The Faculty Assembly meeting was called to order by Faculty Senate President Thor Sawin at 12:15pm.

Thor welcomes everyone to the meeting. This is the last Assembly of academic year 2020/21, and Thor’s last meeting as Faculty Senate President. Due to the number of requests to record this meeting, Thor will record the Administration’s address to the Assembly.

Announcements:

• Congratulations to Philipp Bleek, this year’s Faculty of Excellence awardee. A special mention to runner-up, Wallace Chen. Both did an amazing job demonstrating effective online teaching during the pandemic.
• Tomorrow is the final Teach-in on Democracy session on the topic of Non-Profit Systemic Collusion/Collaboration.
• Please remember to submit congratulation messages for our graduates by Friday, May 7.
• Congratulations to John Balcom and Jeff Bale who have been nominated for emeritus professor. That nomination will be part of the legislative votes that will be conducted over the next couple of weeks.

Message from the Administration: Thor invited both Provost Cason and VPAA Dayton-Johnson to attend today’s meeting to discuss financial issues. Jeff Cason is teaching a class and is unavailable, but sent a video message to address the Assembly.

Bob Cole, representing staff, and Thor, representing faculty, are members of the Budget Advisory Committee, which falls under David Provost’s office. This committee provides people from different constituencies across Middlebury more transparency and insight into decisions around the budget process. The good news about the projected budget for fiscal year 22 is that it will prioritize cost of living increases, wage compression adjustments, and restoring the library budget. The bad news is that the hiring freeze will continue next year. The committee also heard about reallocations of funding to the Institute and the Schools for services provided by the central office in Vermont. Those changes have put the Institute’s financial picture in a worse light than what had previously been revealed. On that note, Thor welcomes Jeff Dayton-Johnson to the meeting.

Jeff thanks everyone for being invited to join today’s meeting and is delighted to be here.

Jeff explains that Thor asked that he and Jeff Cason talk about two things: one, more clarity on the situation that the institution finds itself in, particularly the financial situation; and two, any hopeful news about the future. After Provost Cason’s video, Jeff will follow up with future commentary and answer any question that time allows for. Jeff plays the video (password MIIS2021!).

Jeff Cason thanks the Assembly for the incredible work done over the course of the past year. It has been a hard year for all of us and the transition to remote teaching was really challenging for a lot of reasons. He also thanks everyone for all the work done to cut costs.

When he spoke to the Assembly last year it was in the wake of a college faculty vote on whether or not Middlebury should continue with the Institute. As he pointed out at that time, the vote to continue happened, but it was not an overwhelming vote. One of the questions that Thor asked was is there still a similar sentiment on the part of the College faculty. Right now, this is not even part of our conversation, the role of the Institute in the wider institution. However, if it does come up the top administration will strongly resist any of that undermining talk. Please be assured that the entire senior leadership group is very much committed to the role of the Institute in the broader Middlebury. The reason this is the case is that going forward Middlebury will be relying on the Institute to do all sorts of innovative and interesting work. What we want to be doing is emphasizing some the incredible strengths that the Institute has and making investments in programs. We will make investments in programs in different ways. There are so many excellent programs at the Institute that we want to continue to support and that is not going away.

There have been some really interesting proposals submitted by faculty to move some of the programs online at the Institute. One of the things we will be doing is investing strategically in online programs so we can reach new groups of learners. We feel that there is a much bigger set of learners that we can access and at the Institute we can do that through new online programs.

One of the things we want to be doing going forward is providing more opportunities for undergraduates to come to the Institute, similar to what we have done in the NPTS and IEP programs, i.e. the California Climate Semester launching in January 2022. We are hopeful that there will be other programs that will be attractive to undergraduates.

When it comes to finances, an important point to make is, although we have been struggling the Institute has significantly over-performed where we thought it was going to be a year ago, and that is in no small part due to the work you have done.

Jeff turns the meeting back over to Thor and Jeff Dayton-Johnson. He is looking forward to the time when he can see everyone again in person, hopefully in the fall.

Jeff Dayton-Johson expressed his gratitude to all faculty for the work done to keep the academic mission going over the past year as we abruptly moved online. He thanked everyone for their work and commitment.

First, the financial situation. There are three important items related to Middlebury budgetary performance:

1. The Middlebury system has been operating at a large and stubborn deficit for many years now. David Provost, with President Patton’s blessing, put in place a multi-year plan called “The Road to Financial Sustainability”. This was approved by the Board. Every year we have had targets for more discipline around cost, the growth of expenditures, and stabilizing (increasing if possible) revenues. We have been hitting our marks every year, both Middlebury-wide and here in Monterey. It has been a disciplined and slow processes, but the intended consequence was to get us to a breakeven budget. This academic year we were supposed to achieve that milestone.
2. The pandemic hit and when it hit it had significant impacts on our budgetary performance. It depressed our revenues Middlebury-wide and hit us with unexpected costs. As mentioned by Jeff Cason, in his recorded comments, the Middlebury Institute did better than projected. When we made projections about our revenues and costs at the beginning of the academic year we entertained the possibility that we might take a big hit in enrollment. We did not, we held our enrollments stable, but our net tuition revenue fell because of increased financial aid and emergency support for students. Our revenues were higher than we thought they would be, but lower than they were the year before. We have contributed some good news to the larger Middlebury system in terms of budgetary impacts of the pandemic.
3. Over the last couple of months both Laurie and David have given some indication of problems we are having right now with liquidity. Laurie has said that essentially our reserves (money in the endowment that is not restricted in terms of its use and can be used at the discretion of the administration to address spending priorities) are gone. Those reserves were in the hundreds of millions at one point. That is important for the Institute because if you look at our profit and loss statement at the end of any academic year it says, “transfer from reserves”. In some sense we have been able to operate at a deficit and yet cover our costs because of the transfers from the reserves. Additionally, David Provost has announced we are borrowing again. Middlebury has opened up a $30 million line of credit in order to meet our spending needs in the short/immediate term.

This is a bit of context, some of it is quite long-term (Road to Sustainability) and some of it is short-term (liquidity problems). This is not a deterioration of our position within Middlebury. We still boost the academic assets that make the Institute so crucial (i.e., faculty, students) to building back a battered global system. We continue to march towards a breakeven financial performance set back a bit by the pandemic. All of this means that discipline on spending and keeping our revenues stable will continue to be the order of the day in pursuit of financial sustainability. I know this budgetary discipline is tiring and not welcome news, but we are moving in the right direction in a financial sense.

Jeff states that to address this financial situation he has chosen not to renew some faculty contracts over the last three years, not based on the regular criteria for renewal, which has to do with faculty performance, but rather on the basis of the reduction in program clause in the faculty handbook. He knows this is on a lot of faculty minds and wanted to address it head on.

