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

Sabbaticals for Spring Hires: If all measures in the September election pass, this is how the career calendar would look for spring and fall hires:

In the calendar below, we see that spring hires would be eligible to take sabbatical in either/both semesters 13 or/and 14, the same as fall hires.  However, this means that the spring hires’ full year sabbatical would be spring-summer-fall, rather than summer-fall-spring-summer.  Paige raised three issues with this:

1. Year-long sabbatical positions are often visiting positions, which require a fall-spring commitment.  This would mean a sabbatical in semesters 14/15, rather than 12-13.  (A 14-15 sabbatical has been the practice for spring hires in the past.)
2. The application windows are a bit awkward – if applying in semester 10 (recommended for fall sabbaticals), that is one semester further in advance than fall hires would have.  If applying in semester 12 (recommended for spring only sabbaticals), the window of lead time is a bit short.
3. The fall hires would get two summers appended to a full year sabbatical, whereas spring would only get one.

A compromise reached with HR in January involved Spring hires going up for contract renewal and promotion one semester earlier in their careers than fall hire, but denied the proposed early sabbatical timeline that the Senate submitted for review stating it is incentivizing spring hires. The handbook reads that you cannot take a sabbatical unless you have logged 12 semesters of teaching (6 years).

Three options for resolving this:

1. Keep status quo and a united application timetable with fall hires by having spring hires eligible in semesters 13-14.
2. Introduce a spring sabbatical application (in semester 11), only for those spring hires who want to do a full year or a fall only sabbatical, to resolve the awkward timing.  It would mean adding complexity to the evaluation calendar, but spring hires is a small group, and most faculty only take a single semester sabbatical.
3. Try to push for a semester 12-13 sabbatical if spring hires take the full academic year option, which, would be earlier than fall hires (who would do it in 13-14), but allow for a streamlined calendar.

Philipp does not think there should be different timelines, stating it makes things a bit convoluted. He states that spring hires would just have to put in an extra semester of teaching prior to a sabbatical (option 1 above).  Thor will approach HR about the possibility of options 1 vs. 3.

Faculty Development: A request was sent to the Faculty Senate asking that we consider allowing book purchases with faculty development funding this year due to the restrictions on travel. Currently, faculty are not allowed to purchase books, and are instead encouraged to arrange book acquisitions through the library, which now has an expanded interlibrary loan program and a budget for book purchases.  The question is, do we want to allow book purchases this year, and do we want to change the development model to a guaranteed award or hybrid program? It was decided it was too late this round to allow for a change, but the Senate should advocate for more flexible funding. The Senate will also place faculty development funding models on their agenda for this year.  

Reactions to Assembly:

• The Senators expressed their gratitude that President Patton and VPAA Dayton-Johnson gave updates to the Assembly.
• The future of the French and Japanese programs should be a priority, i.e. what will happen under these budget constraints, will we rely on adjuncts and part-time faculty, etc.? We need answers to these questions and further clarification on the medium and long-range plans.
  • [Follow-up after discussing this with MIIS Council]  At least in the short-medium run, with the current faculty we have, it is actually easier for us to staff French courses with regular faculty than Japanese courses.  So hiring in Japanese is probably a greater priority than in French.  French staffing will likely continue to rely on faculty who have appointments in other languages/programs to provide the French courses needed. 

Senate Work Plan: Thor and Katherine will work on a rough draft work plan for the year, assigning different leads to various priority projects (i.e. faculty protections, online learning). This rough draft will be sent to everyone for review prior to the next meeting.

