Minutes for March 4, 2024

The Faculty Senate of Eastern Kentucky University met on Monday, March 4, 2024 via Zoom. Chair Kay called the sixth meeting of the academic year to order at approximately 3:30 p.m.

The following members were absent:

D. Coffey*^	V. Collins	D. Fifer
S. Fisher*^	J. Hensley	M. Henton
P. Kraska*	E. Massey	C. Perry*
J. Plutt	S. Szabo

^* Indicates prior notification of absence

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

Senator Grabeel moved to approve the February 5, 2024 minutes as written, seconded by Senator Cogdill.  Motion carried. (YES = 44 votes | NO = 0 votes | ABSTAIN = 0 votes) (See also: Individual Votes).

REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT:  David McFaddin

College of Osteopathic Medicine
We are continuing to push for support of HB 407 (which would allow EKU to offer an Osteopathic Medical program). Sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tem David Meade, it currently has 33 cosponsors and passed the House 91-0 on Feb 15. It is now in the Senate and was heard in committee for discussion purposes only on February 22. We are actively working to get it called to the Senate Education Committee for a vote. For more information on the College of Medicine, visit http://www.go.eku.edu/do.

Legislative Update
There are 18 working days left in the 2024 legislative session. Legislators have introduced 1,526 bills and resolutions and EKU is tracking 261. Multiple bills that could impact higher education have been introduced, dealing with a variety of subjects: tuition waivers, guns on campus, post tenure review, DEI prohibitions, employee benefits, KEES funding, etc.

We expect the Senate to introduce their budget late this week or early next week. As a reminder, the House budget includes the following appropriations for EKU:

• 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.

We are working very hard to secure additional funding for an Aviation classroom building, which is estimated at $25 million.

SB 1	Endowed research	Passed Senate 36-0 on 2/28	Received in House 2/29
SB 6	DEI prohibitions	Passed Senate 26-7 on 2/13	No Movement in House
HB 9	DEI prohibitions	Assigned House Education 1/15	No Movement as of 3/1
HB228	Faculty Performance	House Education Committee	Discussion Only 1/23
HB 288	Guns on campus	Introduced 1/17	No Committee Assignment
SJR132	Hazard 4 yr study	Assigned S Education 2/12	No Movement as of 3/1
SJR170	CPE Doctoral study	Introduced 2/22	Assigned S Education 2/26
SJR179	KCTCS/Huron study	Introduced 2/27	Assigned S Education 2/29
HCR112	DEI Funding study	Introduced 2/26	No Committee Assignment
SB191	Performance Funding	Passed Senate 36-0 on 2/22	Assigned H Education 2/29

Budget Closeout 
Senior Vice President Barry Poynter sent out a communication last week regarding the FY 24 budget closeout changes. For this year’s closeout, we are going to trial a new method of budget management which I am calling “Budget Rollup.” This is utilized by many of our peer institutions. For the remaining FY 24, we are going to trial the Budget Rollup to see if we can better meet our above mentioned budgetary goals. As a reminder, this is not a swipe of funds for department use. All monies will stay under the authority of the Vice President and available for necessary spend. In addition, this is not intended to be a spending restriction or a sequester, rather a mechanism for accessing end of year spending.

As it relates to foundation funds, on July 1, 2023, EKU started FY 24 with a scheduled plan to utilize $8 million of nearly $20 million in unspent Foundation funds to apply towards the university’s core mission. These funds were intended by donors to go to the benefit of students and programs. For this reason, we applied those eligible Foundation funds to the areas that met the requirements of the donor intent. (View the current year operating budget here.)

Both of these strategies are geared toward fully utilizing all resources available to support the innovative and necessary work that we do each day. With a commitment to continued investment in our students, our employees and our region we must also continue to refine and reinvest in key strategic areas of the University. Further, this exercise will help inform a zero-based budget approach to building the FY26 budget which will be presented and approved at the May 15th Board of Regents Meeting.

Giving Day
Our 6th annual Giving Day event begins on April 17th. The goal this year is to have 2,324 donors to commemorate the historical academic year that we have had with record enrollment growth, record retention and new and innovative programs that create an undeniable momentum toward the best days ahead for EKU. If you want to create a challenge, be an ambassador or get involved in some other way for EKU Giving Day contact our team at giving@eku.edu.