Some background on where this comes from. A little over three years ago, in advance of Workforce Planning, Jeff put together a taskforce of Institute faculty and staff to identify academic programs on our campus where faculty numbers could be reduced. This was to address falling enrollments and growing compensation spending. The taskforce was intended to help determine eligibility for voluntary separation packages which took place a couple years ago. It was also used to make informed decisions about contract renewals. This taskforce made a number of recommendations, but it did not decide which programs could be reduced. It established a metrics and criteria to determine optimal class sizes in programs. Some programs are designed to have smaller class sizes and those differences amongst programs were respected in the design of their recommendations. These metrics were used by the leadership to determine eligibility for the separation packages and to inform contract renewal decisions. At that time, Jeff said that the reduction in program lens would be a feature of the contract renewal process for the indefinite future, while we are on the path to financial sustainability.

This year in the contract renewal cycle those same metrics/rationale were used. The data was updated for things that have changed, lower enrollment, number of faculty, etc. In general, the same framework was used to address the issue of contract renewal and nonrenewal. This is tough. These are tough decisions to make, tough decisions to take, and tough decisions to have to consider. It is the hardest on individuals whose contracts are not renewed. I want to provide whatever support we can to those individuals. I know this is tough on all of you because it adds a layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain situation, and a situation where we are always talking about tightening our belt.

Looking back from March 2020, I would emphasis four lessons we have learned as a campus/school:

1. The past year has demonstrated that the world needs MIIS. In particular, the world needs our alumni as it builds back from a pandemic and builds back from a set of global challenges.
2. This pandemic year has reminded us that MIIS is an adaptive institution. You, together with our students and staff, brought all our academic life online in a matter of days. Then you spent the months since, right up until today, in a process of continuing improvement of what is currently an online institution. We are adaptive.
3. That adaptive nature will be useful because we as a school need to adapt. An example is our friends and neighbors at Mills College. As many of you are aware, Mills College has announced that it will cease to admit students and it will cease to be a college altogether. That is a powerful signal. The Mills example shows that being unique, being high-quality, being distinctive and world-changing, and having an alumni population of rock stars is not sufficient to guarantee survival in the contemporary higher education landscape. We need to change, and I think that we can, and if we do we will avoid the fate of Mills and many other institutions.
4. The pandemic has accelerated the changes that we need to make. You have become dramatically better equipped to design and implement online programs. In bringing our academic operations online, you have rejuvenated and refreshed the curriculum of our programs. We have also seen the expansion of opportunities of students, wherever they are in the Middlebury system, to access offerings elsewhere in the system. Many of our students were able to meet their summer language requirements/desires through the language schools since they were online. We had college students taking classes with some of you here at the Institute. A lot of the changes that had been underway were accelerated by the pandemic. If you add to that some of our recent pre-pandemic achievements and milestones, I think that you can see that we are an institution that not only needs to change, but has been changing. We launched our first fully online certificate program (Spanish Community Interpreting) and our first fully online degree program in TLM, both of which were designed to be online and not offered as an emergency response. We also launched the Center for Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC), whose visibility and influence has been rising meteorically in light of the work that they do. We have closed off Pierce Street and began the long-planned transformation of our campus core. We have secured our first ever student residence, which will house 80 students this fall, making a dent in the housing crunch.

We have stabilized enrollments after years of decline and we have done so by adding faculty numbers to programs with growing demand and expanding capacity in infrastructure (i.e. multiyear, million dollar project to expand the simultaneous interpreting lab infrastructure). The stabilization of enrollment has allowed us to also stabilize our revenue for the last few years. It has brought our operating deficit here in Monterey from over $5 million five or six years ago to a near balanced budget this year.

I will close by reaffirming something that Jeff Cason said. The Provost’s Office is poised to announce financial support from resources generated by fundraising for the development of new academic initiatives proposed by you and your colleagues, many of them here at MIIS. I am confident they will accelerate this adaption that we need to make to meet the needs of new student audiences in using new platforms and designing new products. I think the acceleration of change that we have seen as a result of the pandemic will put us in a good position to meet the challenges ahead, including the financial challenges.

Jeff opens the floor to questions.

• You mentioned that we were close to breaking even this year, but I saw we had a $744,000 deficit in direct costs and then we are charged a certain allocation for all the services provided by the central offices in Vermont, things like HR, alumni, marketing, IT, etc. A change was just announced to those allocation formulas. We went from $744,000 in debt this year in direct costs and $3-4 million in debt after these allocated costs. Now with the new formula ushered in we are $6-7 million in debt. I have asked David Provost and Jeff Cason to explain what is going on. Could you give any comment/background on these new allocation formulas and where that puts us?

Answer: Ultimately David Provost would be the best person to speak to this. However, the way that we have consistently reported our revenues and cost year to year at MIIS has been done in a way that makes the “goal posts” a little easier for us. When recording our profit and loss statement in Monterey none of those central administration costs are included, but all of the revenues are included. The way that our profit and loss has been recorded here has probably underestimated the true sense in which we are operating at a deficit. This is also true for the Language Schools and the Schools Abroad. All the central administration costs in the Middlebury system are entirely attributed to the college. The reporting standards being approved now are being adopted to be more in-line with the way a lot of other decentralized institutions report costs and revenue. Budgets are political, both in terms of what is in them but also in the way they are talked about. If you go back to 2015 there was a $5 million deficit under the old rules, but if we applied the new standards to that year our deficit would probably be over $10 million. The deficit has declined, it has declined steeply, and it has declined more steeply at Monterey than the rest of the organization, whether you account for central administration overheads or not. This new system is going to make the schools, who always come out in the black, look worse as well. This is going to be discouraging for a lot of parts of the organization, but those central administration costs are real. The deficit at the college currently is artificially inflated until those central administration costs are allocated. No one has told Jeff that MIIS needs to hit zero under the new rules, although it would not be unreasonable to hear that at some point.  

Jeff was asked to get more transparency on this issue. The faculty were willing to accept the moving of work by staff members located at MIIS to staff in Vermont in order to achieve budgetary efficiency by streamlining those operations. Yet it feels like we gave up our autonomy and are now being charged more. This also plays into the narrative among some college faculty of “see Middlebury is subsidizing the Institute, you were lying about how much money the Institute is losing”. The faculty have the right to know the true picture, especially in the climate of contract nonrenewal.

Daniel Chatham adds, these sort of “taxes” paid from schools to central university administration are not uncommon in higher ed but the change in approach can be difficult to accept because of the changed standards and contexts. Perhaps more process communication could help here.

• Can you elaborate more on the criteria that will be used not to renew contracts?

