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Minutes, ASFS Meeting, Sept. 13, 2022, 3:30-5:00, UMC 382/384/386

(Thanks to Elspeth Dusinberre for taking these minutes. Editing, and introduction of any errors, by Andy Cowell).

In attendance: list incomplete, due to lack of admin support at the moment for ASFS. Attendees not listed here, since list would not be accurate.

ASFS Updates: 

First full year under reorganization – ASFS and three divisional governance councils are now fully in place.

Divisions send two reps from divisional council to this meeting and the Executive Committee meeting (but not the chairs of those councils)

Chairs of the councils are: Dimitri Nakassis (AHUM), Tom Zeiler (SS), and Mike Ritzwoller (NS).

Still need to define relative responsibilities in some areas: e.g., curriculum committee – what is divisional, what is overall ASFS committee responsibility?

Campus updates:

Budget reorg main stage is completed – website where you can go find out about current/new budget model is /bfp/budget-model. In general it is a model that says 85% of total revenue will be distributed based on net tuition revenue. 15% of the money will be distributed as supplemental funds/strategic investment funds. The remaining work that needs to be done is to come up with principles for how supplemental and strategic funds will be distributed. On what rational basis are we handing out the supplements, which are differential among units (schools and colleges)? A committee will be established to consider these principles. A&S is a net supplement creator for the rest of the campus. But is the amount appropriate?

Budget issue #2: Questions about DEI – no provision for DEI criteria in awarding funds, esp. supplemental funds. Campus has made a commitment that we should include such criteria, but we need to figure out how.

Budget issue #3: if SCH is the determinator for NTR, will other units start teaching shadow courses? Like Herbst? Keep their students within their units? Chasing SCH => shadow curricula? There will need to be a campus-level committee to consider overarching questions along these lines.

Q: within college, do SCH specifications matter at divisional or departmental levels?

A: we have that info but are not required to distribute money along these lines college-internally. Budget committee is working to understand the nuances of the model better and put together a document to help chairs and units understand the key implications of the model, what incentives to react to. Also we need better data on NTR and supplements per campus unit – the campus has the data but have not shared them.

Q: devil is in the details of 15% supplement. Right now this is being allocated simply to maintain status quo. That supplement is distributed at the provost’s level. Very glad to hear there is supposed to be a committee to advocate for transparency and guidelines.

A: that committee is still only a conceptual. AC will email Ann Schmiesing to ask about it.

A lot of focus on DEI, a process on DEI efforts (5 goals); learn about goals and resources, set specific targets for each unit. This will go by division or college, not dept. Information can be found at: /dei/

BFA called for DEI work to be included in FRPA – diversity committee will come up with ways to implement that e.g. by providing guidance for units to change their annual evaluation processes. The resolution calling for that is here: /bfa/resources/dei-faculty-merit-evaluation

General study of faculty compensation best practices going on. How do depts allocate annual raises, are there ways that process could be improved or problematic? That committee has been seated. Find out about it here: /today/2022/05/04/university-announces-working-group-faculty-salary-procedures

Keller Kimbrough on MAPS and the Curriculum Committee:

Two motions, both pressing issues.

1. Motion on A&S Admissions Recommendations
MAPS is gone, replaced by HEAR recommendations. Important points:
Natural Sciences - MAPS: 2 units lab-based, one of which must be chemistry or physics. HEAR does not stipulate fields
Social Sciences – MAPS geography requirement has disappeared
Language – MAPS requirement 3 years, HEAR recommendation is 1 year

Issue here is equivalence between HEAR recommendations and GenEd requirements. 
GenEd skills requirement requires 3^rd-year language proficiency. Current GenEd description requires students to take 3 semesters or test out of it. Students will be able to fulfill GenEd requirements in high school.

We therefore will continue to recommend students do 3 years of language in high school (although we cannot require it). (Other details of the former MAPS requirements described above are not included in the GenEd requirements.)

Suggest eliminating the entire paragraph singling out geog/phys/chem issues in the original motion (final ‘whereas’ paragraph).

Moved and seconded: remove the paragraph.

Q: student can still take placement test? 

A: yes.

Q: Still take classes in high school to stand in for GenEd graduation requirements?

A: yes.

