Faculty Senate Agenda – October 11, 2016 (MINUTES)
• Call Meeting to Order
o Call to order at 6:00pm
o A quorum is present
o Senators in Attendance: Rachna Prakash, Patrick Alexander, Kris Belden-Adams, Patrick Curtis, Brice Noonan, Zia Shariat-Madar, Esteban Urena-Benavides, Randy Wadkins, Chris Mullen, Byunghyun Jang, Mark Van Boening, Lei Cao, Mary Hayes, Peter Reed, Mark Walker, Andrew O’Reilly, Paul Loprinzi, Zachary Kagan Guthrie, Vivian Ibrahim, Jarod Roll, Debora Wenger, Antonia Eliason, Stacey Lantagne, Dennis Bunch, Eric Lambert, Michelle Emanuel, Debra Riley-Huff, Christina Torbert, Vishal Gupta, Lifeng Yang, Sandra Spiroff, Amy Hsieh, Sara Wellman, Thomas Peattie, Mary Roseman, Chalet Tan, Meagen Rosenthal, Travis King, James Bos, Breese Quinn, Ben Jones, Chrisitan Sellar, Minjoo Oh, Roy Thurston, Rosemarry Oliphant-Ingham, William Sumrall, Rory Ledbetter, Derek Cowherd
o Senators Absent: Aileen Ajootian, Tossi Ikuta, Katie McKee, Alysia Burton Steele, Sumali Conlon, Tejas Pendya, Marilyn Mendolia, Javier Boyas, Marcos Mendoza
• Approval of September 20, 2016 Minutes
o Approved
 By all present
• Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter
o Thanks to Michael Barnett for his service as past chair of the Senate
o Thanks to new chair and vice chair (Brice Noonan and Stacey Lantagne) of the Senate
o The Flagship forum allowed for a conversation about what we need to do as a University to get better
 We now report as one university (UM and UMMC), which led to the:
• Carnegie R-1 Highest Research Activity Institution designation in February – which is an important national recognition
 Held the first ever joint retreat with medical center (30 participants – half from each campus). Talked about how we could move forward together. Ideas included:
• The “Big idea” – what if we as university partnered with a single town/community for a year or two to help the town in a collaboration?
o Ex. medicine, health, education, arts and culture etc.
• Medical center is going to take off in the area of clinical trials and translational medicine in the near future
o Bench to bedside research will be the focus
o However, they need an infrastructure for technology transfer – we here on the Oxford campus can collaborate with them in that area
 Partner with other Universities in the state
o Town hall (August 28)
 Used the four main themes to carry forward that came from the flagship forum: 1) academic excellence – a student first university and enhancing our reputation and visibility as an R-1 institution, 2) building healthy and vibrant communities – serving the state, country, and world in both the short and long term, 3) enabler of people, places, and resources, 4) athletics excellence – athletics is a great “front porch” to the university. Our teams succeed on the field. Athletics gets our brand out in a positive way. It is responsible for a great deal of the philanthropy coming to the university – we have a completely self-sustaining athletics program because of this work and effort.
