Faculty Senate Blog Archive

Link to the Memo from Christopher Keane, Vice President for Research

EP2 concerns the distribution of indirect costs (F&A) at the unit, college and campus levels.

Anonymous constituent concern from 4/7/2021. These questions relate to all campuses.

Who are the members of the WSU Testing, Attestation, and Contact Tracing (TACT) Committee, their departmental/campus affiliations, and how can members of the university community contact them with concerns or questions?
We have learned that a 3-foot distancing requirement is to be implemented in classrooms in fall. Where is the data that supports this move? While the CDC has approved 3-foot distancing for K-12 students, their adult teachers are still supposed to remain 6 feet away from them, and from other adults (“CDC continues to recommend at least 6 feet of distance: … » More …

1. Can we get a definition of terms: deficit, debt, accumulated deficit, capital debt – and then allocated #’s to each of those terms?

Deficit refers to the annual operating deficit due to expenditures exceeding revenues. While Athletics has been operating in a deficit for many years, they are on a program to eliminate their annual operating deficit by FY2022. They were making annual improvements until the most recent fiscal year, FY2021. The approved FY2021 budget was for a $5M deficit, however the pandemic significantly impacted their revenues due to no ticket sales and a decline in media revenues since so many televised events were … » More …

On April 6th, 2021, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee met with Provost Chilton and her team to discuss faculty concerns. Faculty have expressed continuing concern about earlier suggestions that the OneWSU initiative would lead to changes in the promotion and tenure processes at WSU. Provost Chilton said during this meeting that it was very clear from faculty feedback that changes to the process would not be in the best interest of the institution so this is no longer part of the discussion. As a clarification of this updated perspective, we asked Provost Chilton to answer the following two questions:

1. Given the proposed changes in … » More …

Shared on behalf of constituent faculty members:

We understand that there is still much uncertainty about the Fall 2021 semester and that plans are in flux. However, the current planning strategy is causing frustration and concern among some faculty, especially because the communication to faculty from the Provost’s Office has been sparse and vague.

The following are concerns some faculty have expressed regarding the instructional modes and transparency of decision-making. As members of a research-intensive university, we are asking for evidence in support of student preferences, pedagogical reasons for the instructional modes, and other decisions being made for the Fall 2021 semester. Additionally, … » More …

Notices of Intent for Name Changes

Two NOIs for name changes have been brought forward from the Provost’s Office, along with the attached documents:

To change Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health to Paul G. Allen School for Global Health

Allen School Name NOI
Allen School Agreement
Allen School Amendment

To change Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences to Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology

ESFCOM Department Name Change NOI

We … » More …

The Faculty Affairs Committee in partnership with an ad hoc task force charged with aligning values and practices proposes two changes to the faculty manual. These changes are presented below and detailed in the linked document. Task force members include Laura Griner Hill, Stephen Hines, Louise Parker, Melanie-Angela Neuilly, Katie Cooper, Amanda Boyd, Matt Hudelson, and Sergey Lapin.

Please review and use the comment box below. If you wish your comments to be anonymous, please email FAC Chair Steve Hines.

Proposed Changes

Move the Teaching Portfolio instructions from the Faculty Manual to the Provost’s Guidelines for Promotion … » More …

Dear Colleagues,

The Board of Regents page has been updated with links to the agenda and YouTube videos for next week’s meeting

https://facsen.wsu.edu/archive/board-of-regents/

I have also included other relevant links on the page above that pertain to athletics funding and the Faculty Senate ad hoc committee’s statement to the Board. Please use the comment box below or email me at gcrouch@wsu.edu to bring up any points you would like conveyed to the Board.

Greg

The Faculty Affairs Committee has created a proposal to create a process for addressing university budget crises through faculty furloughs and/or salary reductions.

Please Note:

This is NOT a proposal to impose faculty salary reductions or furloughs.
This is a proposal to develop a PROCESS by which, in certain defined circumstances (i.e. budgetary crises) and with specific expectations, the WSU administration might propose faculty salary reductions and/or furloughs for a defined period of no more than 1 (one) year. No salary reductions or furloughs would be enacted through the proposed process without Faculty Senate approval.

The Faculty Senate <a ... » More …

Update 2/24/2021: Letter to the Board of Regents and President Schulz’s reply are linked below

Background

On December 15, 2020, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee formed an ad hoc committee to formalize a statement to the Board of Regents concerning the proposal that 2-3 million dollars be diverted from unallocated university funds in order to support athletics. This ad hoc committee has produced a statement that is now open for signing.

Ad Hoc Committee membership

Von Walden, Professor, Pullman (Chair)
John Barber, Vancouver
Caitlin Bletscher, Vancouver
Matt Carol, Pullman
Glen Duncan, Spokane
Kelly Farnsworth, Pullman
Heiko Jansen, Pullman<br ... » More …

Update January 27, 2021

Given that the framework for ONEWSU will be explained in a series of whitepapers and coordinated with the WSU System Council, I have moved this discussion to a page linked in the menu. Comments posted here have been moved as well. As we learn more about ONE WSU, we will share in this new location.

