Faculty Assembly Meeting Minutes, Sept 1, 2021

Faculty Assembly Minutes (draft)
September 1, 2021
1:00pm
ASB 135 and Webex

Presenters: Naseem Choudhury (President, SSHS)
Meeting began at 1:05pm

Assembly Minutes: April 28, 2021 minutes will be approved via Qualtrics.
Minutes Approved: Apr 7, 2021 meeting minutes were approved (105 yes, 6 abstentions)

Guests: President Cindy Jebb and Interim-Provost Susan Gaulden

Faculty Assembly President’s Report:

Welcome back to Faculty Assembly: Naseem welcomed us back to the new normal until we return to our pre-COVID-19 world. Approximately 160 faculty participated remotely. This is a new experience having both in-person and remote participants.
Guest Welcome: Naseem gave warm welcomes to our esteemed guests President Cindy Jebb, Board of Trustees President Susan Vallario and SGA President, Anjali Patel.

College President’s Report:

Dr. Jebb thanked the faculty for everyone’s work in getting ready for this semester.
Student Engagement: We have two classes of students who have spent limited if any time on our campus. We must be especially attuned to all of our students as we focus on learning challenges during the past 18 months and the new incoming students.
 – Difficult discussions happened in Convocation and these should be continued in the classroom.
Dr. Jebb’s Impressions of Key Concerns: Dr. Jebb’s first impressions are our commitments to each other and our focus on our students and their well being. She would like to address needs at the ground level. This involves everyone. We need to diversify and expand our revenue streams. We need everyone’s creative ideas, in writing, to pursue, with faculty advocacy.
Best Practices on Remote Learning and Teaching: President Jebb will share a report with us she has shared with Provost Gaulden.
Invitation to Share Ideas: President Jebb welcomes meeting with us, going for a walk, having lunch, etc.

Provost’s Report

New Faculty Welcome: We have 3 new faculty members this year. Another faculty member was hired last spring. Five faculty members were hired last year. We welcome all to our Ramapo community.
Thank You: Provost Gaulden thanked everyone for our hard work and for supporting and listening to our students. Many offices were thanked: the Registrar’s Office, the Provost’s Office, Facilities, and more.
International Education Office: 20+ international students successfully arrived at Ramapo College and will live on campus this year. It was a very challenging process and they all arrived vaccinated.
Student Used Names: Look for Provost Gaulden’s email. Make sure to confirm students’ used names are being used.
In-person Courses: We have approximately 80%, who will be having some form of in-person education. Approximately, 300+ students were deregistered from their in-person courses because they did not provide their COVID-19 vaccination information. We have a melt of approximately 30 students.
Mask Mandate Reminder: Remind students to wear their masks. If a student does not have their mask, they should go to the Public Safety Office. The bookstore also sells them.
Virtual Office Hours: These met our students’ needs well last year. Students might be a bit hesitant to meet in person. Virtual office hours will work well, again, but some students may wish to meet in-person with their in-person professors.
Course Modification App: Thank you to Dr. Scott Frees for creating a program that makes adding courses much simpler than the Banner’s 8 step method. Deans, unit secretaries and conveners are being trained.
Spring 2022: We will set up the schedule this month. Course delivery modes will be in-person, online, and the previous hybrid version.
In-class Eating: Students should not eat in the classroom; they can take a sip of water but should keep their masks on except for a brief moment.
Teaching Modalities: Might the remote synchronous/asynchronous courses become integrated as a permanent teaching models? Was the decision for course delivery data driven? The Provost said 53% of the courses are on campus and 80% were interested in coming back. We will return to our 3 modes for now and explore options for the future.
Course Schedule from Spring 2020: This last in-person course schedule will be the template schedule used for change to craft Spring 2022. If a convening group has a compelling reason and data demonstrating students prefer remote courses, discuss this with your Dean.
Study Abroad Programs: Faculty led study abroad programs will be happening this year but only to level one and level two countries. Everyone traveling will have to be vaccinated, including individuals who have exemptions now. Some students are attending existing international programs and they have signed a waiver.

Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs: Dr. C. Romano  

Enrollment: We enrolled 98% of expected undergraduates and 97% of the graduate student goal.
Housing:  We have exceeded our goal for residential students.. We have approximately 1,300 students who have not been on our campus before.
Student Athlete Advisor: An NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative, an athletics faculty advisor, is required to comply with athletics requirements. If interested, contact the Provost’s Office.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

GECCo (Dr. Sarah Carberry, Chair): The deadline is 10/15 (same as ARC). Questions can be sent to the Curriculum Assessment Teams (CATs). Email gecco@ramapo.edu.
We have 3 continuing GECCo coordinators. We will have a Qualtrix vote for the others.

 ARC (Dr. Stephen Rice, Chair): Meetings will begin next week at 11am. There will be new forms with fillable PDFs. One change to the submission procedure is to send all proposals for GECCo, WAC, and ARC to arc@ramapo.edu. ARC will review all submissions and organize them by committee; this will help ARC know the volume of work for the academic year. There will also be fillable forms for new programs and the ARC checklist. In a few weeks a new ARC manual will be posted.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Nicole Morgan Agard (Chief Equity and Diversity Officer)  

• Office of Equity, Inclusion and Compliance (EDIC): Faculty must take this training. It was offered in May  and will be again on September 15.
  
• State Grant for Multicultural Center: Ramapo received $250,000 from the State and many events are being planned.
  
• Multicultural Center: Feedback from all stakeholders will be sought.
  
• BIPOC Welcome back reception to be held on Sept 23, 2021 @ 4:00
  
• Latinx Heritage Month: September 20th at 1:15pm, Dr. Jebb will read the opening statement. There will be a movie screening of Coco from 8-10pm on the Laurel lawn.
  
• EDIC film: EDIC will be showing The Hate You Give. Nicole will lead the discussion. All other films will be made available for students to view independently in advance of the discussion.

Black Lives Matters’ College Colloquium on Race, Social Justice, and Representation. Dr. John Peffer discussed that this will be available to all students, remotely and in-person. See information here: https://www.ramapo.edu/ca/blmcolloquium/

Used Name Policy: Dr. Emily Leskinen and Dr. Leah Warner brought to the FA’s attention the confusion regarding the used name policy implementation. There seems to be a delay in the implementation of the policy due to Banner 9 update issues. Provost and CTO will work to resolve this as quickly as possible.

Faculty support is appreciated. If someone has a used name, do not use their old/dead name. Dr. Leskinen will send an email to be distributed to all faculty to inquire about names in advance of the class meeting. The form can be used for manual name changes, which can be shared with students: https://ramapo.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6WfGGEGxfLEXjeJ

New Business
TITLE IX Policy: Dr. Ann LePore discussed this evolving policy and suggested that the college consider expanding the resources offered to students in this statement. 

 Meeting Adjourned at 2:33pm.

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