Attendance:

Faculty Senate: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Mahabat Baimyrzaeva, Philipp Bleek, Pushpa Iyer, Katherine Punteney, Thor Sawin (President), Anna Vassilieva. Assembly: Netta Avineri, Kathi Bailey, Chuanyun Bao, Ashley Beleny, Abdelkader Berrahmoun, Marie Butcher, Paige Butler, Daniel Chatham, Wallace Chen, Avner Cohen, Cherry Ding, Monica Galligan, Kent Glenzer, Gabriel Guillen, Jacolyn Harmer, Tony He, George Henson, Andrea Hofmann-Miller, Maria-Jesus Iglesias-Barca, Renee Jourdenais, Eva Klaudinyova, Jeff Knopf, Fredric Kropp, Jeff Langholz, Heekyeong Lee, Charles Lester, Beryl Levinger, Wei Liang, Jason Martel, Chris McShane, Sabino Morera, Pablo Oliva, Barry Olsen, Deniz Ortactepe, Patty Pai, Grace Shen, Kalina Swanson, Max Troyer, David Wick, Tanya Williams, Joseph Wojowski, Adam Wooten, Charlotte Zhu. Guests: Laura Burian, Jeff Dayton-Johnson, Laurie Patton, Patricia Szasz, Toni Thomas. Staff: Justin Hitt, Stacie Riley.

The Faculty Assembly meeting was called to order by Faculty Senate President Thor Sawin at 12:16pm.

Thor welcomes everyone to the meeting. 

Update from President Patton: Laurie thanks the Assembly for inviting her to give a brief update, and states she is glad the wildfires are over. She sees the work and flexibility the faculty have shown during this pandemic and would love our leadership in future work on distance education done well. Laurie states that the students on the Vermont campus are grateful to be there in person and there is good energy on campus. There has been one positive COVID case and two disciplinary actions. If being back on campus would work anywhere, probably a rural school in Addison County, VT is where it would work best. Lastly, Laurie is thankful for the leadership taken at MIIS in instituting anti-racism courses. 

VPAA Dayton-Johnson Update: Jeff thanks the Assembly for the invitation, noting it is good to see everyone again and welcoming the faculty to the fall semester. He is going to briefly cover the updates requested by the Senate last week.

• Dorm Building at 787 Munras. There is currently no change in the plan due to COVID. The building should be operational in the 2021-2022 academic year, more likely in the spring of 2022, which was the original plan. As a reminder, a development firm (used previously by Middlebury) purchased the building and Middlebury is the broker between the current owner and the developer. Sustainability graduate assistant Corbin Panturad has been contributing suggestions regarding the renovation of the 787 Munras building. His suggestions are primarily focused on incorporating sustainable practices and features into the interior renovation and the use of greywater to conserve on water usage. Jeff remains optimistic that we will stay on schedule.
• Update on Project Underbrush and MIIS as a Study Away Site. The pandemic has certainly created new ways for undergrads to take courses on our campus. Currently, there are six MIDD undergraduates taking a total of seven MIIS courses remotely. While this is a good number, we would have liked for it to have grown a bit more. Operation Underbrush, which was delayed due to COVID, has provided an inventory of policy obstacles that are being addressed at this time.
• Enrollment: Jeff points out that Day 20 of the fall semester is the official headcount day for fall FTE’s. We will have more accurate and complete information later this month. Due to the pandemic, this year we allowed students to defer their admission. There were 74 who deferred, 20 until the spring and 54 until the 2021-2022 academic year. We also made it easier to be a part-time student. We are in a much better position than we feared we might be and are on par with last year in terms of class size. We are seeing leaves of absence, but Jeff is uncertain if there are more of these this year than previously. At least 38 students said they were coming to MIIS because we were online this fall. As a matter of fact, being online allows for later admissions and some students are currently still completing the process for this fall. 
• Financial situation heading into AY: Jeff states that he does not have a lot of definitive things to say on this front; David Provost would be the best person to speak on this subject. Jeff commented that the budget which was approved for fiscal year 2021 was approved with full wage continuity. The budget is lean and does include new pandemic-related expenses. The goal of Middlebury is not to take extraordinary cost-saving measures such as furloughs, layoffs, etc. To Jeff’s knowledge there is no set date as to when the budget will be revisited, and no explicit communication has been shared about which exact triggers will lead to which cost-cutting measures. Although there are a lot of things that can happen over the year, Jeff remains guardedly optimistic about the Institute’s enrollment and the COVID situation in Middlebury.
• Future Planning: Obviously with so much of the pandemic unknown, it is difficult to determine if J-term and spring 2021 will be on campus or online learning. We are preparing a calendar of decisions (i.e. what are the decisions, when will they be made internally, when will they be announced, etc.). The Institute Council will be working on this tomorrow and will be bringing it to the Institute Leadership Group on Thursday. There are five big decisions that need to be made and then communicated:
  • December commencement. Jeff doubts we will be able to invite everyone to Monterey.
  •  J-term.
  • Spring semester. This is probably the biggest decision.
  • Summer 2021. 
  • Fall 2021.

