Minutes for February 5, 2024

The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, February 5, 2024 via Zoom. Chair Kay called the fifth meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The following members were absent:

^* Indicates prior notification of absence
^ ALT Ann Callahan attended for E. Stevenson

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

Senator Lauk moved to approve the December 4, 2023 minutes as written, seconded by Senator Streetman.  Motion carried. (YES = 44 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 2 votes) (See also: Individual Votes)

REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT:  David McFaddin

EKU Launches Feasibility Study for the College of Osteopathic Medicine
It was announced on January 23, 2024, to all faculty and staff that EKU is exploring the possibility of offering a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. As the School of Opportunity, EKU’s commitment to students and the Commonwealth is to continuously analyze the market and innovate to meet the needs of communities.

The first step is to determine if there is a sustainable need for this program and EKU’s capacity to deliver an exceptional Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. To do so, a request for proposal (RFP) has been issued to identify an agency that can complete a feasibility study and make a recommendation.

The RFP Review Committee consists of the following EKU staff and faculty:

The goal is to complete the analysis by the end of summer 2024. Learn more at go.eku.edu/DO.

Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Announces Departure
It was announced on January 31, 2024, that our Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Barry Poynter will be leaving EKU to pursue a career opportunity at his alma mater, Berea College. Barry will serve in his current capacity until June 30, 2024. A search will begin immediately. Candidates interested in being considered for the position should apply at careers.eku.edu.

Colonels at the Capitol
A group of EKU Board of Regents members, faculty, staff and students attended our annual Colonels at the Capitol event on January 24, 2024. This is a critically important day as we are able to advocate for higher education and learn about the key priorities of this legislative session.

The morning kicked off with a higher education discussion and photo opportunity with Governor Andy Beshear in the Capitol Rotunda. Then, the group met with a variety of legislators (many of whom are EKU graduates) to discuss the 2024 legislative session.

The delegation met with the following legislative members:  

• Senate Education Chairman Steve West (Paris)
• Senator Jared Carpenter (Berea)
• Representative Josh Bray (Mt. Vernon)
• Representative Deanna Frazier Gordon (Richmond)
• House Education Chairman James Tipton (Taylorsville)
• House Speaker David Osborne (Prospect)
• House Speaker Pro Tem David Meade (Stanford)
• Senator Brandon Storm (London)
• Representative Bobby McCool (Van Lear)
• Representative Josh Bray (Mt. Vernon)
• Representative Keturah Herron (Louisville)
• Representative Ken Upchurch (Monticello)
• Representative Timmy Truett (McKee)
• Representative Kim King (Harrodsburg)
• Representative Jennifer Decker (Waddy)
• Representative Dan Fister (Versailles)
• Representative Josh Branscum (Russell Springs)

We also have a group of EKU students serving as Capitol interns this semester. I want to personally thank Dr. Lynnette Noblitt and Dr. Steve Barracca for spearheading the Colonels at the Capitol Internship Program. They have done a terrific job recruiting exceptional students who are learning about the legislative process and representing EKU very well. EKU’s Spring 2024 legislative interns include: 

• Laurie Abbott, Rep. Jennifer Decker
• Destiny Baker, Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson
• Brooke Byrd, Senate Democratic Caucus
• Ethan Durham, Sen. Reggie Thomas
• Alice Harkins, Rep. Sarah Stalker
• Peyton Holmes, Sen. Brandon Storm
• Nathan Lee, Sen. Steve West
• Jessica Niehoff, Rep. Timmy Truett
• Jenna Riel, Rep. Deanna Frazier Gordon
• Paetyn Stritzinger, Rep. Dan Fister
• Jakob Woods, Rep. James Tipton
• Miranda Young, Rep. Keturah Herron  

2024 Legislative Session
The legislative session is underway and all eyes have been on the state budget. Governor Beshear released his proposed budget, which was followed by the release of the House Budget, which passed last Thursday after a 4 hour long floor debate. In addition to general fund support for EKU, the House budget also includes:

• Asset Preservation - $25.9M annually
• Model Lab Phase II - $59.1M
• Fire/tornado insurance ($3,125,500 annually)
• $2.8M per year for inflationary cost support on top of our general fund appropriation.

The Senate Budget is likely to be released later this month. We are working very hard to secure additional funding for an Aviation classroom building, which is estimated at $25 million. The state budget goes through multiple steps and most agree it won’t be finalized until an agreement is reached during the Conference Committee in late March.

Multiple bills that could impact higher education have been introduced. EKU is tracking more than 125 bills, dealing with a variety of subjects: guns on campus, post tenure review, DEI prohibitions, employee benefits, KEES funding, campus free speech, etc. While many higher education bills have been introduced, very few have been heard in committee or had committee votes. We expect action to pick up in the coming weeks.

