Faculty Assembly Minutes, November 4, 2020

Faculty Assembly Meeting
November 4, 2020,
1:00-3:00 pm

(WebEx- link to be distributed via email)

Faculty Assembly
(The FA is open to a general College audience, including administrators, but only FA members may vote.  Faculty, including library faculty, and all full-time employees contractually obligated to teach are FA members as defined by our bylaws.)

Presenters: Naseem Choudhury (FA President), Scott Frees (Moderator), Ed Shannon (Moderator)

Guests: Peter P Mercer (College President), Susan Gaulden (Provost), Rob Doster (CIO), Sarah Carberry (Chair, GECCo)

Started 1.05 due to webex issues.

Approval of Minutes (via Qualtrics)— October 7, 2020 were approved via Qualtrics
These minutes will be posted after meeting

Faculty Assembly President’s Report

• Faculty voted for Ashwani Vasishth as FA representative to Graduate Council: (92% Approve, 8% abstained)
• Presidential Search: progressing as expected
• Spring Break announcement—we look forward to hearing from Pres. Mercer

College President’s Report:

• Spring Break canceled over concern for student/ faculty staff safety.  Value of eliminating break outweighs the value of having it. Other NJ colleges have eliminated the break.
• Second wave of Covid predicted to peak around March: S. break time.
• SGA is not happy with the decision. Pres. Mercer will meet with them Thursday.
• So far students are handling things well, but we are all concerned about tension, anxiety, and depression as well as their physical health.
• Pres. Mercer thinks college has handled it well.

The Provost’s Report

• COPLAC is being held on Sat. 8 students from Ramapo presenting their work. Student work is online; faculty can join Zoom session.
• Fall 2020 student survey status: 1400 responses/ all demographics well represented

Results of the survey will be distributed to faculty.

Spring schedule: trying to make language clear and consistent (re: hybrid, asynchronous, etc.)

Provost Council: dealing with the appropriate vocabulary for curriculum: terms like concentration, track, etc. are applied inconsistently across campus.

We need to develop guidelines and policies not just for “online” courses, but for “remote delivery.” We have reports of some students taking courses while driving and of non-students in the “classroom” during class.

Comments Period (Open to all)

Announcements
Robert Doster, CIO

• Understands the frustration with the new “dynamics in the modalities.”
• Help desk has been updated. will add url here
• Faculty can see the list of your requests in the help page: will add url here 
• After new year, faculty will all have to change passwords due to security issues. Afterward, every 180 days from now on we will need new passwords.
• When filling out help desk tickets, please indicate how help desk can get in touch with you.
• To create name change in g-mail: technically, g-mail is difficult for this.

Voting Items
GECCo: new representative needed for Systems & Sustainability. Ideally this representative should come from SSHS. It is not a requirement, but SSHS needs another person on the committee regardless. If no representative from SSHS, they will need to elect an at large member.

You should have heard back if you submitted a course. Faculty have until next Monday for revisions.

New Business

Q&A 

Promotions: Provost Gaulden working with ER to finalise calendar and process
EDIC Associate Director Position: there is a search.
Deadline for Housing applications for S2021 will be discussed at the town hall with students
Concerns about dead names were voiced.
Funding via CARES act for equipment such as webcams was discussed

Categories: FA RCNJ Minutes 2020, FACULTY ASSEMBLY MINUTES, Faculty Assembly Minutes 2020