Answer: At present, the basic criteria used are those outlined above, which reflect the analysis done by the taskforce, basically the relationship between the number of students and faculty in any program with some variation from program to program in regard to optimal class size, etc. One of the things that happened two years ago when some faculty were not renewed was that in addition, some faculty applied for and accepted a separation package. We lost some faculty with particular teaching strengths that we had to backfill either with adjuncts or visiting professors. With contract renewals we can foresee the impact on the ability to cover the curricular needs of programs. We would not end a contract in which we would have to go back and hire someone to fill the position. The most important thing I will note is that the criteria have nothing to do with performance. That is what is so difficult about using this reduction in program clause because in every case so far these have been contracts that otherwise would have been renewed. There are no performance-based criteria that play a role in the nonrenewal of contracts when they occur.

• In 2019 when those numbers were calculated, the taskforce was shown a chart of where the different programs were in relation to those metrics. Is that something we could see this time?

Answer: Yes. It is still the same chart, but the numbers have changed to reflect the two things I mentioned before. First, our overall student numbers are lower now than they were when the chart was created. Second, the number of faculty in different programs has changed, mostly it has gone down due to retirements, resignations, and the separation packages. However, in some programs the number of faculty has gone up. It is still the same basic framework, and I will share the updated version with you.

• Do you have any comments on enrollment projections for the fall? Many program chairs get to see the data, but could you give us a general sense, what are the bright spots and the dark spots?

Answer: Jeff talked to Seamus this morning and has the latest figures. To put this into context, the basic enrollment number that we look at every year is the annual FTE. This is a number that is calculated by Seamus and is the basic yardstick that we use. For years that number was going down. In academic year 2018/2019 our annual FTE 616 and that was the lowest it had ever been in the history of the Institute. In academic year 19/20 it was 614, essentially stable. This year the FTE is 612 so essentially stable. Based on where we are now, there is a lot of uncertainty about where we will be next year, but it looks like we will continue to be in the 610-620 range. The enrollment next year is showing changes in the composition of the student body. On the plus side, we are seeing relatively stable applications in GSIPM programs. On the minus side, we are seeing dramatically lower applications for most GSTILE programs mostly associated with uncertainties that international students face (visa, on-campus learning, being able to do OPT, etc.). It looks like we might have a student body roughly the same size next year, but it may be more heavily weighted towards GSIPM. We have more difficulty yielding students in GSIPM than we do in GSTILE. I think we will be stable in the number of students and where we will end up for net tuition revenue.

• Is the plan to hire more adjuncts (reduce costs) for some programs? Are there specific programs that are not doing well that are/will be targeted in the new future?

Answer: I do not anticipate hiring more adjuncts next year than we did this year. In the short to medium term I do not anticipate a greater dependency on adjunct teaching than we have done in the past.

• Could you give us more insights on the school’s plan for changes in the TI Program Head/Chair responsibilities that was communicated from Laura?

Answer: This may be a little in the weeds for some people, but it is a very important issue. We have a number of faculty who service as program heads at the language level and there are also program heads in Language Studies, which have an analogous role. Laura and I have been looking at trying to standardize the job descriptions of program heads in T&I and Language Studies. The job descriptions have never been written down, so Laura has gathered a lot of information about what is involved from the faculty serving in these roles. We also have been looking at the way that work has been compensated (course releases and stipends). Unfortunately, there is a lot of inconsistency, which we would like to make it more consistent. When the program head appointments end on June 30 what do we do? I had entertained, making them all consistent now, but realized that would not be a good thing. Instead, we decided to take a closer look at it. We will extend everyone for another year under the current terms and arrangements while we look at what would be involved in making these positions more consistent both in terms of documented and communicated expectations and in terms of the combination of course releases and/or stipends. We also will be communicating to the people who currently occupy these positions that there are changes coming.

• Is there a strategic plan for the programs being reduced in the longer runs so that they can shape their future performance?

Answer: I want to be clear, in the handbook language it talks about the reduction and elimination of programs. We are not talking about eliminating any programs right now nor are there plans to eliminate any programs. We are talking about reduction in the size of programs as measured in the number of faculty in the program based on historic data mentioned earlier. For a lot of programs, we are seeing a steady decrease in the number of students per faculty. There has been a downward trend in the student numbers and up until 3 years ago an upward trend in the total number of benefits eligible faculty. This does not include adjuncts. The reduction of program language was used to restore a balance between the number of students and the number of faculty driven by financial considerations.

• What are the key factors driving down the student numbers?

Answer: This question would require a whole seminar in itself. There are demographic features: the growth of the college-aged student population in this country, students who emerge from undergraduate program and are potential graduate school applicants, increased skepticism on the part of students about the return on investment with increasing costs, uncertainty about the labor market, increased cultural hostility to higher education and the contribution it makes to society and individuals, skepticism about the MA degree for a number of professional competencies. There are a variety of features, but it is something we are seeing across the board in professional programs like MBA and law school.

• What are the main reasons students choose MIIS based on the survey?

Answer: I am uncertain about which survey you are referring to. We survey students all the time and there is a lot of survey information. The survey that I am thinking about is the survey for admitted students who decide not to matriculate to MIIS. The number one reason is always cost. There are different ways to interpret that, but it is a signal to the tension that students feel about the debt they will be incurring to be students here. I am not sure of a survey where we ask students why they came.

Thor thanks Jeff for attending and talking about these difficult topics. Jeff leaves the meeting at 1:16pm.

Update on Strategy by the Faculty Constituent to the Board of Advisors:

Maha starts by reminding everyone of the Institute’s three broad strategic priorities:

1. Improvement of the on-site master’s degree programs (our core business).
2. Develop high quality products, using new platforms to reach new audiences.
3. Better integration with the global Middlebury network.

She provides an update on what has been done over the last several months to move towards further defining these priorities.

• In December 2020, Thor facilitated a great strategic conversation at the Assembly meeting. The conversation brought up many excellent questions, concerns, and suggestions around how the faculty are feeling. The key takeaway from this conversation was that the MIIS governance and change management require a shared vision, two-way transparent communication, and a systematic approach. Key points from this conversation were shared with Jeff Dayton-Johnson and the Board of Advisors. It is clear that faculty feel they need more time to continue this conversation.
• At the April 1 Board of Advisors meeting a brainstorming session was held regarding future trends related to the Institute’s work. Some highlights were:
  • What are things we are doing now that could be scaled in the future (Chinese expertise, data security and cyber, etc.)?
  • What new and/or revised programs can sustain us in the future (environmental justice, languages, ICC, etc.)?
  • What kinds of new audiences can we attract (lifelong learners, working professionals, stackable credentials, etc.)?
• In April, the ILG had a conversation about strategic priorities. There was a lot of overlap between this conversation and that of the Board of Advisors, specifically focusing on new audiences and new modes of delivery.