HB 407 (which would allow EKU to offer an Osteopathic Medical program) was introduced on January 30th and is being sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tem David Meade. We have almost 30 co-sponsors and the bill has been assigned to the House Education Committee. We are meeting with legislators to discuss the need for the program (market demand for primary care physicians especially in rural areas of Kentucky), explain why the program is a natural fit for EKU and to secure legislative support.

Enrollment Update
The Governor announced on January 11, 2024, that Kentucky holds the top spot in the U.S. for higher education enrollment growth compared to 2022-23. The early snapshot of our current enrollment trends is promising for another year of strong growth.

• Spring 2024 headcount enrollment is currently 4.6% greater than last year, with most growth occurring in full-time undergraduate students at nearly 4%
• Overall credit-hour enrollment is up 5.1%
• New transfer enrollment is up 10% compared to Spring 2023
• EKU Online enrollment is up 12.5% over last year
• Current projections for Fall 2024 indicate continued overall enrollment growth

Spring 2024 Commencement
It was announced during the Fall semester that the Spring 2024 commencement will be held at Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY, due to construction occurring within Alumni Coliseum. Ceremonies are planned for Friday, May 10, 2024, at 9 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. There will be clear instructions provided soon that outline where the faculty check-in location will be, among other details. Check go.eku.edu/Spring24 for the latest information.

Engagement Activities
Board of Regents Meeting: Wednesday, February 21, 2024.

President's Excellence Awards: The time has come again this year to celebrate our outstanding faculty and staff. If you have a colleague deserving of being nominated for the 2024 President’s Excellence Award, you have until Friday, March 1, 2024, to submit nominations.

EKU In the News
See December and January news highlights on pages 4-6 in the written report.

REPORT FROM THE PROVOST: Sara Zeigler

Day 2 of the Provost Leadership Institute is scheduled for February 23. We will be hearing from University Counsel as well as getting a legislative update from Amy Scarborough. There will be sessions on managing conduct, conflict, leadership, and transparency, as well as resilience.

The application deadline to apply for the Provost Internship Program is April 5, 2004. This is open to all faculty at associate professor or above.

Pedagogicon 2024 is scheduled for May 15-17. Our keynote speaker will be Stephen R. Covey on Wednesday, May 15 at 4pm in the EKU Center for the Arts.

Fourth week progress reports will be due soon. They will open on February 7 and close on February 12 at 1pm. Please be attentive to those and let us know about students who may be struggling so that other offices on campus can reach out to them and do appropriate follow up to make sure they stay on track.

The 8Kby28 Working Group is making good progress, and we anticipate those reports will be finalized within the next month. The information will probably be shared with Senate after spring break and an open forum will be scheduled.

Finally, recommendations for 17 faculty positions have been sent to President McFaddin for the spring hiring cycle. The deans have that information and are welcome to share that with you.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Chair Kay announced that Counsel Dana Fohl was unable to join the meeting. Any senators that have questions about targeted scholarships may contact her directly. Or if preferred, Counsel Fohl can be invited to a future meeting to provide an update.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

Student Government Association. Camden Ritchie shared that the Student Senate has been working on three new legislations. One, notify students when Flex goes down so that students know they have to use their own money. Two, request more trash cans on campus to help reduce littering. Three, expand the Subway VIP mail selection to offer more variety.

By now the deans should have received an email from their college senators to schedule a meeting. At still time we are still looking for student representatives for the Colleges of Education and CLASS.

Mark your calendars for the following upcoming SGA events:

• Casino Night – February 20
• Diversity Week – March 4-8
• Safety Week – April 9-12
  • Safety Walk - TBD
  • Safety Fair – April 9

Reporting Building Issues. AVP Bryan Makinen was in attendance to share the process for reporting building issues and other issues. The first option is to talk to your building supervisor. Another option is to call Facilities Management at 622-2966. A third option is to use the EKU Safe app to report any issues.

NEW BUSINESS:

Face-to-Face or Zoom Meetings. Chair Kay asked the group to consider whether the Senate meetings for next year should be all in-person, all via Zoom, or a combination of the two.

Senator Lauk moved that all Faculty Senate meetings in the 2024-2025 academic school year be in-person meetings, seconded by Senator Buck. Senator McGuffin moved to amend the motion for meetings to be 50% in person and 50% via Zoom, seconded by Senator Cogdill. The amended motion carried. (APPROVE = 23 votes | DISAPPROVE = 16 votes | ABSTAIN = 4 votes) (See also: Individual Votes)

GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

REPORT FROM SENATE CHAIR: Senator Kay

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee met on January 22, 2024. The committee discussed the following topics: internal procedures, the faculty handbook, and the Dizney parking lot data.

The next “Problem Solvers” meeting with the Provost will be on February 12th.

President McFaddin has a scheduled meeting with the Chair on February 15th.