Q: we are conflating admissions and graduation requirements. 3 semesters equivalent not required for admission but rather for graduation – we are just urging them to get it out of the way. Not sure how this is related to high school students, but it might discourage them from applying? Would this have particular impact on under-resourced school districts where they don’t offer foreign language instruction?

A: that is a real problem. But ideally we have these recommendations/requirements aligned. We should try to recommend a relatively high bar for students who apply to ��������Ƶ. The HEAR recommendation would constitute a significant diminution of what we used to require. Certainly it’s possible that some would see the recommendation and feel less inclined to apply. But this recommendation is less than the requirement we’ve had until now.

Question called: 27 in favor of removing the referenced paragraph entirely, 0 opposed, 0 abstain.

Now: accept motion as amended?

Q: Is this unfair to high schools that can’t provide 3 years?

A: this is not binding. This recommendation is not a requirement, as it used to be, but only a recommendation. We have accepted them in the past and no doubt will do so in the future.

A2: most of the students we see who haven’t completed 3 years are out-of-state students, who don’t complete it because their state flagship university didn’t require so much.

Q: Why did ��������Ƶ reduce the recommendation?

A: HEAR requirements existed for a decade, originally with 0 foreign language recommendation, and were for the whole state for 4-year institutions. The ��������Ƶ system all had MAPS requirements that were higher than HEAR. In June the ��������Ƶ system admin decided to do away with MAPS and adopt the state-wide HEAR recommendations instead, with a lower bar, but left open the option for different units to have different recommendations. That is what we are doing.

Q: the system argument for HEAR was so high school guidance counselors wouldn’t have such a complicated job. Does modifying the HEAR recommendations negate some of the advantages of going to a uniform set for the whole state?

A: The other more selective schools (e.g., CSU) also have higher recommendations. This is not limited to us. Even though these are state-line baseline, some of our other 4-year partners have higher levels for recommendations.

Q: The opposite is true of Geography, which is required K-12. The argument had been made this was unfair to out of state students. We won’t resolve that here, but it is an interesting conundrum. Colorado is one of 10 states that require geography K-12.

Motion approved as amended

26 in favor

1 opposed

1 abstain

2. Motion on thecontinued  application of MAPS requirements to ��������Ƶ students accepted prior to this application cycle.

Deans have met and recommended that those students who were accepted already are still constrained by MAPS. This was a difficult discussion: some students will be bound by MAPS requirements but not others. Curriculum committee had a 5-4 vote to go ahead and keep MAPS requirement in place for the already-accepted students.

Not clear that we as a body have any ability to affect this. All the deans of all the units have already decided to do this.

Not clear the Deans have the right to do this – the faculty have the right to oversee curriculum, graduation requirements.

But this has already been decided and all the other deans say it is fine.

Glen Krutz: raised concern at the Deans Council about the practicality of implementing this. Central admin said it would be cleaner to have students stay with requirements they had when they came in. Deans don’t vote; it is consensus-based. Nobody else wanted to follow up on the Glen’s concerns there.

AC suggest not a lot of value in spending a lot of time on this given the preceding info.

Q: if we are going to vote on it, it would be nice to hear Patrick Tally articulate some of the practical issues with implementing it. If it is so divided in considering it – if there is a clear plan for implementing it, there might not be much value in introducing a motion to support a plan that is already moving forward.

A: This motion was worded to try to show both sides of the question, given how divided the committee was in discussion. If we continue MAPS for now, that gives Geography a chance to modify their curriculum. Conversely, students are likely to be peeved at unequal requirements.

A2: The problems raised here will be borne by underpaid staff members, including student resentment. To students this might appear arbitrary. Just thinking from the implementation perspective and the people who work in the College of A&S, having to work with the confusion that will result.

Q: will this affect only MAPS-deficient students? How many people are they?

A: the number is hard to get out of ODA. It is a minority of our students, perhaps 15% of our students. In A&S that is a very large number of students.

Moved to pass the Motion as proposed: MAPS still stands for students currently enrolled and entering this year.

Approve: 11

Opppose: 11

Abstain: 2

The motion fails on a tie.

Introduce Glen Krutz:

Background information on career history, glad to be here now. Will meet regularly with AC and with this group. 

Implementing reorg: a cabinet including faculty, staff and students, in addition to ASFS, have another opportunity for input in a smaller group setting.

Feels very strongly about faculty owning the curriculum.