Jeff’s hope is that over time each decision will reflect a genuine opening of opportunities for students, informed by changes in the policy environment in this state and the pandemic environment. In order to serve our international students hybrid classes might be necessary. It could be virtually impossible for international students to be on campus in the spring, IF we are indeed on campus in the spring. Jeff hopes to have a public calendar of decision dates by the end of this month. He does note that the Presidential election could and likely will have an impact on these decisions, but notes we cannot wait until November to work on these plans. 

Chief Diversity Officer Update: Pushpa states the first section of the required anti-racism courses started yesterday, and she is currently working on the second course, which starts this coming Monday. She has been in close contact with the SAT, Faculty Senate, and Council of Program Chairs collecting input on the required training for faculty and staff, which will be taught by consultant Erica Huggins. She is also restarting the “What Can I Do” series, which lead to good conversations over the summer. She will be sending out more information about this semester’s invited speakers, as the information becomes available. Pushpa also notes that she is working closing with BIPOC (Black, indigenous people of color) to ensure their voices are heard. There are still approximately 200 students who need to sign up for the course, and she asks faculty to encourage their students to register. Lastly, Pushpa mentions the students are participating in a pre and post course survey (where we started and what we ended with), and she hopes to report those results. She does note that she will not be sharing the student reflections. 

At this time, Thor asks anyone who is not a faculty member to please leave so the Assembly could conduct their business.  

MIIS Faculty Numbers and Committees: 

• We are a small faculty for academic year 2020-2021 made up of 70 regular faculty (49 in GSTILE and 21 in GSIPM), 8 visiting faculty, and 78 adjunct faculty. Thor expresses his appreciation of the adjunct faculty. 
• We have three new regular faculty, Patty Pai in Chinese Translation, Wei Ding in Chinese Conference Interpreting, and David Mohr in TLM. 
• 2020-2021 Faculty Senate: Mahmoud Abdalla (GSTILE., 2018-2021), William Arrocha (GSIPM, 2018-2021), Mahabat Baimyrzaeva (Ex officio member and Faculty Constituent to the Institute Board of Advisors, 2020-2023), Philipp Bleek (GSIPM, 2020-2023), Pushpa Iyer (GSIPM, 2018-2021), Katherine Punteney (Vice President/President Elect, 2020-2023), Thor Sawin (President, 2018-2021), and Anna Vassilieva (GSTILE, 2020-2023).
• 2020-2021 Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC): Abdelkader Berrahmoun (At Large, subbing for Anne Campbell), Sharad Joshi (GSIPM), Pablo Oliva (Chair, GSTILE), and Tanya Williams (GSTILE). 
  • Paige Butler has stepped down from the committee, which leaves an opening for a GSIPM rep. Wei Liang is willing to serve in this role and will be on the upcoming ballot. 
• 2020-2021 Academic Policy, Standards, and Instruction Committee (APSIC): Maha Baimyrzaeva (GSIPM), Wallace Chen (Chair, GSTILE), Jinhuei Dai (GSTILE), Heekyeong Lee (At Large), Lyuba Zarsky (GSIPM). 

Thor thanks all departing committee members, then asks if either Pablo or Wallace would like to speak. Wallace states it is his pleasure to serve as the Chair of APSIC. He encourages anyone with questions about programmatic changes to contact him or another member of the APSIC committee. 

