FAEC minutes, July 1, 2020

FAEC 7/1/2020 DRAFT

FAEC 

Attendance: Roark Atkinson (HGS), Naseem Choudhury (President), Scott Frees (TAS), Kim Lorber (Secretary), Lisa Lutter (CA), Thierry Rakotobe-Joel (ASB), Mihaela Serban (SSHS), Ashwani Vasishth (Councilor-at-Large over 11)

Guests: none

Minutes approved for 6/17/2020 meeting.

FA President’s Report

• President Mercer’s bi-weekly email: We hope this will include more new information.
• Funding sources: The College is seeking funds from a variety of sources; it would be helpful to know how these different lines of revenue change the balance going into 2020-2021
• Provost Gaulden has stated that she is trying to keep all lines, tenured and not (temporary, etc.).
  • If the budget process is not transparent, we will not know what is to be cut and why. We know faculty have been furloughed, as have CWA and IFPTE. Unsure about managerial and senior administrative furlough’s or give backs. Rutgers’ president is giving 10% back.

• • Naseem will ask Peter, Kirstin, and Susan about this. Follow-up may be needed. AFT salary savings are ca. $2.5 million
• .

• Scott noted the totals are not identified as included or not in the deficit.
• July 22 will be a morning budget meeting. Naseem encourages us all to be there. We are walking in blind.

•  Presidential search is proceeding as planned and in a timely manner. Is there a contingency plan if the search fails? We should ask the faculty representatives on this committee. We would welcome an update as this process has been going on for 6 months; little will be available to be shared but some information would be appreciated.
• Tentative Faculty Assembly Meeting: July 22, 1:00
  • we need an agenda but we need information about stage 3, the reopening plan, will there be layoffs, etc.?
• FA President’s meeting with Provost Gaulden next week. Naseem will ask Provost about stage 3? Faculty needs to know now which classes might hypothetically be in-person. Cornell modeled online versus not-online and their point is they will open because the infection rate will be higher with online courses than not.
• The College will likely have 1,800 dorming students; many will need structure as opposed to taking all of their courses online. The Governor has said housing insecure and students who cannot remain home should be able to live on campus. Who are the others? Freshmen? No seniors? SSHS Dean Lorenz is meeting with each convening group to determine the course priorities. How will we deliver the courses in-person (logistics) and who will want to teach them? The Task Force is being run by Virginia and Susan. Susan already works 7 days a week. It would be best not to have a train wreck. They should not be blamed. We need a hypothetical Stage 3 plan. Who will teach the face-to-face courses? We were told to swap. With whom? We will need ADA approval from HR to be remote and then the convening groups will have to scramble to fill courses at the last minute with full-time faculty. Naseem will email the Provost and copy FAEC reps.
• Stage 2: ca. 96% of the courses will be remote. Who will be teaching face to face? Will we have a cluster of infections from 1,800 students? Students will share bathrooms at this point. If we must have 1 bathroom per student, opening the dorms becomes more expensive than keeping them closed.
• Naseem will email Peter about the fiscal piece and Susan about academic concerns with Stage 3, copying FAEC. She will also ask when deadlines for ADA exemptions must be submitted.
• Stipends and release time: some have more than they expected and others have less. How was everything calculated? The union negotiates $105/hr. Some faculty were disappointed as they were notified that they were not getting release time or stipends they had expected.
• Diversity on campus: We do not have policies regarding this as seen by Nicole Morgan-Agard’s response to BOT comments. There may be a committee but nothing seems to be happening and faculty has not been included. What is the decency code to which Peter referred at BOT meeting? A speech code cannot be developed so the only approach is to use the rules we have. The Dean of Students used to send many students to a larger body; has it been reduced in numbers as more cases seem to be handled inside that office.
• • Next meeting: THURSDAY, July 16^th at 10am.

Categories: FA RCNJ Minutes 2020, FAEC MEETING MINUTES 2020, RAMAPO FAEC, Uncategorized