Remarks by Kirk Schulz, President

The president began his presentation by thanking the faculty and staff for the exceptional job they have done moving in such a short timeframe to an online experience for our students.

Provost Search Update

• Seven semi-finalist candidates interviewed via Zoom
• Four finalist candidates (3 external, 1 internal; all with experience at Public Land Grant Research Universities)
  • Credentials (CVs, etc.) will be posted 48 hours in advance
  • Each will visit via Zoom with various groups and members of the campus community
  • Candidates will answer questions from the WSU community via streamed presentations – On April 13, 14, 15, and 20; all during 1:00-2:00 pm
• Updates, information, and feedback forms at https://provostsearch.wsu.edu. Please submit questions for the Provost candidates to address.
• The goal is to narrow down to one or two individuals to visit several campus locations in-person in mid-May.

WSU System Strategic Plan

• Work started in Spring 2019 to develop the first WSU System Strategic Plan
• SPIEC formulated in Fall of 2019 to guide planning process, analyze data and information, and draft the plan for presenting to the WSU Regents in Spring 2020
• “No Process is Perfect”
  • We must find ways to engage larger numbers of faculty to participate in the planning process.
  • Thank you to the Faculty Senate for providing a critique of the process and the draft system plan.
  • Craig Parks is leading the development of the WSU-Pullman Strategic Plan in alignment with the System Strategic Plan.
• The System-Level Plan must include –
  • Restructuring the multi-campus system to eliminate administrative redundancy and free up resources to invest in the knowledge enterprise (Progress: Start of discussion during 2020-21 academic year)
  • Developing a transparent system-wide budget model that supports our strategic priorities, is informed by the Fiscal Health Advisory Committee, and is based on accurate cost of instruction. (Progress:  Initial work in College of Nursing budget – will be a major initiative in 2020-21 academic year)
  • Hiring an experienced leader in enrollment management into the provost’s office (Progress: In process currently)
  • Creating a capital needs a ranking system across WSU that supports the priorities as identified in the strategic plan. (Progress:  Developed and communicated to WSU community by VPFA)
• Possible System-level Projects (on-going and new)
  • Developing system-level planning to support centers and institutes
  • Communicating our $2B campaign’s goals and objectives to our stakeholders, including alumni and the broader community
  • Improving government relations in terms of establishing budget priorities, Extension funding, and legislation that impacts WSU
  • Modernizing our human resources, finance, and grants systems via Enterprise Resource Planning with Workday
  • Developing a system environmental scan process
  • Developing a common process that helps campuses connect with their communities
  • Developing a system-level approach to growing and managing core facilities and reducing deferred maintenance
  • Developing a model that defines common and fair HRS practices across all campuses and colleges
• Selection of appropriate projects and initiatives would be part of the annual planning process
• Specific feedback on the draft plan
  • Lacks specifics and “how-to” (Draft plan is a framework for campus and unit plans to use to fit their goals. These plans will provide the how-to’s.)
  • Need for unit level planning (Provost Slinker has initiated with Deans)
  • Excess of assumptions which are not necessarily based in empirical data
  • Trendy language used too often (Much has been edited out)
  • Need for increased emphasis on the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout the draft. (Language has been updated throughout)
• Recommendations
  • Write the Pullman plan to focus on CAHNRS, CAS, Carson, Murrow, Education, Voiland, Vet-Med, and Honors. The Spokane plan would include Nursing, Medicine, and Pharmacy.  (Response – Have Craig Parks and Daryll DeWald ensure coordination on plan development and format)
  • Extension was mentioned often in feedback. Extension faculty relayed that our system is often stymied by an outdated structure and constrained by county, state, and federal contracts.  (Response – We will work with incoming WSU Extension Director and the new Provost on this)
  • Empower faculty to participate in a new authentic system plan that outlines our accomplishments and is honest about our challenges (One WSU). Senate could provide a platform for faculty participation apart from surveys and all-day conferences.  (Response – We welcome discussion on ways to include higher faculty participation)

