Minutes for March 6, 2023

The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, March 6, 2023 via Zoom. Chair Crosby called the sixth meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The following members were absent:

^* Indicates prior notification of absence
^ ALT Jeff Neugebauer attended for R. Bishop-Ross
^ ALT Raymond Lauk attended for A. Burns
^ ALT Sherry Jones attended for B. Clark
^ SUB Ann Callahan attended for E. Stevenson

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

Senator Kelley moved to approve the February 6, 2023 minutes as written, seconded by Senator Buck.  Motion carried. (YES = 48 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 1 vote) (See also: Individual Votes).

REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT:  David McFaddin

2023 Legislative Session Update
We had a great turn out last month for Colonels at the Capitol and everyone represented our campus well. There are a variety of bills that we are tracking during this session. Amy Scarborough, EKU’s Chief Government, Community and Corporate Relations Officer is working with our legislative members ensuring EKU is at the table during these discussions

Here are multiple higher education and K-12 bills that are moving:

• SJR 98 - CPE study placement and services provided by public universities & community and technical colleges. (Stivers)
• HJR 71 - Create a common application and direct admission administered by CPE (Callaway)
• HB 200 - Healthcare worker shortage (Fleming)
• HB 319 - Teacher shortage (Tipton)
• SB 20 - TikTok ban, higher ed should be exempted (Mills)
• SB 9 - Stronger penalties for hazing (Mills)
• HB 18 - Dual Credit scholarships (Tipton)
• SB 156 - Establish state reading research center, direct KDE to establish annual goals and objectives (West)
• SB 70 - Pilot for K-12 performance-based professional development (Givens)
• HB 331 - Require portable defibrillators in each middle and high school building and at sporting events (Palumbo)

There are multiple bills about the use of KEES funds, K-12 student and teacher discipline moving through the Session. The Performance Funding Working Group held its second meeting last week. They will continue to meet monthly until December. The findings may be addressed in the 2024 legislative session.

Colonels Engaging Legislative Members and Committees
Having Colonels at the Capitol to advocate and meet with legislative members. It is important, however, for all parties to be on the same page. If you, a member of your department, or a group of faculty or students from your college are 1) would like to meet with a legislator 2) going to the Capitol for a legislative day 3) have scheduled meeting with a legislator and/or 4) have been asked to comment on legislative topics, please email Amy Scarborough at amy.scarborough@eku.edu.

2023 Spring Commencement
As a reminder, 2023 Spring Commencement ceremonies will take place at 9am and 6pm on Friday, May 12, 2023. If you are hosting graduation events anytime during the week of Commencement, please contact Conferencing and Events at least one month prior to Graduation week.

Facilities Update
We are working actively on a variety of projects across campus. There are a variety of projects coming to a close this Spring.

• Bypass Pedway - The pedway on the bypass is scheduled to be completed next month. While it has taken longer than any of us anticipated, it will serve as a great way to provide safe crossing for students, especially those that will live in Keene Hall, a dormitory we anticipate turning back online in 2025.
• Asset Preservation Funds - Many have seen the construction on University Drive. The facilities team is making great progress on getting our pipes upgraded.

Presidential Office Hours
There was a great response to the open office hours in February. Upcoming dates are:

• Friday, March 24, 2023, from 10-11am
• Friday, April 21, 2023, from 10-11am

Aramark Sensors
The sensors have been removed from all offices. If anyone still has one in their office, please contact Bryan Makinen.

REPORT FROM THE PROVOST: Sara Zeigler

Each year EKU purchases a membership to Academic Impressions. This is an organization that is very heavily focused on professional development specifically for the higher education environment; and they have a vast library of resources available, including webinars, virtual conferences, articles and online courses and certification programs. We have an enterprise membership which means that every faculty and staff member has access to their library of resources. To access the information go to academicimpressions.com, create an account using your EKU email address, and that will automatically put you into our membership.

The following meeting times are available this semester to meet one-on-one with the Provost. Appointments are in 15-minute increments. Contact Sharon Lee to schedule those.

• Wednesday, March 8th - 1-3pm
• Tuesday, March 21st - 1-2:30pm
• Wednesday, April 5th - 1-3pm
• Wednesday, April 19th - 1-2:30pm
• Tuesday, May 2nd - 1-3pm 

A question came up during our last Problem Solvers meeting about parking for departmental guests and speakers. To clarify, you do not have to pay for parking for your departmental guests or people coming to speak in your classes. Please complete the departmental visitor parking form (https://parking.eku.edu/department-visitor-permit-request-form). This is different from the regular visitor parking form.