Reminder of Passed Legislation from June 2020: 

• The beginning of the governance year has been changed to July 1^st to align with current practice. This is the time when new officers will assume responsibilities, and when handbook changes from the previous year will go into effect. 
• The faculty handbook has been changed to allow electronic ballots, and virtual meeting attendance of eligible faculty is counted towards quorum. 
• The Faculty Assembly will now meet a minimum of twice each semester. 
• New language has been added to section C.6.i of the Faculty Handbook clarifying eligibility for sabbatical after sabbatical postponement due to Institutional need or world events beyond faculty control. 
• Under extraordinary circumstances, the VPAA may allow faculty who took a leave without pay for one year or less to count that time towards contract renewal, sabbatical, and/or promotion.

Legislation Passed August 25, 2020:

• At the FEC’s request, the Senate passed a vote to remove the peer review committee step from the sabbatical timeline. This year, we encourage those going up for sabbatical to solicit a letter of support from their Program Chair and ask at least one peer to review their application. This change allowed the Senate to move the faculty submission date from September 15 to September 30.  

Review of Handbook Measures on September 1 Ballot: Thor will be sending eligible faculty members a ballot this afternoon, which was held over from the spring, and includes: 

• Endorse Wei Liang for GSIPM rep on the FEC.
• New Faculty Senate Presidential Succession Model. Thor explains that currently when a new president is elected for a three-year term, they start without knowledge of what has happened previously in the Senate and what their duties involve. The Senate proposes a transition model where a new Senator is voted in as President Elect, an understudy for their first year, the second year they serve as President, and the third year as Past President. If you approve this model, there would be a different President each year, but would provide continuity in the Senate leadership. 
• Change the timetables for contract renewals and promotions. This would give spring hires a different first contract renewal date, clarify the VPAA recommendation date, and add the date for promotion to full professor to be submitted to the Board of Trustees. 
• Add language on what happens after a faculty member files a grievance against the Senate.
• Change the timetable for faculty evaluation of the Dean.

Upcoming Senate Priorities:

• Review the handbook and policies manual regarding online teaching. APSIC does review the student policies manual every year, but a detailed review on the policy for online learning will need to be done. There are several fully online MA proposals coming down the pipe this year. The Senate might need to convene an ad hoc committee for this purpose.
• The role of language on campus. This still needs clarification. The Senate will make this a priority this year. 
• The Senate has worked hard on revisions to sections 1-7 of the Faculty Handbook; however, work needs to be done on Section 8, which has not really been touched. This includes faculty protection from student complaints. We want to ensure that the Faculty and Employee Handbooks clearly states what the protections are for faculty, and what the consequences are if a student’s complaint is unfounded? 
• Culture of exceptions constantly granted to our students. This practice can makes faculty seem like the bad guys when we try to enforce a policy that is on the books but is often overridden by other faculty or administrators. We will be working with the administration on this issue.  
• Considering One School idea, merging GSTILE and GSIPM. There is already integration behind the scenes, i.e. Angie Quesenberry supporting both schools. Do we want to have the two schools merge or be more integrated? What would be gained and what would be lost?
• Advocate for international faculty. Faculty members on H1 visas are in a precarious position. We also want to ensure we can continue to recruit international faculty in the future.
• Professors of The Practice. It is an unclear status in our handbook and in the contract renewal and promotion processes. This rank keeps running into issues. How do you feel about maintaining this distinction between Professors and Professors of the Practice? The Senate needs to spend a lot of time on this issue this year.
• Visiting faculty on multiple single-year contracts vs. multi-year contracts. These people are essential to the delivery of our programs. Last February we passed a measure allowing visiting faculty on multi-year contracts to apply for faculty development funding so long as those faculty also underwent an annual review. It has recently come to our attention that MIIS only hires visiting faculty on single year contracts, although the Faculty Handbook strongly discourages this practice. Should visiting faculty on multiple iterations of a single-year contract be allowed to seek development funding (ex, should a certain number of single-year contracts be viewed as a multi-year contract)?

