Behrend Faculty Council Meeting Minutes
Monday, February 19, 2024
8:00–9:00 a.m.
I. Call to Order – Lena Surzhko-Harned, Faculty Council Chair
- Approval of the minutes from previous Faculty Council Meeting
- Motion: Charlotte DeVries
- Second: Mike Rutter
II. Welcome and Comments from the Chair
- New member of research committee – Elisa is stepping down.
- New chair of Student Life – Gabe stepped away, Michelle Cook and James Hodge taking over as co-chairs.
- Ad Hoc PASSS committee is off and running.
III. Updates from the Leadership Team:
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Comments by the Chancellor, Ralph Ford
- Information will continue to be shared as it becomes available.
- February 29th – Margo will be visiting, no finalized agenda yet, do believe she will meet with this group (Council) directly. Wants to meet with faculty leaders but since this is her first visit to campus, hoping for a large open session, as much attendance as possible.
- Contract length email for Fixed Term faculty – 14 campuses have been moved to renewals of one year. Other campuses are doing a mix – some are sticking with regular lengths in some instances, and others are shifting to one year. We are leaning toward keeping multi-year; trying to think through all aspects, the idea of going back on something that took years to put in place doesn’t sit well.
- If we talk about not renewing contracts, putting it up to ‘luck of the draw’ of whose contract is up that year is concerning.
- Either luck of the draw, if contact is up -or- is this an enrollment budgetary decision?
- Trade off – if we have contract lengths, we have to honor them. Subject to conditions in that given year. If everyone were on one-year contracts, would make it possibly easier from seniority perspective.
- Budgetary constraints also do need to be considered.
- Two-year budget model, but 25/26 is a one-year budget as far as we know, and we start finalizing that April/May of this year.
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Comments by the Interim Vice Chancellor and Dean of Academic Affairs, Greg Filbeck
- Second fireside chat, this afternoon (2/19) 4pm – faculty senate sponsored. Academic portfolio is the topic. Where are we now, where are we going?
- Western campuses strategy, went down to Beaver on 1/30, took 12 folks representing leadership in schools, the Registrar, advising, admissions, etc. Very successful meeting. Beaver loves us, wants to work more closely with us. Meeting with these other campuses is critical to get them to think of us as a 2+2 option. Next campus is Shenango, 3/1. Hoping one more in April, maybe Greater Allegheny.
- International recruiting – India based strategy, Ray taking off with Harrisburg, going to 6 universities in India. Ray maybe 3 - 4 more while over there. Creating relationships for 2+1+1+1 programs. MBA program is now recognized to be able to take international students.
- Advising Taskforce is planning to report on 3/20, any input anyone has is welcomed. Looking forward to 3 or 4 proposals coming out of that group. One is very doable, and a second is pretty doable as well. Others are more of a reach but looking at how to make them a possibility.
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Comments by the Vice Chancellor and Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Alicyn Rhodes
- Research Expenditures $9 million, up two million from last year. This portion of our budget should go up. Things look good from this front.
- Putting data together in a compelling way for Margo’s visit. Making sure our Research budget is addressed.
- Think about Margo’s life – visiting 19 campuses, and we all look like an angry group. Tempting to spend the day in dialog, we should work to try and convince her who we are, what matters, etc.
- Working with Bill Gonda, celebrating a lot of things that have happened in recent years.
- Altoona lost their research area – our group is going to pick up their work. Working to make Behrend a resource for other campuses.
IV. Reports from Committee Chairs
- Athletics – 12 faculty mentors launching this semester. Faculty that volunteered to engage with athletics teams, extent of participation depends on faculty member. Handout/centralized information form for NSO advisors for how to schedule student athletes due to issues coming from students about not being able to take classes at certain times.
- Computing – analyzing survey data, grouped up so that various summaries are being written up for what is needed from each of the different schools. Number of points to address, but not ready by tomorrow.
- ICBS changes to access for supercomputing – not currently captured by this committee, the report is focused on use of campus computing classrooms. To assist IT with limited resources. Some of this could parallel with Research committee.