The next step is to involve faculty in strategic conversations. Maha has been working with Sheila Cameron, Change Management Specialist, and Melissa Sorenson to develop a process for these conversations. The following rough-draft proposal was presented to the Institute Council:

• Reflection and processing. A lot has happened and changed over the last several years without a lot of clarity of communication. Provide time and space for honest conversations about what worked and what did not? How do we feel about those changes? What were the lessons learned?  
• Visioning. We do not have a clear vision of where we are heading. If we were to become remarkably successful in the future, what would we look like? Once we have a vision, how do we get there?
• What kind of structure will support our new priorities? We need a  clear understanding of the external environment and trends and our internal strengths and limitations.
• Support to implement these priorities.

Faculty will be invited to participate in another strategy session in May after finals.

Upcoming Ballot:

Legislative Votes:

1. Add a statement to the student evaluations starting in AY21-22 addressing bias. The Senate has taken into account the feedback from our earlier survey and has added language pertaining to non-native speakers, gender, race, and links to research.
   • The faculty showed a preference for student evaluations to continue to have two dates. The Institute Council arrived at a compromise to have one long window for the evaluations.
2. Starting next year, faculty members will have the opportunity to meet with their peer review committee before the committee submits their final report.
3. One peer review committee for a faculty member’s contract renewal and promotion, if applying in the same academic year.

Committee Vacancies: We have a much smaller faculty after the voluntary separation, retirements, resignations, and contract nonrenewal. Please consider nominating yourself for one of the 7-8 open positions available.

• Faculty Senate will have four openings. Departing members are Mahmoud Abdalla (GSTILE), William Arrocha (GSIPM), Pushpa Iyer (GSIPM), and Thor Sawin (GSTILE).
  • One new senate member or will need to join on the leadership track
• FEC will have one vacancy. Departing member is Anne Campbell (At Large).
• APSIC will need to fill two slots. Departing members are Jinhuei Dai (GSTILE) and Maha Baimyrzaeva (GSIPM).

Future Discussion Items:

• Developing a faculty forum.
  • Faculty support share-out on an opt-in basis for faculty who have already been awarded promotion, having completed a sabbatical, and full professors every 6 years.
  • Intentionally invite professors to participate.
  • Options include poster fair, newsletter, video, etc.
• Going beyond student evaluations to demonstrate effective teaching.
  • More peer observation, primarily for formative feedback.
• Faculty Workload. There is a lot of felt unfairness, and the Senate thanks you for the substantive comments provided. There were two schools of thought, workload is a function of students in the class versus workload is a function of curriculum design. Concerns that bridge both are:
  • Co-teaching.
  • TA allocation.
  • Equitable credit assignments.
  • Deals in one-off conversations about low enrollment.
  • Training to strategically reduce workload.
  • Real data on time (i.e., course development, meetings, grading, etc.).

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Update: Sabino had wanted to give a report, but could not be here today. He asked Rana Issa to speak for him, but unfortunately, she had to leave. Thor will reach out to Sabino for his report and forward it to everyone.

Thor concludes the meeting at 1:46pm.

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.

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.

Follow-Up Items from March 9 Senate Meeting:

• The faculty feedback survey was sent out this afternoon. The deadline will be one week from today.
• Thor will create an anonymous Google form with the questions on the evaluation statement regarding race and ethnicity to send to the Senators for comment.
• An invitation to an upcoming Senate meeting will be sent to Hannah Ross soon.  
• Philipp forwarded Dean Burian a proposed essay prompt for program chairs about how they configure faculty teaching load allocations in their programs. Dean Burian will follow-up with Thor. A discussion about faculty workload follows:
  • Dean DePaolis has asked MPA, ITED, and IPD to rethink their programs. MPA is thinking about making all classes 3 credits (similar to IEM) to help equalize the faculty load. TSOL/TFL is also moving to 3 credits classes.
  • A full teaching load is 20 credits except in T&I where it is 16. Reducing the teaching load to 18 or 15 credits (something divisible by 3 credit classes) might be a start. It was pointed out that the policy might state a full teaching load is equal to 16 and 20 credits, but that is not what is happening in practice.
  • The prep time is the same whether you prepare a class for 5 or 20 students.  
  • Enrollment in classes seems to be the most problematic to include in this type of a metric, however, the amount of individual feedback might be something to consider.
  • Directed study needs to be counted in teaching load in two categories: mandatory versus voluntary. There is a big difference in the workload.
  • The idea of complete equity is setting us up for defeat.

This is a massive conversation that everyone agrees should be on the agenda for academic year 2021/2022.

Feedback from the Faculty Town Hall on March 11: The Institute Council announced the fall 2021 plans for HyFlex teaching. What should the Senate share back to the Council regarding how faculty are feeling and what steps can be taken to help faculty be equipped for the challenges of teaching in the fall?

• It has been four semesters in a row of crazy changes. Spring 2020 emergency movement to online courses, fall 2020/spring 2021 creating meaningful online context, and now fall 2021 a HyFlex model.  
• It would be helpful to see specific models of what other people have been doing, a HyFlex template or syllabus.
• Create conversations groups among faculty, even cross-programmatically.
• Chronicle of Higher Education published an article with the pros, cons, and challenges of HyFlex education.
  • Ensure that the Institute Council has access to and has read this article.
  • The need for appropriate space is the main requirement for true inclusivity.
• Have DLINQ organize a share out from college faculty about how they addressed these challenges:
  • What they did with students while in quarantine
  • How they accommodated students from a distance.
• Space and technology are issues. Faculty need details on the efforts to prepare the space and technology, a minor “Manhattan Project” effort to meet these needs with clear details on tech support.
• A clear statement from the Administration that they understand this is going to be challenging and that it is going to entail trade-offs. Some of us will work harder, but there will be limits to how hard and the fairness of the work. There needs to be a statement of clear empathy from leadership.
• Share the results of the second-year student survey as soon as possible (mid-April survey and scheduled mid-July survey).
• Teaching in the language with students both online and in-person is especially challenging and likely to shortchange those online.
  • We need clear examples of how this has looked and what the extra time demands are.
  • Language classes have very little content delivery, which is what HyFlex research assumes. This is going to be very challenging.
• Some of the second-year students will remain remote (some programs promised they could finish their degree remotely), but realistically how many of the first-year cohort will be accommodated at a distance?
  • Is it just a hope that first-year students will be in-residence during the fall 2021 semester, or is it a policy?
  • What is Admissions saying to these students? Are they trying to attract distance learning first-year students or are they telling them if they cannot come to Monterey they need to defer for a year?
• With space constraints how many students can be on campus? Do we have to accommodate online students based purely on space constraints?
• Faculty need assurance that they will have unlimited access to their offices in order to accommodate the extra work of HyFlex education.
• TAs managing online students makes the faculty work much easier.
  • Can MIIS expand the capacity to assign TAs to any faculty who want one, for instance shifting some faculty development funds to this purpose?
  • Can TAs start prior to the beginning of the fall semester?
• How many courses are realistically going to be taught via HyFlex per program? It could be a smaller number than previously thought and knowing the answer could diminish anxiety.
  • IEM is planning to do one in-person class followed by the same class online instead of HyFlex. TESOL/TFL plans to do the same.
  • Some faculty thought all classes were going to be taught HyFlex and are shocked that this is not the case.
  • Language classes, which are some of the smallest classes at MIIS, do not have the capacity to accommodate the diversity of modality on top of diversity of content and diversity of proficiency.
• Will there be access to the library?
• Are we setting ourselves up for defeat?
  • Imagine a scenario of a five-hour weekend workshop where the tech breaks down in the middle of the day. This could lead to many dissatisfied students.
• Clarity about whether faculty can continue to teach strictly from Zoom and have in-person office hours. Do programs have the authority to decide which classes will be taught by HyFlex?
• Will faculty be required to be based in Monterey for a certain amount of time (similar to Barry Olsen)?
  • We need clarity on the proposal about half the usual contact hours with exceptions for certain individuals.
• Faculty are largely willing to give to the Institute in all the ways listed above. What can the Institute offer us?
  • More training/mentoring?
  • Will evaluation criteria be changed?
  • Will there be increased access to technology?
  • Do faculty have more rights to not be on campus than they did in the pre-COVID world?
  • Can we create a compact with what each party will offer the other?