A topic that will be coming up later in this meeting regards the Faculty Grievances Regulation and the drafting team for that. A drafting team has been selected. It will be co-chaired by Lynnette Noblett, who is representing the Chairs Council in CLASS and Lauren Keeler, Assistant Council. They will lead that effort with Professor Noblett being the dominant voice there. The other members of the drafting team will be John Dixon in his capacity as Executive Director of HR, and then the rest of the membership comprises faculty members: John Brent, Chair of Faculty Senate Rights and Responsibilities Committee; Lisa Kay, Vice Chair of Faculty Senate and as a representative for her College; James Blair, Chair of the Faculty Senate Welfare Committee also representing the College of Business; Katie Moore from the College of Education and Applied Human Sciences; and Jessica Price from the College of Health Sciences. There will also be ample opportunities for full input from the Senate and from the faculty-at-large as well. If Lynnette has not already called a meeting, she is planning to do so very quickly, and we will get that process moving forward.

We are now getting ready to select our learning management system for the coming cycle. Our Blackboard contract expires on June 30, 2025. Again, it sounds like that's a long time away but it will come quickly, especially since we are going to have to transition one way or another. Either we will have to move to Blackboard Ultra or move to another learning management system. We did a very brief poll of faculty and chairs, and the feedback we got was that we did want to do a full request for proposals and consider all of the options out there. So, that process is going to start almost immediately. Nedim will be able to update you on that as he is one of the co-chairs of the group, and he can make sure that this body is well informed throughout. Lisa Moore and Jeremiah Duerson will also be involved. And then there will be another representative group of faculty engaged in the initial review process. There will be ample opportunities for faculty input for testing and for looking at what products are available. The timeline for the final determination would be January, 2024 or February, 2024, as we would need to spend that time to June, 2025 in converting to the selected system.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

SGA Report. Paige Murphy announced that SGA was able to pass a new constitution at the Board of Regents meeting two weeks ago. One of the major changes includes the addition of college representatives on Student Senate.

NEW BUSINESS:

2023-24 Senate Schedule. On behalf of the Executive Committee, Chair Crosby moved approval of the schedule and the recommendation to meet in person for the September and May meetings. As this comes from committee a second is not required. Motion carried. (YES = 46 votes | NO = 1 vote | ABSTAIN = 1 vote) (See also: Individual Votes)

Tentative 2023-24 Senate Membership. Chair Crosby shared a tentative list of senate membership for 2023-24 and asked the senators to review for accuracy and report any errors or updates to the senate secretary.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Chair Crosby reminded that the call for nominations for chair and vice chair will occur at the April meeting.

GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

REPORT FROM SENATE CHAIR: Senator Crosby

The Executive Committee met on February 20 by Zoom. A good deal of meeting time was invested in discussion of the feasibility of a hybrid (in-person and Zoom) setup for next year’s Senate meetings. We were joined by Jesse Hood and Brian Popa from Conferencing and Events, and they said that the results would be less than satisfactory to do the hybrid approach. They cited the challenges faced by the Board of Regents trying to do the same thing, and it was noted that the Regents are no longer doing a hybrid approach.

In the end the committee decided that the best option would be to recommend that the Senate adopt a plan where the first and last meetings of the year would be in person and all other meetings continue to use Zoom. The in-person meetings will be scheduled in Perkins because the space is available, is large enough to accommodate our group, has the needed equipment to meet our needs, and has parking.

I have spent a considerable amount of time consulting with Senator Brent about his report from the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee. It contains many items of concern to faculty, and I’ve given him my consent to have both Dana Fohl and Lauren Keeler present as guests of the Committee to answer questions about a number of things, including the Grievance Policy. Hopefully some valuable clarity will begin to emerge from this presentation.

The committee also discussed upcoming Senate Vacancies. A letter from Senator Spira, Chair of the Elections and University Nominations Committee, went out on March 1 to all Department Chairs alerting them to the upcoming vacancies so that they may fill those vacancies by election in time for the May 1st Organizational Meeting.

I was pleased to be able to participate in the Colonels at the Capitol on February 15 with other members of the EKU community, the administration and the Board of Regents. It was interesting to meet the Legislators upon whose decisions our future rests and to get a sense of the forces at work in Frankfort. It was clear that EKU has invested a great deal of time in cultivating relationships with key legislators, many of whom are EKU alumni and are devoted both to higher ed and to their alma mater. We also had a chance to meet briefly with Governor Beshear, a strong and enthusiastic supporter of education.