Announcements:

Thor states that some of the College professors have formed a union through which they are advocating for different issues (http://sites.middlebury.edu/aaup/). MIIS faculty are welcome to join. 

Marie Butcher announces that the International Cultural Gathering is in the process of planning events, which are open to faculty and staff. Last semester they hosted a very successful poetry event. 

Thor adjourns the meeting at 1:41pm.

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

Sabbatical Application Timeline: Last year, the Senate worked on proposed revisions to the contract renewal and promotion timelines. Last spring, FEC requested that the peer review committee not be convinced for sabbatical applications due to committee burnout and the letters were found to be unhelpful. For those reasons, FEC suggested that the peer review letter be swapped for a statement from the Program outlining the plan for the program and how the sabbatical would be covered. Thor states that the current faculty submission deadline for sabbaticals is September 15, but if we eliminated the peer review committee we could adjust the timeline for submission to September 30. The Senate voted and passed the two measures: remove the peer review committee (majority vote) and extend the faculty submission date for sabbaticals to September 30 (unanimous vote).

Proposed topics for September 1, 2020 Faculty Assembly Meeting:

• Report from FEC and APSIC.
• Ask VPAA Dayton-Johnson to give an overview on student enrollment and finances.
• Chief Diversity Officer update on faculty training, summer work, and student coursework.
• Report on where we stand on pay cuts. Over the summer we were told that Middlebury was not going to cut pay, but that the subject would be reviewed again in October. What is the status of that review and what would trigger financial cuts?
• Thor states that the main triggers would be undergraduate students being sent home. He does question whether the triggers are different at the College.
• Update on when decisions about J-term and spring online teaching vs. in person classes will be made.
• Updates from HR and the General Council, if needed. Cathy Vincent and Hannah Ross are available.
• How many students took a leave of absence this semester?
• Status of collaboration with other MIDD entities, specifically the status of MIIS as a Study Away site.
• Update on the new MIIS dorm building.

Agenda for August 28, 2020 meeting with VPAA Dayton-Johnson: A meeting between the Senate and Jeff Dayton-Johnson has been scheduled for Friday, August 28. Jeff would like to hear what the Senate’s priorities are for this fall. Agenda items were discussed.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Sabino Morera, Thor Sawin (President). Absent: Andrea Hofmann-Miller, Pushpa Iyer,Katherine Punteney. Staff: Stacie Riley. 

Proposed Handbook Changes: The Senate spent time going over a Google document of proposed Faculty Handbook changes. This document will be sent to the Assembly to gather feedback on the proposals in preparation for voting later this semester.

The issue pertaining to multi-year visiting faculty is the most urgent. The change to the handbook would allow visiting faculty to have a status similar to a regular faculty member (i.e. access to development funding, ability to serve on campus committees, and the requirement to undergo annual evaluation). Thor plans to send out a ballot the afternoon of February 12^th, and if it passes multi-year visiting faculty would be allowed to participate in this round of development awards.

Faculty Senate President and Deans Meeting: On Friday, February 7th Thor meeting with Laura and Fernando. One of the topics of conversation was the MIIS Language Committee. The committee has not met for several reasons, one of which is they were waiting on APSIC to send their recommendation on the IEM proposal. Sabino and Mahmoud share that the Language Task Force will be a topic of discussion at the LS meeting on February 13th.

A discussion about the plan for French, Japanese, and Economics ensued. Thor asked that a Town Hall be scheduled to inform the community of the plans for these programs.

Departing Faculty: A copy of the letter from the President’s Office sent to departing faculty with an offer to honor them was shared with the Senate by one of the departing faculty.The letter was relatively short, terse in tone and didn’t offer any option for recognition other than a lecture series. Several Senators noted that faculty members have approached them to share their unhappiness with the letter. A discussion about next steps for ensuring that those leaving at the end of the spring semester feel honored and respected followed.