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

Budget Advisory Committee Update: The committee met on Monday, March 8. It was announced that the Board of Trustees will not approve an unbalanced budget for fiscal year 2022. To achieve a balanced budget many of the cuts made during the pandemic will remain in place. A survey was then produced.

• Question one dealt with ways to achieve savings, many of which affect the college only.
  • Moving the student ratio from 1:8 to 1:9. MIIS student ratio is already higher than this.
  • Reduce retirement contributions at the college from 15% to 11%, which is where MIIS is currently. This option was very unappealing to the college faculty.
  • Keep all open positions unfilled.
• Question two asked if after balancing the budget there was a surplus what priorities should be restored first.
  • Cost of living increases.
  • Salary compression adjustments and faculty and staff promotions.
  • A low priority was increases to operational spending such as travel and library funding.

Campus Master Plan: Facilities has requested a meeting with faculty in April to gain feedback on the two proposed next steps in the Institute’s Master Plan. The Senate agreed that a town hall (if interaction is desired) or a survey would be the best option. Thor will propose these options to Facilities.

Faculty Feedback Survey: A survey will be sent to faculty after spring break to gather feedback on the following items:

1. Timing of student evaluation.
2. Anti-bias statement for student evaluations with researched citations.
3. Faculty presentation day options.
4. Discussion with faculty member and peer review committee as part of the promotion process.
5. Single peer review committee for both promotion and contract renewal, if going up in the same academic year?
6. Generate ideas about other sources that can contribute to teaching effectiveness besides student evaluations.
7. Information gathering on faculty workload review.

Upcoming Faculty Town Hall: On Thursday, March 11, there will be a faculty town hall to discuss planning for the fall 2021 semester.

Meeting with General Counsel: A meeting between the Faculty Senate and Hannah Ross still needs to be scheduled. Thor will invite Hannah to attend a meeting after spring break.

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.

Faculty Activities Report: The deans have asked the Senate to consider permanently moving the FAR faculty submission deadline from January 31 to March 1 and the dean deadline from March 15 to May 15. Everyone agrees there is no problem. Thor will add this to the spring ballot for vote.

A short conversation ensued about the problem with faculty losing their work in Faculty 180. Stacie explained that there is no auto-save function and the best way to proceed is to create your FAR in a Word document and then cut and paste into Faculty 180, or to periodically hit save to ensure that the system does not timeout.

Senate Leadership Meeting with VPPA Dayton-Johnson: Thor and Katherine met with Jeff on Monday, February 15 to discuss faculty concerns about returning to campus in the fall and hybrid education. There are a range of models for what teaching could look like in the fall; high-flex, one class presented in-person and then on-online, fully online, etc. Fall will look different from program to program. A discussion follows:

1. Mahmoud declares that almost everyone in LS wants to come back for in-person classes.
2. Philipp states that not surprisingly students are a bit freaked out by the uncertainty of the situation and what the fall will look like. For instance, do I need to move to Monterey, what if I move and my classes are all online, if I have the choice would it be better to stay somewhere else?  Philipp is guardedly pessimistic about MIIS’s ability to handle this return well.
3. Two big choke points to return to campus with hybrid and livestreaming classes: lack of Media Service staff and support, and classroom technology and capacity.
4. Clear guidelines for faculty returning to campus would be very helpful, and the sooner the better.
5. Will students be vaccinated by the fall?
   • This is not something that can be predicted, but theoretically by the end of the fall students should qualify for vaccines.
   • Try to get clarity around getting students vaccinated, understanding that MIIS cannot mandate vaccines.
6. Clear expectations about how much time faculty will need to spend in Monterey and what the rules be.
7. How to deal with international student entry requirements.
8. The Institute Council needs to look at what other universities have done prior to their return to in-person classes.

Faculty Development and Evaluation Discussion: The Senate discussed numbers 11-15 of the Faculty Evaluation and Development report that Katherine submitted on February 2 and determined next steps.

Number 11: Provide training for reviewers related to fostering inclusion and mitigating bias in evaluation. Next step: Check on what is commercially available and then decide if it is a good fit for MIIS. Align with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.

Number 12: Develop and publish rubrics for contract renewal and promotion. Next step: Collaborate with the deans and program chairs and then start drafting the rubrics.

Number 13: Identify more diverse inputs for the review of teaching effectiveness. Next steps: Ask a task group to work on this area and include members from the FEC and Senate as well as experts in pedagogy. Timeline to convene taskforce is next fall or spring 2022.

Number 14: Consider what role the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research at Middlebury College should support MIIS faculty. The website for this Center was displayed so the Senators could see what is offered (Middlebury.edu/office/teaching-learning-research/faculty-resources). Next step: Have an initial conversation with either one or all of the following: the Center for Teaching, Vice President Dayton-Johnson, Provost Cason (who has been working to integrate MIIS and MIID). 

Number 15: Determine which individual or committee is responsible for coordinating/ensuring faculty development opportunities. Make it an explicit part of their responsibilities. Next step: Check with Laura and Fernando on how they divide their work, how that division is working, what are their thoughts for the future.

Senate Vacancies for AY 2021/2022: Thor, Mahmoud, William, and Pushpa will all rotate off the Senate at the end of this year. The roles of the President/President Elect/Past President need to be finalized so when people self-nominate they can decide if they want to pursue this tract. Thor plans to send out a list of position vacancies after spring break.

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

Thor reports that Pushpa Iyer is on sabbatical this semester.

Faculty Representation on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Council: Thor shares an update on the Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Council (DEI) provided by Miguel Fernandez, Chief Diversity Officer. Students and staff have nominated their representatives, all of which are female. Miguel would like to have at least two males on the Council to try and balance experience and representation. Miguel proposed that he and the Senate each pick one nominated and qualified male faculty member and then open the third slot for voting to all faculty from among those who were nominated.