The Chair and Vice Chair are currently serving on the 8Kby28 working group, which is drafting some initial plans for increasing the number of online students enrolled at EKU to 8000 by 2028. According to Dean Baggett, the 8K Leadership Team (the leads of the five functional teams) met on Monday, January 22nd for a half-day writing retreat and to help organize the recommendations in a meaningful way. Anna Catterson and Dean Baggett will be providing an update to the President’s Leadership Council on Tuesday, February 6th. They will also be obtaining some feedback from the Deans on the recommendations of the working group later that afternoon. Dean Baggett plans to hold a meeting of the full working group later this month.

The Faculty Grievances Regulation is now going through the vetting process.

We are seeking faculty representation on the search committee to fill Barry Poynter’s position.

As noted in a recent email to faculty, we continue to read all of the comments received via the anonymous virtual suggestion box on the Faculty Senate website. Those suggestions are forwarded on to relevant individuals or committees as appropriate, and the comments are shared with Provost Zeigler and Regent Marion. Here are some topics of recent comments: 

• Building maintenance
• Parking
• Drop/add and first-day-drops
• Class cancellation standards
• Compensation
• Benefits
• Commencement
• Faculty staffing issues
• General Education requirements
• AI detection software
• Prorating overloads
• Out-of-date web pages
• Admission standards
• Paperless contracting system
• Athletics bonuses
• Faculty receptions
• EKU Online course development and redevelopment

Note that the EKU Online development process/deadlines remained consistent for this academic year as in past years. The only change for this year was a stop-gap measure regarding course development compensation. When that measure was implemented for this year, the Provost convened a working group to further discuss compensation moving forward. The group just concluded their work with prioritizing final recommendations in the areas of course development professional development and compensation.

We prefer to share the virtual suggestion box comments verbatim with appropriate groups or individuals whenever possible so that nothing gets lost in translation, so please remind your colleagues to use language that is shareable in a professional setting.

REPORT FROM FACULTY REGENT: Senator Marion

The Board last met on November 15, 2023. A summary of that meeting was provided in the last Faculty Regent Report to the Senate. The Board’s next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 21.

Since the last Board of Regents meeting, the Board had 100% attendance with the EKU delegation that met with elected officials in Frankfort on Wednesday, January 24. During those ‘Colonels at the Capitol’ meetings with a large audience of university leadership, faculty participating in the Provost’s leadership programs, and some EKU students, elected officials got to put faces with our folks and connect with our university on a more personal level. It is still early in the legislative session. As it stands, there are several budget proposals that are favorable to higher education, some more favorable than others. These budget issues are vitally important to our operations and have received less attention in the media. At the same time, many in Kentucky higher education are aware of the various proposals influenced by national conversations regarding highly generalized perceptions of American higher education from coast-to-coast.

CPE Updates: At the state-level, CPE has been producing considerable information for informing state higher education policy. In addition to the university presidents, including Dr. McFaddin having a conversation on KET in the fall (linked here), recently, Dr. Aaron Thompson met with Renee Shaw on KET Connections to discuss the issues impacting Kentucky higher education in Kentucky (linked here on January 21) and opportunities for Kentucky.

One of the highlights right now is that Kentucky had the most significant enrollment gains in our college-going rate among all states last year. The CPE report was recently highlighted in the Lane Report here. The report indicates that enrollment in Kentucky increased by 5.6%, versus 2.0% growth, nationally. Additionally, CPE reports that most Americans believe that our colleges and universities benefit our graduates, local communities, states, and society overall by a great deal or a good amount. CPE and Kentucky have updated their job market projections, indicating that nearly two-thirds of Kentucky jobs will need some form of post-secondary education by 2031, including 594,000 that will need a baccalaureate or master’s degree 

STANDING COMMITTEES

Budget Committee. Senator Lauk announced that their spring schedule has been set for February 26 with Barry Poynter, March 25 with Sara Zeigler, and April 29 with Barry Poynter. The schedule has been set up this way to get regular updates on all the different moving parts such as legislation, appropriations and different initiatives.

Elections & University Nominations Committee. Senator Spira stated that the committee will begin working on the adjunct faculty election at their next meeting on Monday, February 12 at 4:30pm. Senator McGuffin, our current part-time representative, has been invited to attend if her schedule permits.

Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee. Senator Ginn announced that she and Senator Slijepcevic will serve as co-chairs this semester.

Rules Committee. Senator Bishop-Ross shared that the revisions for the Senate internal procedures and the changes to the organization of the faculty should be ready to send to the Executive Committee for review soon.

The next committee meeting will be on Monday, February 19.

Welfare Committee. Senator Manning reported that the committee is considering broadening the scope of their committee membership to include someone from the Staff Council as a non-voting member. The committee is working with the Rules Committee to make that change in the Organization of the Faculty.

This year the committee has been working hard to make sure there are open lines of communication. As such, Senator Streetman has been meeting regularly with the Provost and others to make sure that conversations are open across departments.

ADJOURNMENT:

SenatorBishop-Ross moved to adjourn, seconded by Senator Grabeel, at approximately 5:30pm.

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(See Also:  Polling Results by Motion & Senators)

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