Fiscal Challenges – COVID-19

WSU continues to address challenges with our fiscal situation due to COVID-19

• Executive salaries frozen until July 2021. President and other highly compensated individuals taking a 5% voluntary salary reduction until July 2021
• Faculty and staff hiring freeze in place with procedures developed to move forward with mission-critical hires
• Student Affairs expected to return $12-14M to students requesting a partial refund/credit for Spring 2020 housing and dining fees
• Governor’s veto of several budget items in FY20 Supplemental Budget could effect salary adjustments, ESFCOM expansion funds, and soil health initiative
• Summer 2020 impacts affecting quality of the WSU Pullman undergraduate experience
  • Moving Summer 2020 to online instruction will result in additional revenue loss
  • Summer undergraduate research programs cancelled by federal agencies
  • Faculty-led study abroad programs cancelled
  • Student recruitment and retention programs (e.g. tribal, STEM, Summer Advantage) are being cancelled
• There are opportunities to secure additional “one-time” emergency support funds from the State of Washington to utilize WSU faculty research expertise in areas of significant need due to COVID-19
• There are some federal funds from the $2T stimulus to come to WSU; timing is uncertain. These funds will be targeted and focused on emergency student aid/direct support and are not stimulus funds like ARRA.  These funds cannot support intercollegiate athletics
• A task force is modeling potential impacts on enrollments, tuition revenue, and state funding adjustments
• All auxiliaries, including Athletics, are estimating impacts on revenues and expenses for the remainder of FY2020 based on cancellation of events and Stay Home Stay Safe requirements

Roles and Responsibilities Working Group

This group has been meeting since December 2019.  Members include Chip Hunter, Theresa Elliot-Cheslek, Laura Griner-Hill, Sandra Haynes, and A.G. Rud.

A report should be complete by mid-May 2020 to be broadly distributed to the WSU community.  Preliminary highlights:

• One WSU and One Degree will continue to be core principles for WSU System
• Innovative organization structure can be a strength and not a weakness if we execute it well
• Recommendation for a matrix model for academic issues
• Each campus, including Pullman, will need a clear mission
• Vice Presidents’ “system” vs. “Pullman” roles and responsibilities need clarification
• A different set of working groups are suggested (based on 2004 suggestions)

Question and Answer Session

Provost Search
Q. You’ve said the stimulus funds won’t be used for athletics. Can you say the same for the University’s reserve accounts?
A. I don’t know what we’re going to wind up doing. We don’t know what the Athletics budget’s going to look like. We don’t know, for example, what the PAC-12 distribution is going to be. If the comment is, ‘are we going to take reserve funds from whomever and give some of those moneys to Athletics to help balance their budget,’ the answer is ‘no, we’re not going to do that.’

Q. The Chronicle reported today that WSU would get $21M from the COVID funding. Will this be used for students as you discussed?
A. I don’t know. We don’t have the guidelines yet on how those dollars can be used. $21M is a substantial dollar figure to assist our students in need and the university in delivering the education to those particular students. As we have more details exactly how those dollars are to be used, we will put those out. We’ll make sure the university community sees those and sees exactly how those dollars will be spent.

Q. You have an executive committee making day-to-day decisions due to the crisis. Would you consider adding a rep from faculty leadership to this group?
A. It’s a crisis management team that’s actually pretty defined in scope and structure. That group was put in place not to be a permanent group. What I’m talking to the cabinet over the next two weeks of doing is putting together some small work groups on very specific types of things moving ahead that are not just policy but online education, what sort of things have we learned, how are we going to deal with some of the budget issues and what we want to do is at that particular case on those working groups we hope to put together in May, we will ask the Faculty Senate specifically for representation on each of those particular groups so that there is a clear faculty voice. I will ensure that there is an appropriate faculty voice on decisions moving forward.

Q. Can you comment on the level of diversity there is in the four provost candidates?
A. We have one candidate of color, two women candidates, and one white male candidate.

Q. Will WSU Vancouver still be required to build reserves in the fall due to financial problems caused by COVID?
A. I don’t know that. That’s an appropriately detailed question that we’ll make sure we take up with the Chancellor, Stacy, and others.

Q. How long do you anticipate the hiring freeze will last and how will it affect faculty hires?
A. I don’t know how long the hiring freeze will last. I think hiring freezes sometimes last for multiple years. The real issue is that we just don’t know what the State of Washington’s impact due to the budget issues that this state’s going to have will have on higher ed. We’ll know more in the next couple of months. I would say it will be throughout the next academic year, but that could change, hopefully for the better.

Q. Is there a freeze on hiring administrators?
A. If we have active searches ongoing, the answer [to continuing them] is ‘yes.’ Are we going to add new administrative positions that nobody has heard about over the next academic year? The answer to that is ‘no.’ The two administrative positions that I’m aware of that are out there right now are the provost, and we’re doing finalists, and we’re hiring an enrollment management person to replace a retirement that’s really critical to our long-term success at Pullman and as a system, and that search is ongoing.