Budget Update: Thor states that the fall enrollment numbers look okay, they are the same as they were for the last two years at this point. He notes that enrollment in GSIPM programs is going down while GSTILE programs are growing, especially TLM and Chinese T&I. Thor states that the savings achieved by Workforce Planning were largely mitigated by the increased healthcare cost and cost of living increases for those faculty who remain. We would have been in a worse financial position by far without Workforce Planning, but not as much savings as hoped was realized, Middlebury was projected to be in the black by fiscal year 2021, but the new projections are slightly in the red. Jeff Dayton-Johnson was asked about the possibility of taking contract non-renewals off the table this year. Jeff replied that although they are not planning on non-renewals this year they cannot promise it won’t happen.

Emeritus Status: The Senate has been asked to remind faculty that they need to be nominated by someone else and that the voting process is by secret ballot. We may want to be more lenient than in some years with the requirement that emeritus status be reserved for those who do not seek employment elsewhere. Several departing faculty this time may still desire to teach for a couple of more years, since they are departing earlier than they had planned.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Andrea Hofmann-Miller (Zoom), Pushpa Iyer, Thor Sawin (President). Absent: Sabino Morera (Zoom), Katherine Punteney. Staff: Stacie Riley. 

Board Meeting: The Senate will be meeting with the Institute Board of Overseers on Friday, November 15th for one hour. Some ideas are:

• The future plan for Language Studies since both the French and Japanese programs have been decimated. Currently, there has been no discussion about the future or a plan put in place. We need to get clarity on what the next steps will be.
• The proposed DPP program language requirements. William and Pushpa both assure Mahmoud that the DPP program will remain as is for the foreseeable future. Mahmoud then asks about the proposed IEM change, which is still going through APSIC. It was decided this was not a topic to discuss with the Board. 
• The financial infrastructure. After the crisis of last year, what is the Board planning; are they going to keep the status quo between MIIS and MIID or are they going to implement further charges? What is the financial approach in the future? There are still a lot of gaps with the merger. 
• The idea of expanding the number of undergraduates on the MIIS campus, what are the financial implications and the logistics to manage that? What will it mean for our classrooms, pedagogy, teaching allocations, etc.?
• An update on Operation Underbrush (aligning calendars, Carnegie credits, financial aid, etc.).
• Integration of the Schools Aboard and MIIS. How much and how realistic is this idea?
• The benefits gap between MIIS and MIDD. Aligning benefits could help increase morale. Since we are one big M the benefits should be the same. 
• International faculty visa/green card sponsorship. 
• Enrollment and financial sustainability. Thor suggests this would be better discussed with Jeff Cason, not the Board.

Faculty Handbook Revisions: Each Senator was asked to draft proposed language changes or additions to the Handbook prior to November 19^th. These changes will be presented to General Counsel Hannah Ross for review before being brought to the Assembly for discussion and vote.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Andrea Hofmann-Miller (Zoom), Pushpa Iyer, Sabino Morera (Zoom), Katherine Punteney, Thor Sawin (President). Guest: Jeff Dayton-Johnson. Staff: Stacie Riley. 

Updates from VPAA Dayton-Johnson: Thor welcomes Vice President Jeff Dayton-Johnson. Prior to the meeting today, Thor sent Jeff a list of topics the Senate would like to discuss. Due to limited time, the Senate’s would like to start with the recognition series for faculty not returning next year and an update on the equality audit from last year. 

Recognition Series: Jeff states that the recognition series has been discussed at previous ILG meetings. One of the questions has been who should invite these faculty to participate, the Vice President’s Office or the ILG? Jeff also does not want to pressure anyone into taking part in this series. He has been hearing lately that some faculty may not want to take part in this, as it is painful still. Pushpa feels the invitation should come from President Patton and the other Senators agree. Thor suggests that the letter be couched as an offer, explicitly mention that Middlebury would like to recognize your service even if this was not the way you wanted to leave the Institute. Jeff thinks it’s feasible for Laurie to send the invitation from her office and will email her about this idea. Thor asks who will be the point person for logistics – Patricia Szasz or the VP’s Office? Pushpa feels that the VP’s Office should not be involved in this process and offers to handle the logistics out of the CDO Office.