Response to Capitol Riots of January 6, 2021: Student Council will be given an opportunity to present at the Assembly and discuss what they hope to see from faculty to address social injustices. This is a follow-up discussion to the townhall held by the Institute Council on January 15, which focused on the events in Washington D.C. on January 6. Maha attended the townhall and states that a lot of students expressed their feelings/thoughts on social injustice and social change. They were interested in what the faculty’s approach will be in addressing these systemic issues in their classes and in the Monterey community. Thor will be meeting with student representatives on January 27^th to hear what they want to share with faculty.

MIIS Cyber Update: Philipp shared that a new Cyber Collaborative was launched last fall. This is the successor to the Cyber Initiative whose funding ran out at the end of academic year 2019/2020. This spring the Collaborative welcomed Fulbright Fellow and adjunct faculty member, Robert Siudak, who is currently on campus and teaching. The Collaborative is also launching a taskforce with The Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium (GMHEC) due to a strong push to explore cyber across Champlain, Middlebury, and Saint Michael’s campuses. An update on this will be given at the Faculty Assembly on the 2^nd.

Update on Strategy conversation/Assembly meeting of December 8: Thor and Katherine meet with VPAA Dayton-Johnson and showed him the preliminary data from the faculty strategy meeting. The next step is to write up and synthesize the ideas on the padlet for the Institute Council. It was decided that more data is needed before presenting to the Board.

Thor will reach out to faculty to:

1. encourage more asynchronous reaction to the padlet (similar to elections), and
2. schedule another conversation for synchronous elaboration.

Maha shares the themes she noticed during the meeting:

• How does strategic planning involve faculty?
• What is our identity as an Institute/school and how does language fit in?
• Psychological safety, race and equality conversations require more bottom-up work.
• Biggest theme expressed by faculty was the quality of governance, peoples’ confidence in leadership, and helping to de-jade people who feel jaded. This hurdle needs to be addressed. There needs to be a frank conversation where the administration can hear peoples’ frustrations, acknowledge/validate their emotion, and acknowledge the administration’s part.

Proposed topics for February 2, 2021 Faculty Assembly Meeting:

• Miguel Fernandez to give a statement about the hopes and goals of the DEI Council.
• Student Council to share their ideas about moving forward after the Capitol riots and how faculty can help approach these goals.
• Brief overview of the new Cyber Collaborative. 
• Invite Jeff Dayton-Johnson to:
  • Help give closure to the tough fall semester and listen to faculty concerns.
    • Update on what the Administration is doing to move forward.
  • Talk about strategic planning and the faculty role in those conversations. 
  • Build excitement about MIIS’s strategic vision.
• Update the Assembly on next steps from the strategy discussion of December 8.
• Report on the fully online MA degree development (several in the pipeline). 
• Announce new faculty, if any.

Spring 2021 Workplan:

• Faculty Grievance Committee: Thor states that Hannah Ross is willing to speak with MIIS faculty but a formal asynchronous web-based training about faculty protections will not be done. William asks why there has been so much difficulty getting the online training for faculty? Thor and Katherine do not think that Hannah is opposed to presenting the information, but because these instances are not clear-cut it makes creating a video difficult. Thor will ask for the creation instead of an information sheet providing the key information that an ombudsman might provide, addressing hypothetical cases. Thor will work with Hannah to schedule a session with MIIS Faculty.
• Faculty Development and Evaluations Committee: Thor explains that this is a priority for both the Institute Council and the College. Katherine states she will send out an updated version of the Working Group recommendations document to the Senate next week. This gives all Senators one week to review before discussion at the February 9 Senate meeting. Other work to be addressed includes reviewing a) a permanent change of due date for Faculty Activity Reports, and b) a model statement to include on syllabi and evaluation instruments about bias in student evaluations.

Job Description for Senate Leadership Model: Last spring the Assembly voted in a new Senate Leadership model that includes a President, President Elect, and Past President. Katherine and Thor have created preliminary job descriptions for each of the positions. Thor asks the Senators to review the document and send him any thoughts/additions/deletions. Once the Senate is comfortable with the duties for the President, President Elect, and Past President, they can be sent to the Assembly for comment.

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

Student Course Evaluation Policy Change: Traditionally there were two windows for student course evaluation; option A was for professors who found it important for students to complete their evaluations prior to receiving grades and option B was for professors who wanted the evaluations completed after grades were received. Christiane Abel sent an email to Dean Burian asking why the course evaluation window options had changed, eliminating option A and making the only window available this semester from November 30 through December 11 (last day of class). Professor Abel then contacted Thor with concerns about the change to the windows for course evaluations.

Thor would like to send the Senate’s response to the Institute Council this afternoon so that they have it prior to their meeting in the morning. He states that the Senate response needs to address two issues:

1. Moving the date to December 16, as proposed by Seamus.
2. The lack of faculty input into the decision before it was announced.

A discussion follows. Philipp notes that the window for student course evaluations just opened and students are aware of the deadline date so he is not totally convinced we should revisit the issue now; however, if we are going to revisit it then it should be to request a later deadline. Philipp’s opinion is that evaluations are more accurate if students do not have their final grades, otherwise it could be argued that the student gave a good evaluation in return for a good grade. William agrees and thinks that is why there were two dates previously. Katherine states that we should emphasize that the Senate feel strongly that all matters of importance that involve faculty should be undertaken with shared governance, and the deadline for student evaluations should be extended to December 16. William also agrees with Katherine that the Senate needs to make a statement to the Council regarding the fact that faculty were not even consulted prior to the decision being made.

Update on Possible Meeting with Hannah Ross: Thor wrote to Hannah Ross requesting a meeting with the Faculty Senate to discuss faculty protection and handbook changes. Hannah responded that she is happy to meet with all faculty in January to discuss faculty protections. Thor has scheduled a meeting with Hannah and her assistant on December 11 to discuss handbook changes. A meeting to discuss faculty protection has not been scheduled.

Thor suggests that the Faculty Governance sub-committee make a video to send to Hannah with context, i.e., our goals for the meeting and how can faculty members protect themselves from unfair/unwarranted/unsubstantiated student attacks.

Anna and William do not feel a video is necessary.

Katherine suggests preparing a list of questions to send to Hannah so she can think about them prior to meeting with faculty. The Senate should draft questions that are specific, but not so specific that they are unanswerable. Topics to avoid are personal protections like allegations of slander, which is a perception by the individual and would require that person retain a private lawyer.

Anna says professors are not hired to be liked, but when a student dislikes a professor they can start with harmful allegations. In these cases, the Administration normally sides with the student and gives in to their demands. Where is the line between the emotion and the case and what are the boundaries?

William agrees to draft a list of questions for Hannah to address to the Senate in conjunction with Anna and Pushpa.