Q. What is the status of the investigation into bias and handling of former Provost Montoya? Transparency was promised. There have not been public updates for awhile. Will it be available to the candidates for provost?
A. All I know is that the attorney that was hired in conjunction with the Faculty Senate to do this is continuing their interviews and they were doing additional interviews this week. Will it be made available to the provost candidates? It will be made available when it’s done to everybody. I’m happy to explicitly make sure the provost candidates see it, but it depends on when it’s done.

Q. What have discussions about the start of the fall semester entailed? What are you anticipating? What might be happening?
A. Everybody is now appropriately asking questions about what’s going to happen in August and September. I think it’s just too preliminary for us to know. Right now, we’re planning on holding in-person classes, having residence halls with students, and returning back to something that is different than what we’re doing now and it may not completely what things looked like in December of this last year. There’s been some speculation on what fall could look like, but we need to spend the summer really working on this.

Q. Have you thought about faculty that are in vulnerable age groups and how you might handle that in the fall?
A. One of the questions that I want us to answer more broadly is, ‘what will we learn when we get to the end of this semester that could [lead to] a better way for us to do things?’ I think maybe what we learn is that we can have an educational experience, a quality one, or a quality work experience where people are not sitting physically present. Teaching doesn’t have to be all in a classroom. What may happen to come out of this is actually greater flexibility that we have with our faculty colleagues than we might have had a few weeks ago. I want us to be thinking creatively about how we can learn from this experience and maybe make our workplace and our education style a little more flexible, a little bit more different, and maybe a little more encompassing to more of our colleagues.

Q. Has there been any discussion of providing our adjunct faculty with bonuses for the incredible above-and-beyond work they have been required to do?
A. We have not discussed any sort of bonuses, additional pay, compensation-related issues for any faculty status or any staff members, administrators, anybody based on this. Does that say that we shouldn’t? Absolutely not. That has not been part of our conversation to date and I would encourage senators if they think that that is something that really should be taken into account, work through the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, and we always want to take feedback from our faculty on things that we need to be thinking about.

Call to Order

Degree Conferral Recommendations:

Motion by Becky Bitter, Registrar, for the University Faculty to recommend to the President and the Board of Regents to advance undergraduate and professional students who have completed degree requirements to their respective degrees was approved.

Motion by Lisa Gloss, Dean of the Graduate School, for the University Faculty to recommend to the President and the Board of Regents to advance graduate students who have completed degree requirements to their respective degrees was approved.

Chair’s Remarks:

Information Item – Posthumous Degree Policy

The policy concerning posthumous degrees in the Educational Policy and Procedure Manual was updated.

Montoya Investigation Update

Greg Crouch reached out to Danielle Hess, Attorney General’s office, asking for further details.  It is not known when the investigation will be completed.  Interviews are ongoing.  Former Provost Montoya has been interviewed twice and she has suggested to the investigator other persons to be interviewed.  The investigator was provided available electronic communications (emails) that were part of active or pending FOIA requests.

Potential for Special Session

In the event of further unusual circumstances, it was requested to hold any necessary additional Faculty Senate meetings up until May 15^th, the end of the semester.

Agenda Items:

All Discussion Items were moved forward as Action Items.

All Action Items were approved.

Constituent Concerns:

Changes to the Faculty Status Committee are in progress, balancing the composition to include career-track faculty.  Additional nominees are needed to complete this process; Dave Turnbull (bull@wsu.edu) is soliciting additional career-track faculty nominees.

Constituent concerns will continue to be monitored during the semester and through out summer.

 

 

Remarks by Mary Wack, Vice Provost for Academic Engagement and Student Achievement

Introduction of draft emergency adjustments to grading policy for Spring 2020.

Considerations:
The sudden shift to online instruction has raised concerns about equity in grading, especially with reduced academic support, life disruptions, potential loss of income, and displacement from the usual educational settings. The current plan is an attempt by the Provost’s Office, the Registrar’s Office, colleges and campuses to balance a number of these considerations.

