FAEC Meeting Minutes October 20 2021

FAEC MINUTES 10/20/21

 Present: Naseem Choudhury (President, SSHS), Bonnie Blake (Councilor-at-Large over 11, CA), Katie Cohen (Library), Donna Flynn (Councilor-at-Large under 11, TAS), Ken McMurdy (TAS), Kim Lorber (Secretary), Lisa Lutter, (CA), Mihaela Serban (SSHS), Ed Shannon (Vice President, HGS)

Guest: Chris Romano (Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs)

Vote to bring meeting to order at 10:03am.

 Minutes Approval: The 10/13/21 minutes will be approved next week. 

 FA PRESIDENT’S REPORT

 SGA/RSA: Naseem and Ed are working to establish a regular meeting schedule with both groups.

 SGA: Naseem attended the SGA general meeting. Covid messaging was discussed. Students were surprised to hear that they were not automatically notified if/when a classmate tests positive. 

Percentage of Vaccine Exemptions: Naseem will ask Provost Gaulden for the percentage of unvaccinated individuals on campus who have exemptions.

 Class Notification of  COVID-19 Positive Cases: The Pandemic Assessment Team has so far declined to enact such a policy. Naseem will speak with President Jebb, as many comparable schools are doing this successfully in addition to their other contract tracing efforts.

 Faculty Dining: Faculty who teach evening classes have no way to purchase a meal between classes. Policy originated prior to the employee vaccine mandate.  FA is asked to provide data (#of Faculty, FT/PT etc). This is not FA responsibility and a quick survey of faculty does not include staff, nor is it reliable. Naseem will discuss this with President Jebb.

 FAEC DISCUSSION

 FA Minutes: It is most helpful if faculty respond and vote with the first Qualtrics invitation. This will be discussed in FA.

 Family Day: We need to reach out to different departments across the College to see how volunteers might be able to help with Family Day and other events on campus in the future. This was a very successful event and can become even better!

 By Laws: A revised document was reviewed. In order for the Bylaws to be passed, they must be presented to the FA at the Nov. 2021 FA meeting, to be voted on at the December meeting. 

 IT Meeting: Bonnie and Thierry met with Rob Doster. 

 Course Delivery Mode Working Group: In order to implement findings for the Fall 2022 schedule, a February report would be necessary. Given the transformational nature of a new course delivery mode policy, perhaps this would be a good opportunity to enact the Dynamic Protocol for shared decision-making from the report of the Task Force on Shared Governance. Naseem will discuss this with Provost Gaulden.

CHRIS ROMANO (Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs)

 Spring Student Housing: Every student living on campus has to commit now to their spring plan. The day registration opens on 11/8, students not living on campus will be invited to declare their intentions. 1,640 students are currently living on campus and it is expected the number of students will increase in the spring. It is possible to have 2,000 total residential students.

 Students and Vaccinations: Students must be fully vaccinated in order to register for spring in-person courses. Chris and Provost Gaulden sent a joint email reminder to all students, which was shared with deans. Text message reminders have also been sent out by EMSA. About 500 students still need to be vaccinated. Faculty can help by encouraging their students/advisees to start the process ASAP. Students who are not yet vaccine compliant do NOT have a hold on their account, but rather will receive an error message when they try to register for an in-person course. Health Services is responsible for evaluating exemption requests.

 Family Day: $5,000 is the usual sales amount at the BookStore . This year’s Family Day sold $25,000. There was a great deal of Ramapo pride and energy. How can we highlight student achievement during Family Day? We can start by meeting with SGA President Anjali Patel at FAEC and then expand the discussion. SGA is primarily responsible for organizing Family Day events.

 Faculty Scholarship: Can current projects and research be maintained in a central place?

 Alumni Achievements: How can we highlight more of the achievements of our graduates?

 Learning Commons: It opens today!

Meeting adjourned at 12:07pm.

Categories: Uncategorized