 Got 450 cards with ideas on them related to the themes from participants, they are now being analyzed and categorized
o Technology summit with US Senator Roger Wicker hosted here August 31
 Ideas generated here are leading into the strategic planning effort
• Need for more students trained in STEM fields
• Specific to big data and big data science
o Recent events (Dixie, the State flag, and Facebook post)
 Social media is everywhere and felt by all of us
 The Athletics department in appropriate consultations with student, faculty, and alumni associations decided to phase out the playing the song Dixie
• This year is the first year that it was completely removed
• State flag association displaying the flag at the Alabama game was a response to this issue
• The University is absolutely in favor of the 1st amendment
o However, within Vaught-Hemingway Stadium there are regulations around displaying banners that impede the view of other patrons
 The Chancellor’s office was about to put out a message addressing the flag issue, when the Facebook post came out
• The statement did not clearly address the Facebook post and resulted in the student sit-in
o Chancellor Vitter spoke with the student leaders about their concerns, which led to a more direct statement about the Facebook post as being racist
o This unfortunate set of circumstances resulted in a great deal of good dialogue, and led to the restorative justice program wherein the student who made the Facebook post will learn about the consequences of what he said through work with the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation
 The objective now is to continue to engage, create dialogue, educate, and heal the campus
• Many events going on around campus to continue this conversation
o Panel session on 1st Amendment Rights – led by Lee Tyner
o Implicit bias seminar (https://news.olemiss.edu/implicit-bias-expert-benjamin-reese-speak-um/)
o Blue and U Series
o History and Context Committee
 Started meeting in August
 First charge to identify sites on campus that need contextualization
 Second charge to complete the contextualization process
o Athletics programs
 2 of three NCAA report’s have come out, Track and Women’s Basketball
 Full reports available on ncaa.com
 Thank you to Ron Rychlak and Ross Bjork for their leadership
• Ross Bjork to become Vice Chancellor of Intercollegiate Athletics – to reinforce the recognizition of his work, effort, and leadership
o No budget updates as of now
 Trying to raise new revenue streams and be entrepreneurial
o Investiture (November 10 @ 3:00pm)
 Recent events
• Town Hall and Technology summit were two recent events
• David Rockefeller visit
• Joint poetry reading and music presentation
• Election politics – Hayley Barber, Harold Boyd Jr., Tom Brokaw, and Andrew Lack
 Coming soon
• Check website: http://inauguration.olemiss.edu
o Rankings of the University
 64th public University in the country according to Newsweek (tied with Arkansas)
• Middle of SEC
 Wall Street Journal ranked us 74th among public institutions
 Creative Writing program just ranked 6th nationally
 USA Today named us Most Beautiful Campus
o Questions
 Q: For the contextualization committee when is language on the plaque in front of the statue going to be changed?
 A: It is going to be changed soon, the plaques had to be remade and that just takes some time.
 Q: What kind of additional freedom will a lack of state funding allow us?
 A: Right now we do have very little state funding, but it is still a lot of money (~$260 million). We have to make the case for state support in any way we can. If the state were too fully fund the university according to the approved funding formula, we would get an additional 12 million dollars. We are trying to find new ways to bring in new resources; having more international students will give us access to more funding resources.
• FU: Will having fewer state resources allows senior leadership more freedom?
• A: No
 Q: You mentioned internationalization, can you speak to the move to change the management of the Intensive English program?
 A: We have been talking to 4 units (companies) to recruit and assimilate international students. We’re looking to the value of those students from other countries to increase the richness of our University. But these students need to understand how things work in the US. The same issues and concerns were raised at KU around the Intensive English program before it was implemented. The university would run all of the academic aspects of that program, and create more demand for that program because the wider program would be recruiting more students that would need it.
 Q: You talked about building healthy and vibrant communities, I would like to bring up the issue of the lack of childcare on campus? How are we going to be moving forward with this issue? How does this fit in with your vision?
 A: The report around that issue was just released today and the committee will be figuring out what the best way to move forward with the reports recommendations. Some develops coming up soon.
• Fu: Timeframe?
• A: I would love to have some kind of plan, or plan for a plan, this year. I think that there are a lot of issues to deal with, with respect to resources and space
 Q: With the student population continuing to grow, most departments are already stretched thin, but budget cuts have frozen hiring etc., do you have any thoughts on how we can address this moving forward?
 A: If we were to increase the number of international students from 1000 to 2000, we would increase by 20 million dollars our budgets. How can we incentivize units, especially with master’s programs, to get more resources that can be put into other areas like PhD programs? This year is going to be tough because of the lack of warning about this cut, but going forward we are going to have to be creative.
 Q: STEM, STEAM, how do you see the arts and particularly the fine arts working?
 A: There are discussions of adding the arts into the STEM program. Some discussion about an arts complex potentially being developed, but we need to look at the feasibility of this. I am committed to the arts.
 Q: What will be the timeframe for the development of a policy on spousal hiring?
 A: The Faculty Excellence Taskforce will look at the issue of spousal hiring…
• Task force paneled in the next week for approval by chair
• Hopefully they will meet by the end of the month
o Thank you, and I will try to be here as much as I can.