In terms of settling in, meeting with C&D in their depts and centers, get another team in Old Main. On the books in the spring semester to teach PolySci.

Reorg: has reviewed lots of white papers, motions passed by ASFS. As of September 1, the divisional deans became acting Deans of their divisions. Officers of the university now in regential law. Sorry to see David Brown go. Searches will be underway for these three positions. Meeting with divisions, faculty and staff, about how folks would like the searches to go. Roll out SS first, get the other two started this semester. Open searches? Internal? What would each division like to see in a dean? Will be asking soon for nominations or self-nominations for SS dean search committee.

Delegated some budget authority from dean to Divisional deans – immediate salary savings and temporary dollars. This is a significant amount of money. What GK now has is pretty lean. He has some resources though.

Innovation money: $100,000 per year [Cowell resisted the temptation to add a couple of zeros here ‘by accident’] to invite proposals for incubator projects, new ideas that could be proof of concept that we could perhaps find funding for later (donor?).

Enrollments: our enrollments are up 4% in our first-year students, down a bit in continuing. Some of that is due to people graduating sooner. That is a mixed bag: increased 4-year grad rate means they’re not back for a 5^th year paying fees. Back to pre-pandemic enrollments in the college. First-year enrollments look even better. Better diversity: double the Native American student numbers. Up 8% in women, including in NS. Up 7.8% BIPOC. 

GK will be in close touch tracking enrollments, especially with the new budget model.

It’ll be good to talk about MAPS, think about our graduation requirements. We have a leadership role to play. We could attract more ambitious students to come our way.

Land acknowledgement:

We have a new land acknowledgement:  /land-acknowledgment

Shortened version to use on email signatures: /brand/how-use/email-signature

Promotion procedures for teaching faculty (Shelley Copley)

Update from last year; we tabled a motion for creation of a personnel committee for teaching/clinical faculty. What we discussed, issues that came up in those discussions.

No motion today, just info to lead up to a motion next month

Last year the planning committee was asked to read and respond to report/recommendations from task force on instructor-rank faculty. What factors influence quality of life for teaching faculty on our campus? Three areas:

1. Compensation
2. Workload
3. Respect

Today’s presentation is about respect (compensation not in purview of planning committee), sense that teaching faculty are not accorded respect deserved.

Develop a full range of teaching titles, at least as working titles. Faculty prefer one wording, system another; Assistant Teaching Professor etc.

Old system: instructor, senior instructor (plus honorific, teaching professor of distinction)

New system: teaching asst prof, teaching assoc prof, teaching full prof, teaching prof of distinction

Instructors may now use title “teaching asst prof,” senior instruct “teaching assoc prof”

The previously named teaching profs of distinction retain the title

Teaching asst prof can be promoted after 6 years, not “up or out”

Teaching assoc prof can be promoted after 3 years, requires letters from outside unit (not outside university, could be outside the dept or from outside the univ)

Proposal on the table last year was to establish a personnel committee to handle promotions, cases of non-reappt for teaching/clinical faculty. They would not handle the requirements than happen every 3 years, nor nominations for teaching prof of distinction.

Quick overview of how TTT personnel committee works in promotion and tenure cases.

Motivation for a Teaching/Clinical Faculty Personnel Committee:
1. Afford same level of respect as that afforded to TTT
2. Provide unbiased, balanced evaluation of merit/strength of a case – protect candidates against unfair decisions

FAQs:

1. Who would determine criteria for promotion? (individual departments)
2. Would a TCFPC raise the bar for promotion? (no, criteria are set by depts; OFA and divisional deans will oversee)
3. Who will serve? (mostly teaching full profs, some tenured full profs)
4. Would it increase the burden on the candidate? (no, they just have to put together the dossier)
5. Would it increase the burden on the committee members (no, it should be part of their service responsibilities so dept responsibilities should decrease) (plus it’s not a very big committee)
6. Would promotion come with a salary increase? (not at present but it would be great if that changed) (and this is at least a step in the right direction)

There’ll be a motion in October to establish such a committee.

Q: this motion primarily affects junior teaching faculty, and this committee is almost entire tenured faculty. Could the motion be circulated well ahead of time so we have time to connect with those people? We may not fundamentally be on the same page regarding what would increase the sense of respect and we need to find out what it would be.

A: Chair agreed to do so. 

Meeting Adjourned, 5:03pm.