together as to what they ‘cost’ Behrend as they are likely to be targeted. We want the defenses in place if we are told a program should go. We don’t want to wait until we hear from the University, want to be prepared.
          2. Likely they’ll look at Fall 2023 census, which will be our lowest numbers unfortunately. We have 18 majors currently under 20 students. But there are ways to minimize our costs. For example, Business Economics (BECON) has around 20 students, and the Liberal Arts Economics has closer to 4, however, it doesn’t really cost any extra to have both. So we want to focus our time on the lowest 10.
        3. Push for documented workload policies to address issues with Tenure Track Faculty needing to be ‘academically engaged.’ We need a college policy and each school will also need a policy. Council’s input will be needed in order to put the framework together. This is so we are not blindsided by a mandated shift to TT courseloads.
          1. Currently, contracts don’t mention any specific workload.
          2. Normal teaching load is 4 + 4, and tenure, if research active, typically a 1 course release.
          3. Unlikely to move everyone to 4 + 4 blanketly without some sort of emergency.
          4. Each school’s policy is likely to look different, too many unique situations to have a comprehensive blanket policy.
    3. Comments by the Vice Chancellor and Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Alicyn Rhodes
      1. Grad programs looking at a 4 + 1 option, nothing new, but also nothing we actively promote. Looking for ways to promote the ‘+ 1’ program to keep students around an extra year. Ways to have students soft committing to 5th year, how to keep them engaged and excited.
      2. Undergraduate research grants for summer announced – could not fund even half of them, lot of applications which is great, but also don’t have a research budget (which is not great). Currently hoping for FY2025 budget to come from UP. Faculty Seed Grants submitted on Friday will go under review and hopefully we can sufficiently fund those.
      3. Sigma Xi this weekend. Down a bit in terms of total attendance.
      4. Working on a website that focuses on our research activity.
      5. Our proposal numbers are down – saw a lot of benefit from student summer and faculty seed grants. ROI is high with these. We are down in proposals submitted from Behrend to agencies.
        1. Everything that makes our justification for being different than a smaller campus is based on the excellence in the classroom, but also the added benefit of open lab and our research mission that allows us to justify modifications in workload policy. When we have a big dip in the number of proposals submitted, it speaks to something. The research committee might be able to dig into this. In the long run we need more faculty to participate.
      6. Question: Can we be made aware of low hanging fruit grants? What are the ones easier for those over in Humanities to take advantage of?
        1. The Grants and Awards department has a website with a lot of information. From undergrad research application and seed grant application, we typically see the fewest from H&SS. H&SS faculty have broad needs. This is likely going to be an ongoing project.
      7. Our Grants and Contracts office is helping out Altoona, which is great for Behrend!
      8. Mixed messages within the budget discussions. Unlikely to see any mission-changing result from all of this. ‘we want to see you work 4+4’ and then ‘we want you to do more research’ conflicts.
  4. Reports from Committee Chairs
    1. Academic Computing, Elisa Beshero-Bondar
      1. Report with summary section at the top summing up school-by-school assessment of results from last fall. Recommendations are also provided. The report looks at what is possible in light of the budget concerns. A lot of things are in motion. Please take a look at it!
    2. Athletics, Adam Simpson
      1. Working with Brian Streeter and a trial run of the mentor program. Got a list of folks assigned to some of the teams but haven’t heard from Brian since February. The goal for fall is to come up with a concrete plan.
      2. NSO advising work, how to better schedule student athletes.
    3. Undergraduate Curricular Affairs, Glenn Kumhera
      1.  Meeting with Lisa Nelson and Sarah Whitney to discuss what different schools do. Those that use form have to re-write when it goes into CIM. Other schools are using CIM first and then printing out the information.
      2. CIM training session on May 7 to get everyone on board. Thinking the solution may be to put it in CIM, don’t submit, just save, and print and share that. Will save on the duplication of work, and will better ensure accurate and up-to-date information.
      3. Putting together a list of things to look out for in CIM to speed up the process.
        1. Graduate affairs should meet with undergrad to link everything up.
    4. Faculty Affairs, Lynne Beaty
      1. Trouble getting some data, may reach out to Lena for assistance

        Final reports will be due in May, watch your email for a due date from Lena/Jason.
         
  5. Updates from the University Senators
    1.  Senate meeting on Tuesday, things coming up for vote:
      1. Bill for bursar office to increase amount that students can have applied to bill before they can get their reimbursement. Currently $500, but underprivileged students may not be able to afford books, laptop, etc. Talks about the cap being raised as $500 may not be enough. Also talks about schools maybe having laptops available for students to purchase, or at least recommended specs.
      2. Senate recommending change in policy for how they allocate faculty to committees. To put more faculty on committees with higher ‘continuous’ work. Like Curricular.
      3. Pass/Fail passed in 2021 was to allow up to 24 credits to go for pass fail, no allowance for any classes to be exempt. Tomorrow the proposal is:
        1. 18 credit maximum with programs being able to exempt classes because of accreditation or certifications. Pass/Fail date set as of the Late Drop date. Faculty wouldn’t know, we would submit as is. Pass with C, Pass with D, Fail none impacts grade point. Students could petition to convert to an actual grade.
        2. There is talks about an amendment to drop it down to 12 credits.
    2. Budget presentation on Tuesday – any questions we would like answered or asked during?
      1. Is the subvention before or after the cut?
      2. Can we talk about the fact that what we see in the budget is a blanket cut across all campuses, but the language is inconsistent?
    3. Rest of committees’ March details up on Canvas as usual. What each committee is working on will be posted. End of April will have another report of what is being worked on.
  6. Ad Hoc Committee on Constitutional Changes
    1. Structure is locked down. Proposing bylaws, holding off on processes until the Fall. When we have a working draft we will talk to faculty about it.
  7. New Business
    1. On behalf of Tracy and Mike – thank you to staff for the help they gave us with the Eclipse on 4/8. Without them it would have been a horrible failure.
      1. Kudos to faculty, staff, entire campus – phenomenal day. Take for granted what we do here. Seeing Darren Williams on the news all day.
  8. Adjournment
    1. Motion: Jason Bennett
    2. Second: Mike Rutter / Glenn Kumhera

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