• Josh Gladden – Interim Vice Chancellor of Research & Sponsored Programs
o Research Momentum Task Force of the University Research Board
o ORSP report complete FY2016
 Data on external sponsored programs
• Good news – # of proposals increased by 8%
o # of awards went up by 10%
 Bad news – actual $ amounts went down from $64-$55 million just for the Oxford campus
• Down to $114 from $117 for both campuses
o This does track with national trends, award amounts are smaller
o One of the things that the team has been looking for are larger cross disciplinary opportunities
 Research Momentum Task Force to be developed to look for more opportunities
o Faculty fellows program has taken a while to put together, but is moving forward (being vetted by the deans), and rolled out next week
o Post-docs – FLSA $47,500 – will be bumped up to this level. Going forward any budgets submitted must have that appropriately budgeted for
o No questions
o Open door policy – if you have any questions
• Becki Bressler – Director of Equal Opportunity & Regulatory Compliance
o New online training – Violence Against Women Act, Cleary Act, Title IX
o Honey Ussery – Title IX Coordinator – co-presenter
o New online training to be implemented in the next few weeks
 Content of the training is to address the universities obligations under Title IX and the Cleary Act
• Recently completed a pilot test of the program, got back some feedback that needs to be added into the program
• Be aware that it is coming and let colleagues know that they should engage in the program early – it is mandatory. The main purpose is to create a safe environment for all students and staff.
• Thanks to staff for accommodating students who have faced issues
• There is a training gap at our university
o Training possible in person upon request
o Online training to make sure everyone knows what they obliged to do, and what to report, when etc.
o Check out umsafe.edu
 Any issues need to be reported to Honey Ussery to ensure that people’s rights are protected
o Quesitons:
 Q: With so many schools and departments using support/adjuncts will they be required to take this training?
 A: Yes, the way that the guidelines read anyone who students perceive as being in a position
 Q: Can you talk about the notion of being a mandatory reporter?
 A: If you hear about a Title IX misconduct you need to report it. We define it very broadly on this campus. When in doubt report it.
• Fu: If a student wants to talk to someone confidentially, but we are mandated to report it, what do we do?
• A: Let the student know that you are required to report it and get the students in touch with someone from counseling services, violence center, health services, or other available resources;
• Fu: The counseling center is a non-mandatory reporter?
• A: They are not a mandatory reporter
• Fu: Once you hear any information at all, even if it is not specific details do you have to report it?
• A: Report it. Even if you overhear students talking about something happening off of campus. Even if you report and the student doesn’t want to follow up, as long as it is not a threat to campus, there may not be an investigation
 Q: If students say I want to talk to you about something confidential should you lead with a statement that you are a mandatory reporter?
 A: No, but the student will likely say something like, “I don’t want you to tell anyone else”, so the employee knows then that at that point and may want to let the student know they are mandatory reporters.
 Q: Details of what to do will be explicit in the training?
 A: Yes
 Q: Do you find face-to-face to be more effective?
 A: I would love to do more work direct with professional and graduate students. We do training for freshmen orientation. In person training is a lot more effective. The online training is between 60-90 minutes.
 Q: How will we be notified about the training?
 A: Emails will be sent to individuals, with follow-up emails to make sure the training is completed.
 Q: What about RAs?
 A: IT has student workers/graduate students divided out by those with and without teaching responsibilities.
 Q: What’s the consequence for someone who doesn’t complete the training?
 A: It is possible that one-on-one training will happen to make sure that everyone isn’t trained. Will probably start with the Chairs.
 Q: Is there something from the other side to let students know what the process for these issues?
 A: umsafe.edu has all of the processes available on it for students and is spread widely around the campus.
• Committee Reports
o Academic Instructional Affairs
 Nothing to report
o Academic Conduct
 Nothing to report
o Finance & Benefits
 Nothing to report
o Development & Planning
 Nothing to report
o Governance
 Nothing to report
o Research & Creative Achievement
 Nothing to report
o University Services
 Nothing to report
• Old Business
o None
• New Business
o At the request of Provost Stocks Brice to be the Senate representative on the search for the Vice Chancellor of Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
o Election Planning Events – vote.olemiss.edu
 A list of events leading up and including election night (discussion events etc.). It is to act like a Central repository of events related to the election.
• Must be submitted by Oct 17 if you have something that you would like to advertise
o Email domain name – Graduate Students Committee
 Reached a resolution questioning the use of olemiss.edu in email addresses
• They didn’t want to change entirely the domain, but suggested the ability to opt out. But there are issues associated with that.
 Asked if they could speak to the Senate, but not ready yet
 Suggestion made to send it to University Services
• So assigned
• Adjournment
o Adjourned at 7:31