Observations:

• WSU is different from other Washington State institutions that are on the quarter system. More than half of the semester is over. WSU is best positioned among institutions to transition to online delivery and preserve some degree of normalcy in our academic enterprise.
• We need to provide as much flexibility and choice as we can for students. Many of them have difficult situations and we need to support them through this.
• Some students may not want or might be academically harmed by Pass/Fail in all of their courses.
• The State of Washington is on the leading edge of the COVID-19 situation. Accreditors across the country have not all caught up to what this is doing to teaching and learning with regard to accreditation standards to requirements. Example: Health sciences disciplines across the country have not come to a consensus over the acceptance of Pass/Fail grading.

Proposed Adjustments (Draft, updated 3/27, final policy to be released the week of 3/30/20):

• P/F grading option can be requested on a course-by-course basis until June 1. Students can also reverse a request for any course.
• P/F option can be used for UCORE and Honors courses.
• There will be a form online through the Registrar’s Office to request this option.
• Advisor approval is not required (no easy way to gather signatures), but the form will strongly recommend students contact advisors, as well as consider financial aid impacts.
• The limit for W (course withdrawal) is raised from 4 to 6 and extended to May 1.

The website for students to request P/F grading is: https://registrar.wsu.edu/pass-fail/

As points of information:

• P = A, B, C; F = F
• A new grade, PP = C-, D+, D, will be used
• P will satisfy prerequisites requiring C or above when PERC runs
• PP gives passing credit
• PP may not satisfy some prerequisites
• The advantage of the P, PP grade option is it has no negative impact on the student’s GPA whereas a letter grade, in particular C-, D+, D, could have a negative impact. It also allows P = C and above to satisfy prerequisites and requirements in many majors.
• Departments should be extremely generous in accepting P and PP grades for their requirements. In particular, students with the fewest resources to transition online are the ones who will need P/F flexibility the most. From an equity standpoint we need to open this window wide.

Other grading options are being investigated. Some of these changes will impact federal financial aid; we’re moving as fast as we can while making sure there’s no impact to students’ aid packages and satisfactory academic progress. In addition, we are examining the academic regulations surrounding academic probation and dismissal (i.e. Rule 38, Rule 38b, Rule 39 and Rule 41); application of these rules may need to be adjusted this semester so the impact of the aforementioned grading policies won’t negatively impact student’s academic progress.

Information Items:

Elections were certified on March 25, 2020

• Chair-Elect: Doug Call
• Executive Secretary: Matt Hudelson

Reports:

1. System-wide COVID-19 Town Hall will be held tomorrow, March 27 at 11:00 am
2. Elections were certified March 25, 2020.
   1. 1. Chair-Elect is Doug Call
      2. Executive Secretary is Matt Hudelson
3. David Turnbull reported that the provost search schedule had not changed.
4. Sarah Ullrich-French reported the Faculty Status Committee has updated membership bylaws to include career track faculty.
5. Senate responses to the draft strategic plan were presented to President Schulz.

Agenda Items:

• All Action Items were approved.
• All Discussion Items will move forward as Action Items for the April 9 meeting.

Constituents’ Concerns:

 

• A request was made to form a Faculty Senate Task Force on reforming faculty hiring practices in a more collaborative manner. It was noted that HRS in some locations has been very difficult to work with and that a task force could bring forth some recommendations to reform this process with HRS. Glen Duncan is willing to chair this task force. The Chair also advised this will be discussed further at the next Faculty Senate Steering Committee.
• Concerns were raised that faculty input is not being involved in policies and procedures that impact faculty, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was noted that this will be discussed at the next meeting with the president and provost.
• An update was requested regarding the status of the ongoing gender bias investigation surrounding the removal of former provost, Mitzi Montoya. Administration will be asked to provide an update at the next senate meeting on April 9.
• Questions were raised on tenure and annual review practices. Responses to these concerns are below:

Tenure Clock Extensions:

All tenure clocks will be extended one year. Faculty can opt-out of receiving this extension. For faculty who use this automatic extension, it will not count towards the maximum number of extensions as described in the Faculty Manual III.C.3.f: “Requests for an extension for these reasons will be routinely granted by the provost, although normally, a maximum of two extensions will be permitted.”

For faculty who receive the extension, promotion expectations will remain the same. Again, from the Faculty Manual III.C.3.f: “The standards for tenure and promotion remain the same for faculty who have been granted a tenure clock extension and/or an intensive review deferral. Even though a faculty member may be given a longer period of time in which to meet these standards, the faculty member should be held to the same performance standards as a faculty member who has not received an extension.”