Faculty Overload Sub-Committee Update:

After conversations with Mahmoud about curriculum concerns, Philipp drafted a list of questions to be sent to all the program chairs and forwarded the list to Thor for feedback. Philipp is wondering the how the information collected is going to be used, who will be served by the information, and how will the information serve them? These questions might help clarify the next steps in this process. He does not want to create something that is not helpful and suggests a list of short essay questions might be best. Anna thinks we should ask about what we can change to move forward and what we should bring into the classroom in order to be competitive, rather than rehashing old ideas such as canceling seminars because they are too academic.

Thor suggests:

1. Approach the deans and collect data on course releases and pressure points with teaching load. For example, is the burden of directed study falling asymmetrically on some faculty while not counting towards their teaching load.
2. Contact the chairs for pressure points with teaching load and idiosyncratic practices in their program. Are some faculty being asked to do way more teaching, but getting paid less than others?
3. Talk to the Registrar and ask for:
   • Data on directed studies and who has taught them.
   • List of credits taught per faculty member.
   • Mandatory vs. student-initiated directed studies.

Philipp and Mahmoud will engage Katherine and try to come up with a survey of short essay questions for the chairs and deans. 

December 8 All Faculty Meeting: Thor would like this meeting to be a very informal town-hall-type meeting where faculty can have conversations about what MIIS currently is, what faculty hope MIIS will be, and what are some things faculty could do in the spring to prepare for the future of higher education? Ideas for the town-hall were discussed:

• Full group discussions, small group/breakout rooms discussion, and community building activities.
• Send a link to Elon Musk’s Ad Astra and some proactive articles. Are we training international relations professionals, what does that mean for the short to mid-term (2021-2025), and how is that reflected in the curriculum?
• What will we get out of this meeting, what will make it a success, what might the meeting produce?
  • Give people a chance to vent, but also to hope and dream.
  • A place to reflect on how this semester has gone, both pros and cons, and make connections to the future.
  • Some space where people can reflect on the new normal without making it a big grievance session.
  • How do we at MIIS belong to “M”iddlebury.
• A padlet was created for this meeting: https://padlet.com/tsawin/MIISstrategy2020 Password miis2020

Meetings for the Remainder of the Fall Semester:

• Institute Board of Advisors meeting, November 13, 8:15-9:00am.  
• Middlebury College Faculty Council meeting, November 13. Update from David Provost regarding the financial situation for FY20 and projections for FY21.
• Faculty Senate Meeting – Canceled, November 17.
• Faculty and Staff Town Hall, November 17 12:15-1:45pm. Updates will be given on spring 2021 planning and the return-to-work strategy.
• Faculty Senate Meeting: December 1: Report out by the Faculty Grievance committee (Pushpa, William, and Anna) and the Faculty Load committee (Mahmoud and Philipp).
• Faculty Assembly: December 8: General conversation about how things went with online teaching during the fall semester and other concerns.
• Faculty Senate Meeting: December 15: Report out by the Academic Polices and Standards Manual/Faculty Handbook for Online Learning committee (Thor) and the Review of Development/Evaluation committee (Katherine and Pushpa). Invite APSIC and FEC representatives.

Institute Board of Advisors Agenda:

The Faculty Senate will be meeting with the Institute Board of Advisors this Friday morning. The Senate will have 45 minutes to really engage with the Board about MIIS faculty interests. The following agenda was drafted:

• Question about the larger, long-term, post-pandemic vision:
  • What is the Board’s hope for this vision (moving us beyond the 20^th century)?
    • What will position us as leaders, what we need to do now so we do not fail in 5 years
  • Faculty discussing the balance of virtual programs with physical ones. Make sure we deliver our mission in this new format according to the values          
    • Shortening, altering programs, puts pressure on curricular assumptions
    • A lot of programs are more willing and better able to visualize online versions of current degrees.
      • Bringing scholars from all over the world into virtual spaces in truly unique ways
    • Budgetary support for DLINQ and technology to expand our ability to offer programs in other formats
    • Simulations, newest technologies
• Faculty’s vision for MIIS.
• Language specialization, making sure language pathways fit into future programming.
  • Future for creating excellent and specialized summer programs at MIIS – how do they relate to Language Schools
• We are still committed/excited to serving upperclassmen from MIID.
  • How is the plan going, with the dorm, Operations Underbrush? (credit mismatches, buy-in with faculty/student advisors, prerequisites counting, J-term courses)
  • Overall relationship with College and our colleagues there
• Recruiting and retaining international faculty, creating pathways to even allow teaching from other places than the United States – not having to work through the Schools Abroad
• Thank them for approving a freeze on tuition.
• Equity – course load allocation, pay within MIIS; benefits across Institute and College.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Mahabat Baimyrzaeva, Philipp Bleek, Pushpa Iyer, Katherine Punteney (Vice President/President Elect), Thor Sawin (President), Anna Vassilieva. Staff: Stacie Riley. Guests: Laura Burian, Jeff Dayton-Johnson, Fernando DePaolis. 

Student Access to Campus Discussion: The Institute Council joins the meeting asking for faculty ideas on ways that students can access campus (i.e. space, activities, services, etc.) that would be seen as generally additive for students.

• Do we have access to information on what has been done in higher education California-wide?
  • Systemwide Cal State has announced it will be completely online through the end of the academic year. All campus of the UC system that are on the quarter system will be online for winter quarter. The UCs have yet to announce their plans for the spring.
  • Facilities has done an exhaustive audit of classroom capacity utilizing the six-foot social distancing guideline, noting that capacity will be about one-third normal. We might be able to do things outdoors or in places like the Samson Dining Room, which is large, has a roof, and is well-ventilated.
• Options for MIIS
  • Small outdoor gatherings.
  • Maybe small group tutorial or mentoring sessions.
  • Library access and access to study spaces on campus will likely be the most important for students who are in the Monterey area.
  • Achieving equity between on-campus and remote students if/when we begin to have some things happen on campus.
• For MIIS Community Building informal opportunities to connect in small groups across school or program, role (faculty/staff/student), and semester of study will be very important.
  • When we begin to offer some live events we will need to be very careful to balance with additional online events to maintain equity for all students.
  • Perhaps we can create some hybrid community-building events with a small group (3 or so) of people on campus and one or two people who are joining remotely, working to ensure that all can participate fully and that the remote voices are integrated as fully as the live ones.
  • Allow interpreting student access to simul labs.
  • Small stable classes could meet to work in labs and do other assignments outdoors. Or, students could practice in single booths in labs.
  • The second year students have had practically no time in the booths and rightly believe this is a huge portion of their training.
  • TILM Career Fair.
• Use of open spaces for student and faculty activities. A space for small faculty gatherings. 
• Use of a podium and microphone for public speaking, even if it is only to practice or record an assignment.
• Perhaps outdoor activities might get better buy-in. Our county currently allows fairly large outdoor gatherings (up to 200) as long as they practice social distancing and wear masks. We should base our decisions on what the government says.

