Constituent Concerns with Responses

Forum Post Faculty member Anne Marie Guerrettaz provided the information below regarding au pairs: If you are looking for (creative) solutions to the childcare shortage that affects many faculty, you might consider seeing how WSU can build some alliances with au pair agencies to recruit childcare from abroad. Au pair programs bring international childcare providers […]

Forum Post For a communication from President Schulz about issues of concern to the university community, please see the faculty senate blog. Comments

Forum Post We write to express our concerns about the stagnant research enterprise at WSU. While we have many things to be proud of, neither of us are content with our current rankings and overall, we feel that a re-imagining of WSU’s research enterprise and recognition that we are not progressing at a pace expected […]

Forum Post Over the course of this semester, I have noticed a few trickles of students trying to use AI to do their work for them. It seems easy enough to spot at the moment because it reads like gibberish and isn’t about the reading assignment at all. I would like to know a few […]

Forum Post On February 21, 2023, Von Walden, Glen Duncan, and I delivered a letter to President Schulz, Provost Chilton, and Board of Regents Chair Dickinson describing faculty concerns about the Athletics Budget Update presented as Information Item #1 to the Board of Regents last month. We allowed WSU faculty to view and sign the […]

Forum Post How many Associate and Assistant VPs does WSU Pullman have now? Is there an updated organizational chart reflecting the most recent hires in 2022-2023 that can be shared with faculty that includes the names of the people holding these positions? Finally, how many of these positions have been created in the last three […]

Forum Post Good news for WSU – WSU Nets Top 100 Ranking Among U.S. Universities – WSU Insider  Response For insight into the research.com university ranking methodology, scroll down to the section on university rankings from this link. Note that research.com rankings include “leading scholars” rather than all faculty at a university. Christine Horne Faculty […]

Forum Post The cost of parking for faculty and staff is outrageous. For example, $850 for an orange permit or $600 for a green permit is outrageous. By comparison, across town at U of I, the most expensive parking permit is $395. That makes parking 115% more expensive when comparing our Orange permits to U […]

Forum Post To meet its mission and vision WSU must invest in its faculty. The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources has shown that there is a national failure for higher ed pay to keep pace with inflation. This comes as no surprise to those of us who are on the faculty at […]

Forum Post I received the following message from one of my colleagues in CAHNRS. They wanted it to be shared with the Faculty Senate. “I am becoming quite worried that the WSU administration is running the ship aground. The symptoms have been around for quite some time, and now behaviors and decisions of the administration […]

Post I am concerned that the guidance we have received thus far from the institution regarding the ongoing WSU graduate student unionization process essentially prevents faculty and staff from showing any support/opinion on that process. I would like to see clarification, perhaps from an outside source, on what legal protections there are for faculty and […]

Post In December of 2022, The Learning Center closed in Pullman. This left many families scrambling for childcare and many have had to find an arrangement that is less than ideal (half day care etc.,). Infant care in the area is largely unavailable. WSU has a childcare center on the Pullman campus which is open […]

Post The parental leave policy at WSU does not meet the needs of many 9-month faculty who teach. Specifically, leaves tend to be granted for 12 weeks (per federal FML policies), often starting the day a person has or adopts a child. Because leave is 12 weeks , so it’s been a challenge to work […]

Post Hello, I am chairing a search committee in my school. Applicants are required to upload 8 documents (such as, CV, job market paper, DEI statement, etc.). Screening begins Dec. 1st. We found out that applicants are having the following issues: 1. Inability to upload all documents. 2. Inability to view or edit their application […]

Post In 2022, there was confusion regarding announced and retracted changes to the 2022 summer semester start date, specifically that there would be a week of time between the end of spring finals week and start of summer classes. This change was announced, but apparently did not get Faculty Senate approval in time for the […]

Post I read in the MP Daily News that you are discussing possibly requiring Covid-19 vaccinations for students. I strongly support this idea — but it must be made clear that students need to be current on those vaccinations. The bottom line is that the vaccines are moving into “flu vaccine” status — the formulation […]

Post There is a huge gap for professors in different ranks and different departments. Many professors are paid less than assistant or associate professors. For example, the department of mathematics and statistics covers more than 20% total teaching credits in college of art and sciences, the professors in the department are the lowest paid professors […]

Post REQUEST 1: Please have the doors to the Faculty Hoteling Rooms in SPARK left unlocked. The calendar system for booking the hoteling and conference rooms in SPARK is not currently working. This has lead to several problems:  The only way to book a Faculty Hoteling Room is to go to the room itself, hope […]

Post I have noticed and experiencing this semester an increasing number of break-downs with equipment and video-conferencing connections. In my case, this is mostly in Webster and Spark. They are usually resolved promptly, but it is time for WSU to pay more attention to maintenance of classroom equipment. Michael Tsatsomeros Mathematics & Statistics Response Please […]

Post There is concern from faculty and graduate students about the football game within the week, and the blocking of parking spaces. For some of our faculty and graduate students this poses a problem as there are, for example, night labs till 10pm. We were wondering whether those who are required to be on campus […]