Annual Reviews (from the email to all faculty from the Provost on March 20, 2020):

• Colleges have the option of extending annual reviews to May 1. Faculty should email their chair to determine their school or department AR schedule

Intensive Progress-Toward-Tenure Reviews for Faculty in their Third Year:

• For faculty who are in their third year now (or if 2020 is the year designated for the progress-toward-tenure review):
  • If you have already completed your intensive progress-toward-tenure review, you will receive feedback this year. Otherwise, you should wait and complete this review next year.
• For faculty who are in their first or second years:
  • Please submit your intensive progress-toward-tenure review materials one year later than planned (for most this will be your fourth year).

Summary of Remarks by Steve Bollens, WSU Legislative Representative

State Legislative Update:  Higher Education

Current year is an even-numbered year, so session is shortened to 60 days to consider adjustments to biennial budget and “minor” policy legislation.

Council of Faculty (COF) consists of one representative from each of the State of Washington’s public four-year and research institutions.  Steve Bollens is Co-Chair.

State financial projections:

Good news concerning revenue revisions for 2019-2021 and 2021-2023 bienniums:  Projected increases in Near General Fund collections of $606M for 2019-2021 and $536M for 2021-2023.  The state’s total reserves are projected at $4.1B at the current biennium.  “In other words, the state is doing very well financially; indeed, better than anticipated.”

Bad news concerning COVID-19:  Washington state Senate passed House Bill 2965 to designate $100M in 2020 budget for COVID-19 response.

“Mixed news overall, financially.  The crystal ball is fairly opaque as to how this will shake out in the months and years ahead.”

Update on the current session for WSU legislative priorities:

“The administration established their priorities, the Faculty Senate through the Steering Committee and Executive Committee set their priorities and they were perfectly aligned.”

Three priorities for this session:

• Capital Budget Request – $4M for Design of Vancouver Life Sciences Building.
• Operating Budget Request – ~$1M for Soil Health Initiative
• HB-1079 – “Creating a faculty regent at the research universities”

 Funds for the budget requests were in the Senate budget but not in House budget, so hopeful that the reconciliation process will be in WSU’s favor.  We should know the outcome next week.

2020 COF Legislative Priorities:

Three priorities for this session are supported by all six COF members:

• HB-1079 – “Creating a faculty regent at the research universities”
• HB-1363 and SB-5506 – Increasing state employee access to peer-reviewed journals
• Smaller “feel good” bills:
  • HB-2542 – Tuition waivers for children of eligible veterans
  • SHB-2543 – Ensuring eligible veterans and their dependents qualify for in-state residency
  • SB-6425 – Establishing the American Indian cultural study grant

HB-1079 focus:

Public testimony by Steve Bollens before Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee, along with his UW counterpart.  A.G. Rudd of WSU contributed written testimony.

Passed out of Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee unanimously, then passed on to the Senate Rules Committee; waiting for this committee to move it to the Senate floor.

Going Forward:

COF is the voice of all faculty of the six four-year public institutions.

Timely and effective communication is crucial!  Things happen very fast in Olympia!  Steve Bollens is in e-mail correspondence with Faculty Senate Steering Committee on daily-weekly basis.

Faculty are welcome to visit/tour the Capitol, observe COF meetings, and attend public senate and house hearings.

TVW is available for those far away from Olympia.

Legislative bill tracking:  https://app.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/

Feel free to email Steve Bollens at sbollens@wsu or call him at 360-608-6893.

“If you want to weigh in on particular legislation, that I encourage you to do one of three things:

First, as a private citizen, of course you are welcome and encouraged to contact your representatives and let your voice be heard.

But as a WSU representative, there are really two routes.  One is to work through the Faculty Senate, the Senate leadership.  They give me my marching orders and then I can take this forward in Olympia.  Or alternatively, you can work through your unit administration—your chair, director, dean, etc.—and that goes up to President Schulz who then gives marching orders to Chris Mulick, the director of state relations and he goes forward.

But there are definitely ways for you to be involved and I strongly encourage that.”

Summary of Remarks by Greg Crouch

Information Items:

The election for Faculty Senate leadership posts is running:  Candidates for these positions are

• Chair-Elect: Doug Call
• Executive Secretary: Matt Hudelson

Policy updates in Education Policy and Procedure Manual concerning Videoconference Policy, Student Location Policy, Assessment Policy Update, Course Descriptions – Links to specific topics are on the Agenda for the March 5, 2020 Faculty Senate meeting.