I need to correct an assertion I made at our last meeting. When I discussed that nominations for Chair and Vice Chair would be solicited at the April meeting, I incorrectly stated that the election would take place in the regular meeting on May 1. In fact, it will take place first thing in the organizational meeting immediately following the regular meeting. As soon as the new officers are elected, they take over the remainder of the Organizational meeting.

REPORT FROM FACULTY REGENT: Senator Marion

The Board of Regents met on Wednesday, February 15th in Frankfort in conjunction with the regents joining a large group of EKU faculty, staff, students, and administrators attending Colonels at the Capitol that morning. The Board meeting started at 1:30 p.m. at Berry Hill Mansion. (See: Board Agenda)

The day before the meeting members of the Board gathered with a delegation from EKU in the Capitol Rotunda to celebrate the kickoff of the Manufacturing Engineering program. Speaking at the event were the Governor, leaders the Kentucky Association of Manufacturer (KAM), and many local and state-elected officials. The following morning (Feb. 15), EKU kicked off Colonels at the Capitol in the Capitol Rotunda, again with Governor Beshear. During that morning time, the Governor committed to working within his ability to bring equity to the performance-based funding system in place. The majority of the day thereafter was spent interacting with elected officials and educating our state leaders on the value of higher education and Eastern Kentucky University. Most of the time was spent listening to elected officials, and many of them were well-apprised and supportive of necessary reforms to the performance-based funding model.

Board Meeting Recap:

In accordance with the agenda, there were usual reports and financial updates from several areas of the university including academic affairs, financial affairs, the President, and the leadership of Faculty Senate, Staff Council, and SGA. The meeting finished with a touching send-off of positive comments from President McFaddin and many of the Board members for Senate Chair, Dr. Crosby as he completes his tenure as Faculty Senate Chair this term.

For additional information see the following:

Academic Affairs Report

Athletics Report

Financial Update

• For the action items, the Board approved previous meeting minutes, personnel actions, degree candidates for Spring 2023, a six-year plan update, and the acquisition of real property acquisition. Additionally, the Board dedicated time to discussing the Board self-assessment survey instrument and results.
  • In regard to the real property acquisition item on the agenda, the Board approved WEKU to take advantage of an opportunity related to expanding their reach in the Maysville area servicing Mason, Bracken, Fleming, and Lewis Counties in Kentucky, and portions of Southern Ohio counties (Brown, Adams and portions of Clermont). The presentation on the matter is linked here.
• Six-Year Capital Plan: The six-year capital plan document that was presented documented EKU’s planned or ongoing requests related to capital construction. The top-five ranked projects include obtaining gap funding to cover projects already budgeted with general fund dollars to occur in this biennium. The fifth project on the list is to construct a $215M academic complex. The gap funding request is related to significant cost increases that have occurred due to sustained inflation after the final state budget’s approval in the last (2022) legislative session. An additional list of projects on the capital projects list are provided, but not necessarily ranked. When or how the gap funds and new construction funds for the academic complex are expected to be obtained from state general funds will be part of EKU’s government affairs engagements related to the 2024-2026 budget process that will occur in the next year’s legislative sessions.

Per a request at the last Faculty Senate meeting, to provide more detail

• Reforming Performance-Based Funding: In a related matter to the legislative agenda is the opportunity for reform aspects of the performance-based funding model. In recent legislative sessions, the ability to revisit the model for improvement was made possible. Upon assessing areas for improvement, EKU (and presumably all the regional universities) are seeking reforms to bring what I believe are equity and common sense to the model that was first put in place in the 2016-2018 state budget. Equity is of concern because the regional universities do not play by the same set of rules for funding due to a weighting system which provides greater rewards to the Kentucky’s two research universities for 10 of the 11 metrics used in the model. The other issue is that the model rewards the amount of facilities and space on a campus rather than being more efficient with less space. Accordingly, the university has put forward a recommendation for decision-makers where they believe policymakers can make the model more equitable, especially for our regional universities which collectively educate and award more undergraduate degrees to Kentuckians than the research universities, yet receive less performance funds which are supposedly aimed at increasing undergraduate degree production among Kentuckians. The university’s document on this topic, including data and recommendations, is linked here. This EKU report was included in the President’s last report to the Faculty Senate, whereby EKU is seeking that the regional universities not compete for the same pool of dollars with the research universities, particularly if the current weight scheme remains in place, and that the model no longer rewards physical building space (area) as a means of performance over efficient use of space. The most recent data from a CPE Work Session in November on the allocations of performance-based funding dollars shows how funding has changed at Kentucky universities since the model was implemented. An excerpt from that portion of their work session is summarized using numerical data here. Changes to this model are our greatest opportunity for enhancing investments in our faculty and staff and for recruiting and retaining our people.