- Graduate – hopefully made strides in workflows for proposals, but infrequent, so may take time before it gets tested.
- Curricular Affairs – looked at how 4 schools do proposals, two different ways (half uses Microsoft Forms, and half does not) but very similar procedure, department to director to school committees and eventually makes it to our committee. If using Form, we get it before CIM, if not using Form we get it after CIM, but we really should be getting it before in all cases.
- Need to work on the form, would be great if consistency, could borrow on graduate side.
- Some faculty are not even aware of a form.
- Faculty Affairs – tomorrow Lucianna to present a motion on behalf of faculty affairs for Behrend Faculty Senate to go to University Faculty Senate for non-tenure line (NTL) promotion funds. Tenure line (TL) promotions decided on at University Park, NTL Funded by colleges. Variations when supporting NTL promotions. TL about 8% consistently, NTL range from 3 – 16% depending on year/college. Inequity issues, hoping to get that pulled from centralized pot of money rather than Behrend specific.
V. Updates from the University Senators
- Agreement on cooperation on budget, which passed. Faculty senate wants input on how things are being handled.
- Accountability proposal – after Provost/President makes presentation on certain cuts/changes/modifications, Senate and associated committee can weigh in and say yes we agree, no we didn’t, etc.
- In the process of voting for senators
- Faculty Senate Council
- VP Schwartz brought up issue with funding for NTL faculty.
- Advising, considering professional advisors.
- Academic review, stage 0, but will move to stage 1 where people will review.
- Recommendations – those involved in accreditation, assessment should be asked
VI. Ad Hoc Committee on Constitutional Changes
- Met with administration, on board with new representative model. Some details still to be ironed out, we’ve gone and reorganized committee structure. Will be sent out to chairs of committees, looking for feedback. We currently have 10 committees, seems excessive, some probably don’t need a whole committee - working to streamline.
VII. Old Business – Behrend Faculty Response to the University Administration
- Visit on 2/29 – Margo
- Some individual faculty are drafting some messages; talked about possibilities of some kind of email/communication as a uniform body close to Margo’s visit.
- Content?
- Highlight importance of Behrend
- What are some very important narrative points right now
- Stop thinking of us as a two-year feeder campus
- Why are we, what makes us, different?
- Research and industry
- Western Campuses
- We can provide leadership – things they can’t do that we can
- How Behrend helps other Commonwealth Campuses (CWC) // Sell Behrend as a resource
- Mission in jeopardy as a result of the budget
- Stop thinking of us as a two-year feeder campus
- Why Behrend is strong and different is the starting point. Expensive programs hindered by budget (STEM, etc), Research not well represented. Opportunities for growth would be having Behrend be leader of the West.
- Content?
- Is Margo the right person to address the budget?
- Margo is on the taskforce that created the original budget model.
- Good to get her opinion.
- 16 pages of public comment with the Board of Trustee meeting – you can watch the recordings. The Board is getting this message, it’s ultimately our choice if we want to address with Margo or not.
- Probably best to send the letter to all leadership, not just Margo
- Behrend to be grouped with cheaper programs.
- Does admin care that we are different? Everyone thinks they are special. Not sure that this is the correct message at this time.
- Behrend could provide services, and because part of CWC, may be able to provide better services. Idea might be “how can Behrend provide solutions to the budget crisis?”
- Biases add up, all in the math. Can be proved that they disadvantage in-state students, those of lower income, that’s may be how best to make the case. It’s made to seem ‘equal,’ but it’s not.
- Should we write two letters?
- Budget not fair to students and ultimately Behrend as a whole.
- Behrend’s growth opportunities for leadership.
- Old Main, leadership important to receive the letters, but also legislators. Most don’t know the intricacies of everything. Trustees may not even be aware.
VII. New Business
- Contacted by faculty member at Fayette – rally for campuses on 2/28 at noon. They are hoping to see simultaneous events at campuses. Decentralized effort, hoping faculty will spread word around campus.
VIII. Adjournment
- Motion: Mike Rutter
- Second: Lynne Beaty / Elisa Beshero-Bondar