FAEC MINUTES 08/17/22

FAEC MINUTES 08/17/22

Present: Ken McMurdy (President, TAS), Katie Cohen (Library), Amruth Kumar (TAS), Marc Gidal (CA), Malakiva  Sundararajan (ASB), Dean Chen (Vice President, HGS), John McTighe (SSHS), Jeffrey Ellsworth (Secretary)*

*Both Councilor-at-Large positions are currently open.

Vote to bring meeting to order at 10:00am.

FA President’s Report:

• Enrollment Update: 873 first time students registered for the fall semester
• Family Day/Student Scholarship: suggestion to request at Unit Councils for faculty to contribute student posters that faculty already have to Family Day
• Strategic Plan Writing Team: SPWT is being formed. Prof. Naseem Choudhury will chair.
• Registrar Search: Fernanda has stepped down. Currently no faculty asked to serve on the search committee, as faculty are off contract in the summer. FAEC maintains that the committee should have FA representation and will pursue adding FA rep members.

FAEC Discussion:

• Convenor Compensation: discussion of Interim Provost Gaulden’s plan to fund convenor compensation using recovered funds from adjusting graduate teaching +1 credit policy. Concerns raised over:
  • faculty compelled to teach in graduate programs
  • staffing problems in grad programs if compensation is lessened
  • how sliding-scale compensation for convenors would be calculated
• Transparency in Service Compensation: suggested that once a semester the Provost should publish a list of all service-related positions and their compensation (money, course-release, etc.)
• Provost Search Committee: MFSA should select their own representative. Tenure should be required for FA unit representatives.
• Academic Master Plan: Discussion of FAEC’s vision for the process for developing an Academic Master Plan.

FAEC Guests: President Jebb, Interim Provost Gaulden

President Jebb:
Received equity from the state regarding dollars per student (floor rate) and getting half uncovered lines covered for benefits (one time add on in state budget, need to work to keep this).
Reorg of college structure progressing well, benefits of flattening structures.
Must address budget realities: ongoing structural deficit.
COVID reverberations are still ongoing and we need more resources to address them.
Last year’s debt restructure allowed capital to be available for limited investments in college.
Complimented faculty on the quality of the work they did on faculty handbook revisions.
Building a relationship with the state is going well, additional focus on building the relationship with the county.

Interim Provost Gaulden:
Emphasized the importance of getting the academic master plan task force rolling.
Last year we offered a significant number of courses with very few students even though they were duplicate sections of the same course.

Meeting adjourned at 12:41 pm.

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