Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Mahabat Baimyrzaeva, Philipp Bleek, Katherine Punteney (Vice President/President Elect), Thor Sawin (President), Anna Vassilieva. Absent: Pushpa Iyer. Staff: Stacie Riley.

Return to Campus Questions and Suggestions for the Institute Council:

• What are the vaccine options for students when they arrive at the Institute, specifically international students?
• What will the campus mask policy be for the fall?
  • Will MIIS have a policy even if the county does not?
  • If MIIS plans to have a mask mandate, schedule a trial “class” in Irvine followed by a robust Q&A session using vaccinated volunteers as the audience.
• How will classes with more than 15 students be accommodated?
  • Is Irvine the only option? Class discussions in this space are awkward, especially if masks are required.
  • With three-foot social distancing, how many classrooms will be capable of more than 12 students.
  • Is there an assumption that classes larger than 15 will need to be split into two in-person classes?
    • One in-person section plus one online section is preferable to teaching half the class in-person twice (double teaching). Double teaching would need to be counted as double teaching load.
• Second-year students have the option to return to campus or complete their degree online. What is the expectation for first-year students to be on campus this coming fall?
  • What about International students who cannot make it to campus, will they need to defer or will they be accommodated online?
• Will all face-to-face classes need to be recorded (students have gotten used to this practice)?
  • Language classes are difficult to record.
  • MIIS will need many more cameras.
• It has been stated that the campus will “primarily” be open, which has caused a lot of confusion and needs clarification.
  • Do all second-year students, except in IEM and TESOL/TFL, assume they need to return to campus in the fall?
• Faculty equity issues have become a concern. Faculty are hearing about others being granted exceptions.
  • Rumor is IEP faculty will not be returning in the fall.
  • What about adjuncts who do not want to return? How can we tell them they must if certain programs do not have to be on campus?
  • What will happen to faculty who moved away from Monterey during the pandemic and either do not want to or cannot move back?

A discussion follows. Does the Senate have the second-year survey results, which would help faculty plan better? Thor states that program chairs have seen preliminary data, but the survey has not closed yet.

It was decided that the Senate will suggest to the Institute Council that they do not need to answer all the questions since faculty are in a better position to solve these problems. The administration should acknowledge the constraints, provide a “menu” of options other people have tried, and then let the faculty choose what would work best for their class within the provided guidelines. Maha states that crowd-sourcing the faculty would be best received.

[an email with these concerns was sent to the MIIS Council to feed into their planning and communication to faculty]

Faculty Committee Vacancies:

There will be seven open committee positions on the spring ballot.

• Faculty Senate will have four openings, one in the leadership track. Departing Senators are Thor, Mahmoud, Pushpa, and William.
• FEC has one opening as Anne Campbell rotates off.
• APSIC will have two positions available as Jinhuei Dai and Maha Baimyrzaeva’s terms end.

How will the Senate handle the situation if more than one person puts themselves forward for the leadership track? Does the person not voted in as Future Present become a Senator or are they only eligible for the leadership track? Katherine suggests waiting to discuss this when/if it becomes an issue.

The ballot will go out and be open the week prior to the last Faculty Assembly of this academic year, which is scheduled for May 4^th.

Evaluation and Development Survey Results:

Items ready for vote:

• Adding an anti-bias statement to the top of student evaluations regarding race and gender. Maha will work on revising this statement.
• Should faculty members who are undergoing contract renewal and promotion have an opportunity to meet with their peer review committee prior to the final report being drafted?
• Should a single peer review committee be convened for faculty undergoing contract renewal and promotion in the same academic year?

Items that need further discussion:  

1. Should faculty be required to present in conjunction with the review process? Currently, there is a share-out requirement with sabbatical, which in practice is not happening. Several options are being considered:
   • Required or optional?
   • Which faculty should participate?
     • Faculty going up for promotion.
     • Faculty when they are awarded promotion.
     • Every 6 years after being promoted to full professor.  
   • Keep the status quo, putting into practice the share-out after sabbatical?

Discussion:

• The survey results show most faculty are in favor of a “Faculty Forum”.
• Intentionally reaching out to faculty and inviting them to participate:
  • Provide a menu of presentation options (newsletter write-up, podcast, poster, lecture).
  • Add a statement encouraging faculty, i.e., “in order to benefit the whole community, you are strongly encouraged….”.
• Contact the Center for Teaching and Learning to see if they can guide us in creating a presentation day similar to their Faculty Forum.
• Perhaps the Faculty Forum can be run out of the Communications Office or the VPAA Office.
• Can faculty development money be used to hire a GA to assist with the presentation day?
• Include a statement about the share-out day in the letter received from the Administration regarding promotion.

2. What other data sources can be used to demonstrate “Teaching Effectiveness” beyond student evaluations?

Discussion:

• Other options could include observation by the dean, submission of student work, teaching philosophy statement, or observation by an instructional staff member.
• Build a statement into Faculty180 and expand the handbook statement to offer a menu of options on pedagogy.

3. Faculty workload inequities. Have you observed unfairness related to faculty workload and how can we ensure that faculty have a more equitable workload within and across programs?

Discussion:

• This is a real concern with no easy answers.
• Some people view faculty load based on students per class, some base it on courses taught, and some use both criteria.
• This is going to take a lot of work and is a project for academic year 21/22.