Pass/Fail Policy: Jeff provides a quick summary stating that Student Council came to the Institute Council with a strong recommendation to continue the Pass/Fail policy that was used last spring. When Student Council makes a recommendation like, while it is not binding it needs to be given serious consideration. There were two opposition themes to this request:  

1. It could harm students with further study, internships, jobs, etc., if they have too many Pass/Fail on their transcripts.  
2. Student anxiety over grades seems to be more of a health and wellness issue instead of an academic one. We want to help students with their anxiety over the unknown, but if this is a health and wellness issue there are other options for student support. 

Students will be given the option of Pass/Fail or a letter grade. Regardless of their choice, faculty will send a letter grade to the Registrar, and they in turn will enter Pass/Fail for students.

Contract Renewal/Faculty Annual Review/Promotion: There has been some concern from faculty about meeting the criteria for contract renewal, FAR, and promotion due to the current global pandemic. The Senate will ask the Council to clarify what sorts of activities are “going above and beyond” and can be included as faculty development for the above processes (as opposed to being merely our baseline responsibility).

Senate Workplan: Katherine and Thor drafted a workplan for this academic year and have divided the Senate into subcommittees: 

• Grievance: Pushpa, William, and Anna.
• Faculty Load: Mahmoud and Phillip.
• Online Learning: Thor and Maha.
• Development and Evaluation Suggestions: Katherine and Pushpa.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Mahabat Baimyrzaeva, Philipp Bleek, Pushpa Iyer, Katherine Punteney (Vice President/President Elect), Thor Sawin (President), Anna Vassilieva. Student: Madeleine Smith (Student Council President).

Joint work areas between Student Council and Faculty Senate:

A. Issue of student grievances/faculty grievances:

In the light of recent high-profile grievance situations, faculty report being on edge about having reasonable protections in the event of a student grievance – especially if a faculty action is found from the perspective of a student to be offensive. We need to come up with a procedure and perhaps relevant policies that the students, administration, and faculty can all agree to.

How could we create a culture in which students would come to a faculty member before going elsewhere? Create a procedure of resolving interpersonal situations – mutually aware of the rights and responsibilities? Restorative-justice-type mediations have their limits, because what is said in those settings can eventually be used against use in a legal suit. We need to focus on three strands in this work:

• Policies – which ones exist.
• Procedures – how could a policy be carried out.
• Design so as to preserve interpersonal capital, encourage accountability on both ends.

B. Pulse on how students are doing with the remote format:

So many variables were changed at once. Course structures and calendars changed. Locations changed, modalities changed. Many students are requesting another semester with the pass/fail option.  (Having an out which would ease some stress). 

Senate needs to ask: Is pass/fail related to the distance learning constraints? Are students really best served by having this option? It is very late in the semester to try to bring this in now, although we aren’t out of the woods yet related to the pandemic. Student Council will provide a fuller sense of student though on this matter to administration.

Maha and Mahmoud asked if Madeleine had the results of the online learning survey sent out earlier in the summer. She didn’t have them, but would ask about getting them. Senate can ask too in meeting with JDJ if those results could be made available to student council.

C. How do students respond to the changes in curriculum – in terms of the language requirements, the change in the DPP program and specializations?

Madeleine didn’t have a systematic sense of this. Not many students are in a place to compare the prior models with the current. There is also some discontentment with half-term structure in terms of IPD.

D. Longer term issue raised by the pass/fail question was raised for future work – whether MIIS should adopt mastery-based, specifications-based assessment, vs. grade-based assessment. 

Discussing Faculty Protection work:

Madeleine then left the meeting. It was agreed that work on these joint efforts with students would be involve three steps:

1. Asking if Hannah Ross could address Senate at our Oct 13 meeting or near that time regarding the faculty protections that are available.
2. Asking HR/Legal to design a training on the rights of faculty members in those situations – to be launched perhaps in January of this year?
3. A subcommittee to be convened with student, faculty, and admin representation.

Commenting on Faculty Senate work plan draft:

Having already discussed the faculty grievance issue, Thor shared a more comprehensive plan of work for the coming academic year.  Assignments to these tasks are listed below.

Strand 1:  Protections for faculty with student grievances 

End goal: Faculty at MIIS would have confidence in a clear set of policies and procedures to follow in event of a student grievance/tension which would result in preventing tears in the community.  The policies in section 8 of our handbook is rewritten to reflect this: http://www.middlebury.edu/about/handbook/iv.-policies-for-the-institute/c.-faculty-handbook/8.-other-faculty-matters 

• Invite Hannah Ross to brief faculty on existing protections, and any procedures for responding.  
• Convene sub-committee with student council rep, HR rep, legal rep, two faculty senate reps, (one other faculty rep?) with the following goals: [Pushpa, William, Anna]

Strand 2: Review of faculty load 

End goal: Faculty at MIIS would have clear standards for faculty load determinations (including independent studies) and equitable course release policies applied across programs.

• Convene sub-committee with HR rep, two faculty senate reps, (one other faculty/APSIC/FEC rep?) with the following goals: (Mahmoud, Philipp)
• What are the roles for which course releases are offered?  Are these roles equally available across programs? 
• How many hours of course release are given for roughly what workload?
• What instances of courses with discrepancies between student meeting hours, student credits, and faculty teaching credits in each program?  
• Are the procedures clear?  
• Can a procedure be jointly agreed on?

Strand 3:  Design the task distribution for president-elect/president/past-president 

End goal: Faculty entering the senate leadership track would clearly know which duties fall under the jurisdiction of the past-president, the president, the president-elect, and what consultation among them should look like.  There will also be a workable transition plan for the AY 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 until the pipeline can be taken over.  Handbook will be reviewed to address any changes that might need to be made when mention of Senate president is made.

• Thor and Katherine worked on an initial draft of this here:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ncLV9WS-rpbQmf782MmSdoFQeXgxJ8f-e8DY3844iBc/edit?usp=sharing

Strand 4:  Review handbook and student policy manual for online/distance learning 

End goal:  The Faculty Handbook and Academic Policies and Standards manuals will both be reviewed to ensure that their stipulations and protections cover faculty and students engaged in distance learning, whether in a degree- or non-degree-program. 

• Convene sub-committee with student council rep, student services rep, one faculty senate rep (one other faculty rep?), one APSIC rep [Thor]

Maha asked that we add to this Senate priorities gathered from a faculty survey, sent out via Google forms, with one reminder.  We work shopped the question a little bit.  The Google Form is here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ncLV9WS-rpbQmf782MmSdoFQeXgxJ8f-e8DY3844iBc/edit?usp=sharing

These will be reviewed before our next Senate meeting and integrated into our work plan.