The next Board meeting will occur on Wednesday, May 24. Typically, the May meeting is among the most consequential for Board actions, as the May meeting includes the budget, setting of tuition and fees, among many other items.

STANDING COMMITTEES

Academic Quality Committee. Senator Sands reported that the committee is still working on their charge. A faculty survey on Bartleby will be distributed later this spring. Also, Senator Kay has obtained data to update last year’s report which looked at online versus campus course classes. That revised report should be presented to Senate soon.

Senator Cizmar provided an update on the Ad Hoc Committee on the Calendar. A faculty survey will be sent out by the end of this week with a possible deadline for response by the week following spring break. The survey deadline is a quick turnaround because of the April 3rd deadline to submit our preliminary recommendations to the Provost. There will be many opportunities available for additional vetting before a final decision is made.

Budget Committee. Senator Yow announced that the budget presentation will be shared at the April meeting.

Elections & University Nominations Committee. Senator Spira reported that their internal procedures were completely rewritten this year and will be presented for approval later in this meeting.

Our committee also drafted a letter to the chairs asking that they hold departmental elections to fill vacancies for outgoing senators. The goal is to have new senators in place by the end of April so that they can officially take their seats at the May organizational meeting.

Information Technology Committee. Senator Hight stated that the committee is continuing to work on the forms for voting and also continuing to work on the charge to evaluate the faculty’s satisfaction with myEKU.

Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee. Senator Brent stated that the Committee continues to review issues related to the grievance policy. One concern that was raised was the formation of drafting teams. We invited Associate Provost Wies to our meeting to address this concern, and she outlined the policies and procedures that guide forming policy draft teams. In addition, we’ve also worked with Lauren Keeler in the University Counsel’s office to further discuss this issue, and as Provost Zeigler mentioned earlier, the drafting team for the Grievance policy is now moving forward.

After opening up our meeting to additional items, two other points of concern were raised. The first issue is in regards to Aramark sensors, which President McFaddin addressed earlier in this meeting. During the February 6 meeting, senators discussed the fact that Aramark’s pilot program called Aramark Intelligence Workplace Experience placed sensors in public spaces and private spaces without the knowledge of the faculty body. During the discussion, faculty identified the fact that this can create liabilities for students, faculty and staff; impact the rights and protections of those encountering them within private spaces; present potential health concerns; infringe on pre-established research protocols; and violate set guidelines and procedures. While the university is moving forward to address this issue, there may still need to be a larger conversation. There may need to be a new charge to the R&R Committee (or another committee or assigned work group) to review the circumstances surrounding the use of sensors, discuss lessons learned from this experience, propose further action items that are preventative in the future if needed, and consider policy recommendations in light of the situation to avoid similar incidents moving forward.

The second area of concern had to do with non-compliance with EKU’s policy 11.2.1 on the Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources. The policy specifically states that all official university business conducted internally and with outside agencies via email will be done through the appropriate university email account. However, it's been brought to the committee's attention through various reports that official university business has been conducted using non-university accounts. Kentucky law requires retention of official communications on the part of public institutions. So given these recent reports, and given this growing concern, we would like to recommend that the Faculty Senate seek clarification regarding what has been reported, follow-up with any corrective recommendations, and consider further recommendation to policy and practice regarding this matter.

Rules Committee. Senator Kay shared the revised internal procedures for standing committees. Senator Winslow moved approval of the revision, seconded by Senator Streetman. Motion carried. (YES = 47 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 1 vote) (See also: Individual Votes)

Welfare Committee. Senator Blair reported that the committee recently sent out the survey gauging perceptions of full-time and part-time faculty, benefits, and compensation with the University. Currently, 309 full-time faculty have completed surveys as well as 146 part-time faculty. The deadline to complete the survey has been extended to Friday, March 10. A final report should be available for senate review soon.

ADJOURNMENT:

Senator Winslow moved to adjourn at approximately 4:30pm, seconded by Senator Kelley.

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