Chair’s Reports:

Corona Virus Update:

WSU’s main website with COV-19 information:  https://wsu.edu/covid-19/

Additional links are available on the Faculty Senate homepage (Menu Item: COVID-19 Links) “for support on what the administration and Academic Outreach and Innovation is doing should we need to teach remotely.”

Specific questions from the floor and answers from Greg Crouch concerning COVID-19 are summarized:

Matt Carroll mentioned that the website “is extremely helpful what happens if we have to teach classes remotely.”  He sought clarification into “what the administration is looking at in terms of what would trigger that decision.”

Greg Crouch commented, “Again, this is not my area but the guidance would occur based on some metric.”

Shameem Rakha asked whether discussions concerning holding classes via Zoom are being done with the knowledge that many students do not have computers or access to high-speed internet.

Greg Crouch replied, “All of those things are on the Provost’s Office website.  Craig Parks in the Provost’s Office is the person on the emergency response team. . .he is trying to coordinate the academic concerns with those agencies.  Because community responses in the regional areas are different, they’re all plugged in to that.”

John Barber raised concerns that e-mails concerning COVID-19 are not being answered in a timely manner and that responses were “repeats of the website happy talk.”  He asked if the university would provide cleaning and disinfectant supplies for their classrooms or if faculty were expected to buy those supplies themselves.

Greg Crouch indicated that he would follow up on this issue.  At the end of the meeting, Dave Turnbull reported that the Provost’s Office is “inundated with e-mails and it’s just their backlog trying to respond to all of the e-mails.”

Doreen Main raised the concern about increased social distancing and about Washington State Department of Health guidelines concerning “impacted areas.”  The guidelines indicate that persons who had been in impacted areas should self-quarantine.  Senator Main pointed out that in an e-mail, Pullman’s chief of police referred to Seattle as an impacted area whereas the university had not taken that stance.  She also asked “why we are waiting for increased transmission before we do something?  We’re going to have to close anyway and do online teaching.”

Greg Crouch replied that his understanding was that WSU is following CDC and Department of Health guidelines.  He indicated that a team has been put together, including Bonnie De Vries, director of Cougar Health Services, who “meet constantly” and are monitoring the situation closely.

Montoya Investigation

Whitman County Watch continued their coverage reporting that the investigation is now public.  The WSU Insider reported on the scope of the investigation: “The independent review will examine three areas of concern, including possible issues of gender bias against former Provost Montoya, any improper influence or pressure surrounding the decision to terminate her appointment, and the role that the consulting firm Ideas for Action, LLC, played in that decision.”

Data has been provided to the investigator, interviews will be being conducted, and we have a pledge that the report will be transparent.  The timeline for the investigation is still uncertain.  The investigator is free within that scope to ask whatever questions of whoever is felt necessary.

Mike Kahn asked if the scope included the questions that Provost Montoya was asking about the branch campuses relationship summarized in Craig Parks’ report, specifically concerning Provost Montoya’s e-mail to Stacy Pearson that is already public.  Senator Kahn reiterated that Provost Montoya raised substantive questions about how the university was operating.

Greg Crouch replied that he believed the scope of the investigation would encompass Senator Kahn’s concerns.

Feedback for Draft Strategic Plan:

A report summarizing e-mail feedback concerning the Draft Strategic Plan will be posted to the Faculty Senate website.  Comments concerning that report are encouraged.

Parking (Constituent Concern):

Feedback from Parking Services has been posted as a response to the Constituent Concern raised about parking rate increases.  There were about seven questions addressed individually in the response from Parking Services.

Action Items:

All of the Action Items were passed.  For a complete list, see the agenda for March 5, 2020.

The following Discussion Item was moved to an Action Item and was passed:

1. Recommendation from the Academic Affairs Committee to approve the Undergraduate Major Change Bulletin #10 (Exhibits X X1 X2 ) – K.Hildenbrand

Discussion Items:

For a complete list of discussion items (numbered 2 through 11), see the Agenda for March 5, 2020.

Senator Weller voiced concerns concerning Discussion Item 10 on the original list, requesting that the “teaching and scholarly tracks should be removed.”  The chair requested that his motion to this effect be made in writing and submitted well in advance of the March 26 meeting.  It was moved and seconded that Discussion Item 9 be kept as a Discussion Item for the March 26 meeting.  This motion was defeated and Discussion Item 9 will be an Action Item for the March 26 meeting.

All Discussion Items were moved as Action Items for the March 26, 2020 meeting.

Constituents’ Concerns:

No new constituents’ concerns were raised.