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Dear Faculty,

I have posted the Notice for the January 22, 2021 Board of Regents retreat on the Faculty Senate site. The retreat will be in executive session from 8:00 am to 8:30 am on January 22, 2021. Following this, the meeting will be streamed … » More …

Dear Colleagues,

On November 10, 2020, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee published a blog post outlining a proposal by the university to the Board of Regents to help fund athletics as part of a fiscal recovery plan. President Schulz has read your responses to this proposal and will address them in the senate tomorrow, December 10th. Along with President Schulz, VP Stacy Pearson will also present the athletics recovery plan.

The president has provided several documents that should be read in advance of this presentation. Links to these documents are provided below:

Link to November Blog Post
<a href="http://facsen.wsu.edu/archive/documents/2020/12/memo-from-president-dec-10.pdf" ... » More …

No Record COVID (NRC)

At the request of Provost Chilton, on November 19, 2020 WSU Faculty Senate passed a new temporary grading policy called No Record Covid (NRC) that may be applied retroactively fall 2020 and spring 2021, after grades post. With this new temporary policy, students may elect to covert letter grades of C-, D+, D, F, and W to NRC.

Complete FAQ Link

Goal

We recognize that remote learning can be challenging for students as you try to balance other roles and responsibilities. In addition, we recognize that not all students have reliable access to the internet, stable … » More …

Dear Colleagues,

As many of you know, the athletics budget will be presented as a future action item at the upcoming Board of Regents meeting on November 12 and 13. As a future action item, it will not be put to vote but will be discussed. Linked below is the memo and related materials. In summary, this discussion will be predicated on the validity of the following assumptions:

Assumptions

The following assumptions regarding the WSU Regents, President and leadership commitment to intercollegiate athletics support the financial options recommended below. Changes to these assumptions will change the recommended financial options.

WSU’s affiliation with a top-level … » More …

Since the 1980’s, the U.S. has implemented a temporary admission policy for foreign students (F visa), exchange visitors (J visa) and media representatives (I visa). This has been a “duration of status” policy, allowing flexibility in the duration of stay according to the terms and conditions of the temporary visas rather than according to fixed periods of time. As an example, if a student needs five years to complete a degree, this can be accommodated.

On September 25th, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies published a proposed rule entitled, “Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an … » More …

Colleagues – I want to alert you to new over-time eligible salary thresholds that have been adopted by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. You will see from the attached chart that the threshold for employees, including postdoctoral fellows, to be overtime-eligible will climb from $35,100 at present to $49,831 on January 1st. This will be followed by significant jumps every two years for a final threshold of $78,624 on January 1st, 2028. The threshold is important because if an eligible employee is paid less than the stated threshold, he/she is eligible to claim overtime pay.

A couple of points:

WSU, UW, … » More …

Below is the link to the updated Washington State revenue forecast per President Schulz for the September 24th 2020 Faculty Senate meeting.

Link Here

UPDATE: Provost Chilton has provided the following revised memo to address faculty concerns. Given the significance and timing of this recommendation, we will conduct a vote using Zoom chat on Thursday, October 8, 2020. For those senators calling in, we will use a roll vote after we tally the chat responses.

Updated memo version 2

On September 24, Faculty Senate Executive Committee received the following memo from Provost Chilton requesting an amendment to the spring 2021 academic calendar to help meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been introduced as a discussion item to Faculty Senate with the … » More …

Professor James M. Krueger submitted the following document to Faculty Senate Executive Committee for discussion and comment.

UPDATE November 10, 2020: This document and all faculty comments were presented to President Schulz on October 27, 2020. We requested President Schulz provide an official response, which we received today and is linked below.

President Schulz Response to James Krueger Proposal

Whereas chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a common condition caused by playing football and is associated with life-long brain damage and cognitive disabilities.

Whereas as an institution of higher education our highest goal is to enhance the cognitive abilities of our students.

… » More …

UPDATE From Doug Call October 21, 2020:

Chris Keane, VP for Research, has released a revised draft for the new Executive Policy #2 (EP2). We are providing a link to the policy here. One significant change from the last draft is that there will be no changes to current practices for F&A distribution to the college and departments. That is, this will remain 8%/15% Dean/Chair. Dr. Keane is speaking to the Faculty Senate on Thursday, October 22. A primary focus of his presentation will be about changes to EP2 that enhance strategic planning and transparency for how funds are expended from the 77% allocation. Many … » More …

Link to Memo

Over the summer, a memo signed by 123 faculty and staff members from across the WSU system was sent to WSU leadership, with the hope that some policies and changes could be instituted to help faculty navigate the ongoing increased labor demands that have come with COVID-19. The memo posted here is the same as the memo sent to administrators, with the exception of two minor errors that have been corrected. The intention was to circulate the memo quickly and submit it in a timely manner. As there was no discussion of or understanding that the memo would … » More …

Faculty Senate was provided with the System Roles and Responsibilities report linked below. Please take the time to carefully read this report. Dean Chip Hunter chaired this group. AG Rud served as faculty representative. Additional members included Laura Griner-Hill (Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Affairs), Theresa Elliot Cheslek (Vice President Human Resource Services), and Sandra Haynes (Chancellor Tri-Cities). Susan Finerty consulted.

Report Link (pdf)