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.

President's Excellence Awards
The time has come again this year to celebrate our outstanding faculty and staff. The window for nominations closed March 1, 2024. We will celebrate our colleagues on April 24 at the President's Excellence Award Ceremony.

EKU in the News
Find out about February news highlights on pages 3-4 in the written report.

Upcoming Events

• March 1 - President’s Excellence Award Deadline
• March 11-15 - Spring Break 
• March 31 - Budget Closeout Begins 
• April 17 - Giving Day 
• April 23 - Milestone Breakfast 
• April 24 - President's Excellence Award Ceremony 
• May 10 - Commencement (Kentucky Horse Park) 
• May 15 - Board of Regents Meeting

REPORT FROM THE PROVOST: Sara Zeigler

Please be sure to check out the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning Newsletter which is sent out by email every Monday morning as it contains a wealth of useful information.

We had a wonderful listening session with Amy Scarborough last week. Between Zoom and in person, we had over 80 faculty in attendance, and there was a great deal of discussion about both of the anti-DEI Bills and how that would affect faculty’s role as educators.

We are continuing discussions with the drafting team on curriculum review and new program proposals. That work is ongoing with a faculty-dominated drafting team. More information will be shared as it becomes available.

A new working group is being formed related to competency-based education. This is an exploratory group that will bring recommendations forward from faculty about what programs might be suitable for competency-based education offerings, and whether we might want to pilot one or two of those. Shirley O’Brien is co-chairing that with John Williamson, and there is representation from all colleges. Information on the new group will be added to the Working Group Google Doc soon.

The Provost Internship Program deadline is April 5. If you or some of your colleagues are considering that, feel free to reach out to Dr. Carpenter or to myself to get more information.

There is a Sabbatical Showcase for Faculty Awards scheduled for April 9 at5pm in the Keen Johnson Building Faculty Club in response to a request by the Board of Governors. The main events will be in Walnut Hall as well as in the Faculty Club for that.

Two bills dropped last week that will probably be of interest to you. One is Senate Bill 269 that relates to requiring a course in American government for every undergraduate student. The other is House Bill 652, which relates to Federal regulations involving biological sex, versus sexual identity, versus gender identity, and would promulgate some state specific rules there.

Please also look for our Pedagogicon and Stephen M.R. Covey, who will be coming on May 15th as the keynote speaker. There is no cost to attend the keynote address, but you must have tickets so that we can plan appropriately for the event.

Abstract submissions for the University Presentation Showcase are due by Friday, March 18th for faculty. Please consider submitting your work so that we can all see it.

A Faculty Writers Retreat is scheduled for May 20-21 in the EKU Library.

GUEST SPEAKERS:
Student Government Association. Camden Ritchie shared a couple of upcoming events:

• Bingo Night - Wednesday, April, April 6
• Brett Young Concert – Wednesday, April 6 at 8pm.

Faculty Senate Chair Kay recently received a query through the virtual faculty suggestion box that she shared with Mr. Ritchie which asked why students that are pushed into taking online classes lose their gym membership.

Currently, students with less than 5 in-person credit hours are on a different tuition rate and therefore they do not pay for the E-3 Experience which includes perks like the gym membership. Mr. Ritchie is in discussions with Karen Peavler and Dannie Moore to hopefully find a workable solution for those students. More information will be shared as it becomes available.

New Space Utilization Initiative. VP Bryan Makinen, AVP Jill Price, and Space Utilization Manager Jessica Miesmer were in attendance to share information on the new space utilization initiative on campus. This initiative is about ensuring maximum and effective utilization of available shared space on campus suitable for scheduling classes for faculty and students as well as for other events in off hours such as in the evenings or on weekends to encourage more student engagement. To learn more, contact Jessica Miesmer (Jessica.miesmer@eku.edu).

Faculty Compensated Redevelopment Guidelines. Dean Ryan Baggett and Assistant Provost Russell Carpenter were in attendance to discuss the new guidelines for 2024-25. The timeline for submissions is a little different this year. Usually applications are called for in the fall, but because of the timing, the call is out now for this spring. The deadline for submissions is at 4pm on Friday, April 5. Once awarded, work can begin on the projects by July 1. Canvas will be the platform used to input data.

To learn more contact Ryan Baggett, Russell Carpenter, or Anna Catterson. (Available Resources: Faculty Proposal Template, New EKU Canvas LMS Page)

NEW BUSINESS:

2024-25 Tentative Senate Schedule. Chair Kay shared the informational item and encouraged the outgoing senators to share the dates with their elected replacements. The in-person meetings for next year will be in September, November, March, and May.

GENERAL & STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

REPORT FROM SENATE CHAIR: Senator Kay

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee met on February 19, 2024. The committee discussed the following topics: efforts to honor a former faculty member, the 2024-2025 tentative Faculty Senate schedule, internal procedures, and the faculty handbook.

Our next “Problem Solvers” meeting with the Provost will be on March 25th.

My next meeting with the President is scheduled for March 21st.

Provost Zeigler and I plan to give a presentation on the faculty turnover data at the next Board of Regents meeting.

Work on the 8Kby28 working group is now complete. The last full group meeting was on February 22nd. My understanding is that there will be an opportunity for the campus community to discuss this effort in April.

The drafting team for the Faculty Grievances Regulation recently met one more time to discuss some changes suggested by University Counsel Fohl. The regulation will now continue going through the vetting process.

There will be a call for nominations for Chair and Vice Chair at the April Faculty Senate meeting.

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. We forward suggestions to relevant individuals or committees as appropriate, and also share the comments with Provost Zeigler and Regent Marion. Here are some topics of recent comments:

• Timing of progress reports and midterm grades
• Support for faculty concerns
• Rec center memberships for students whose schedules are partially online (on behalf of students)
• Health benefits for retirees
• Support for EKU Online programs
• Due dates/times for progress reports, midterm grades, and final grades
• Support for faculty now that we no longer have ombudsperson
• Impact KY Working Conditions Survey (23-34) results for Model Lab School
• First-day drop process
• Chautauqua Lecture Series
• Support for students besides SAIT form and student support referral form
• Shared governance, Faculty Senate authority
• Engagement at Faculty Senate meetings
• Advising obligations during breaks

Please note that the Office of the Registrar is obligated to follow the process outlined in the regulation found at:

https://policies.eku.edu/sites/policies.eku.edu/files/policies/
4.3.5acr_drop_or_withdrawal_from_courses_0.pdf. 

You can find the new University Committee Dashboard at https://success.eku.edu/portal/ekucommittee. Any member of the University community who has an interest in being a member of a committee can take the following steps:

1. If it is a University committee, work with your corresponding dean’s office to make your interest in serving on a committee known so you can be considered during a college vote.
2. Notify a committee chair of a VP, college, or departmental level committee with your interest.
3. Contact Ryan Wilson, and he can route to the appropriate contact for consideration.

Thank you to Ryan Wilson and the others who have been working on this project.

Here is some information regarding proposed legislation. Phone calls to Kentucky legislators in your home district should be made on personal phones, not university equipment. Please use respectful language in sharing opinions and arguments. The Legislative Message Line is 1-800-372-7181. Know that repeated calls over time are beneficial in helping legislators understand the significance of your ideas.

If your Senate term is expiring in May, please remind your department to elect a replacement and alternate, and let us know who the replacements are by April 24th, if possible. Also, if you are going to be on leave or on sabbatical next year, please let us know if it’s for the fall or spring only or for the full year, and who will serve in your place while you are away from the university.

REPORT FROM FACULTY REGENT: Senator Marion

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15.

See the recap of February 21 meeting below. (See agendas linked here.)

Reports/Updates:

• The reports focused on updates since the last meeting in November on topics related to financial affairs, academic affairs, student success, development, government relations, and Board committee reports. Key messages from the presented information were:
  1. Enrollment, particularly retention overall, continue to be at/near university high-level marks for most students, students from low-income backgrounds, state-defined underrepresented minority students (URM), and first-gen students. Together, maintaining these retention numbers coupled with maintaining traditional undergraduate enrollment while increasing online and graduate enrollment will be critical for sustaining and advancing the university.
  2. Regarding retention, there are apparent indicators of low likelihood of student success, and there was an indication that the university is actively revisiting or will re-implement some type of admission/placement test for student applicants or at least student applicants not meeting certain academic benchmarks. Students who have the lowest likelihood of success utilize considerable university resources, including precious faculty and staff time and energy, and the university, while being a school of opportunity, has to be judicious in how it uses precious resources, including human capital, and financial support.
• The Financial Update was included in the Board agenda document, which shows the budget versus actual revenues and expenses is available here.
  1. The financial update showed total revenues ($150.6M) at the end of 2023-2024 matching very closely to actual expenses ($150.4M), but expenditures being $2.1M higher from education and general expenditures and expenditures being down among auxiliary units (including housing) by $2.3M.
  2. Year-over-year tuition and class fee revenues were up $5.2M from 2022-2023.
  3. The impact of the state’s funding formula resulted in EKU receiving $1.425M less state appropriations in 2023-2024 than the prior year (2022-2023).
  4. The largest increases in year-over-year expenditures were in the following areas:
     • Instruction expenses: Up by $1.67M (92.75M v. 89.59M, + 3.53%) 
     • Student services expenses: Up by $1.35M (27.61M v. 25.75, +7.2%)
     • Scholarships/fellowship expenses: Up by $1.40M (24.39 v. 22.99, +6.1%)
  5. Following the report, Vice-Chair & Regent Long inquired about EKU Foundation revenue that is typically received. VP Poynter indicated that the university receives typically over $5M per year from the foundation and in years, like this last year, when the market is more favorable, the university can receive upwards towards $7M to $8M. The EKU Foundation will be providing as much as they do typically this year, and likely additional dollars as the Foundation and EKU have worked diligently to match donor intentions with student profiles among students seeking financial aid to ensure all available student support from scholarships is realized, which has resulted in an extra $800,000+ coming into the university to support those students, and thus supporting the university overall.
     • From this communication, there was mention of the amount of other foundation support for units and divisions for expenses that are not scholarships. VP Poynter indicated there is an effort underway at the university to align those restricted charitable contributions with the university’s expenses and projected expenses where an alignment exists that meets donor/fund intentions.
     • The Eastern Fund and many of the unrestricted funds that exist for supporting Colleges/Divisions/Departments are very helpful for making up the gap in state support over the years. With respect to restricted funds, I asked if donors perceive their gifts to the university as ‘margin of excellence’ contributions or contributions to maintain core/basic operations? In short, this is an active conversation, and gifts to the university are likely a combination of both.
• In addition to the university area/division reports, reports from the Faculty Senate, Staff Council, and Student Government Association also included (linked here) there reports and delivered them in-person.
• A Policies and Regulations Report (linked here) was provided by University Counsel.
• Additional reports were delivered by the President and Board Chair, in which the President provided additional updates on the impact of state legislation on EKU, including the areas that are major benefits for EKU, including the ability to offer DO programs, increased support for capital maintenance/asset preservation, increases for tornado and fire insurance ($4-5M extra in the base appropriation) and fully funding the replacement/renovation of Model Lab School and Alumni Coliseum, respectively. The President also mentioned that the various policy conversations may also have an impact on how we conduct the university business but conversations and planning with faculty and staff has been ongoing as the university monitors and actively encourages the legislature to make policy decisions that support our educational environment including aiming to keep our students safe.

On the rest of the Board’s agenda were items relating to the following:

• Personnel Actions (linked here).
  • Included in the Personnel Actions item were the personnel statistics showing year-over-year changes in the number of EKU employees and personnel expenditures by job category. The categories included are full-time faculty, administrators/deans, full-time exempt staff, and full-time non-exempt staff. Also, changes by category are able to be viewed among part-time faculty, graduate assistants, part-time exempt, and part-time non-exempt employees.
  • Similar to the previous personnel report from the fall semester, year-over-year changes as of January 31, 2024 showed a reduction in full-time faculty. For this report, there was a reduction of 10, and an increase in part-time faculty. There was an increase in full-time exempt employees by 19 employees.
• Model Policy Updates (linked here) and Model Tuition and Fees (linked here) were approved.
• Board Bylaws Updates (linked here) were approved to align board bylaws with current state regs and board evaluation/self-assessment procedures while also setting a calendar for the calendar year for regular quarterly meetings.
• Council on Post-Secondary Education Foundation Match Items (linked here) were approved.
  • EKU is eligible for $2.27M total in matching funds from CPE from the 2022-24 biennial budget’s Comprehensive University Excellence Trust Fund to enhance certain funds from STEM+H fields. There were $220,000 in funds approved to be recommended for CPE for matching consideration.
• DOCJT Land Lease (linked here) was approved.
• Discussion and/or Action related to the Board’s Self-Assessment
  • The Board received a summary from me on the results of our self-assessment, which was based upon the Association of Governing Board’s Self-Assessment Tool for Boards. The Board expressed a strong relationship with the President and the Board demonstrated clear indication that they are willing to show up for the university at events, programs, and meetings. For interest, a key focus of the report was the Board’s clear interest in viewing updates and engaging more with the strategic plan on a more regular basis. The Board has an interest in having greater understanding regarding measurable university-level goals surrounding knowledge, innovation, and transformation. Greater understanding of how the university and its divisions are embracing the strategic plan were also emphasized. Furthermore, the Board indicated that it appreciates reports, and where practical, the Board can see data and information relative to benchmarks or our peers in Kentucky. The report closed with an indication that the Board plays a positive role in the local community and the Board perceives its members and actions add value to the university.

REPORT FROM COSFL: Senator Feltus

COSFL has not met, but we have been discussing through emails the situation at UK about the changes approved by their Board regarding Faculty Senate and shared governance

STANDING COMMITTEES

Academic Quality Committee. Senator Stevenson reported that the committee is still working on their data review to look at patterns and grades since Covid to present and doing some comparison with undergraduates and graduates and online versus face-to-face students. Dr. Smith in the Math Department and a group of SAS students are assisting with the data analysis for our final report.

We're also developing a memo requesting early registration for student parents.

Budget Committee. Senator Lauk announced that the committee has met twice with Barry Poynter on budget updates. The reports Barry shared are like the reports that go to the Board of Regents which only shows the percentage at this point in time of revenues that have been received and expenditures that have been made. They really don’t get into the nitty gritty that the committee would like to see. So, our next meeting will be with the Provost on March 20th to hopefully get a budget update from a programmatic standpoint. We have a pre-meeting scheduled with the Provost a week prior to the committee meeting to ask for the type of information that we would like to see. If anyone has specific budgetary questions related to programs, please forward those to us for inclusion in our pre-meeting with the Provost.

Elections & University Nominations Committee. Senator Spira stated that the continues to work on the adjunct faculty elections and plan to meet after spring break to review and finalize the list of candidates and then send out the ballots to vote. We hope to have an announcement at the next Senate meeting.

We are also working on the letter to send to department chairs about replacing outgoing senators. We hope to have replacements on board in time for new senators to attend the May organizational meeting.

Information Technology Committee. Senator Fry announced that the annual IT survey has been temporarily put on hold because of another immediate charge. As chair of the Senate IT Committee, he has been asked to serve on an ad hoc committee which has been tasked with putting out an RFP for a third party to evaluate and analyze EKU’s IT system programs, infrastructure, staffing, and security. The RFP closed on March 1st, and we are now in the process of evaluating the proposals. The goal is to fix any parts of IT that are not working at optimal efficiency and to invest more in IT.

Our next committee meeting will be after spring break. If anyone has questions about the new charge, please contact Senator Fry.

Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee. Senator Ginn stated that the committee had their first meeting last month. We're comparing what changes were made from the Policy on Policies in 2021 and also comparing what rights EKU faculty have compared to our sister universities. All of that information is now in one place, and we are already tracking information. We hope to have a report for Senate in April.

Rules Committee. Senator Bishop-Ross reported that the committee has finished revising the Senate Internal Procedures as well as the Organization of the Faculty from part 7 of the old Faculty Handbook. Both documents have been submitted to the Executive Committee for review at their March meeting and should be presented to Senate for action in April.

Welfare Committee. Senator Streetman announced that the survey on Jaggaer should be ready to send out soon.

Our internal procedures have been revised and the update has been forwarded on to the Rules Committee.

ADJOURNMENT:

Senator Streetman moved to adjourn, seconded by Senator Grabeel, at approximately 5:30pm.

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