The next question is what is the best way to honor these faculty, a lecture series, panel, party at the end of the year, a letter from Laurie, etc.? Katherine feels that is should not be a “choose one” but “check all that apply” type of invitation so faculty can pick the way they want to be recognized. Jeff feels that the invitation should go to all faculty who are not returning next year, i.e. those who took the ISP, retiring faculty, non-renewed faculty, and the three visiting MBA faculty (whose tenure ends this semester). The Senate agrees and thinks that the series could start at the end of the fall semester with the three departing MBA visiting faculty. 

A discussion followed about the mood on campus. Pushpa states she has reached out to faculty to join her focus groups and has received feedback from some that they are not interested in speaking about this in a public space. They have, however, offered to meet with her one-on-one. Jeff agrees that there is some anger and shares that one faculty member does not even want to leave a forwarding address when they depart. Avner feels strongly that we should not continue to bring up Workforce Planning since people are still hurt and this could reopen wounds, that the letter from Laurie should be very sensitive in its approach. William agrees and clarifies that he doesn’t see what’s happening as cynicism, it’s pain, people are in pain after last year and it’s time to heal. 

Equality Audit: On June 27, 2018, Jeff sent an email to all faculty stating a faculty salary equity audit would take place over the summer. There has been no follow-up on that email prompting several T&I faculty to reach out to Pushpa and Thor about the results. Thor and Pushpa each contacted Cathy Vincent, who told them to discuss the process and outcome of the audit with Jeff. 

Jeff explains that in the summer of 2018, after everyone received their salary adjustment, there was a remaining salary budget of 0.5% that was to be used for merit based salary adjustments, which is how that money was used in Middlebury. However, HR made the announcement after staff had completed their annual performance evaluations, so it was not felt that we could do merit increases on this campus. Instead, Jeff proposed to HR that the remaining pool of money be used to adjust discrepancies in the faculty salary pool. Jeff Dayton-Johnson, Jeff Cason, and Cathy Vincent meet in Middlebury and reviewed 81 faculty salaries (not including visiting or adjunct faculty) looking for any kind of inconsistencies in the faculty salary scale. This was not a gender equality audit although gender was one of the criteria looked at, along with how far faculty were into the salary range, length of service, and years at rank. Of the 81 faculty looked at, 16 (both male and female) were adjusted for an average adjustment of $8,300 annually. While this did not entirely eliminate all inconsistencies, it did make a big difference. Jeff understands that our faculty salaries are out of proportion with the labor market (people can go to the corporate world and make more), but that was not what was being addressed with the audit. Jeff states that Middlebury does not have the kind of discrepancies found on the MIIS campus. In Middlebury, most college faculty hires are newly minted PhDs who are hired at the same salary and progress in a similar way. Jeff points out that he did notify the 16 faculty members whose salaries were adjusted, however, he agrees that he should send out a notice to all faculty to summarize the process and outcome. He will send his draft email to Karen Miller to review prior to sending it out.

A discussion about the faculty salary scale followed. Katherine points out that since the current scale was put in place about 8 years ago there has been no update. The Senate feels like this scale should be periodically reviewed and revised. Jeff states that Mercer (the company who created the current level and band structure) has been contracted to revisit the salary structure for MIIS and Middlebury staff. Jeff knows that Middlebury faculty will not be part of the new Mercer study, but he is unsure if MIIS faculty’s pay structure will be addressed. A brief discussion about bands and salary between the two schools followed.

Contract Non-Renewals and ISP: Thor asked Jeff to explain to faculty the way the ISP and contract non-renewal processes unfolded. Thor has been trying to explain it to faculty based on his understanding, but he’s not quite sure he has the timeline correct and some faculty see in this process some kind of conspiracy. Jeff states he is less than enthusiastic about going back over this story because it is painful for everyone. If people think there is a conspiracy, there is not much he can say to change that. Jeff understands that there is a history of trust being broken here which did not start with him, but also has not ended with him. He does point out that there will not be another ISP process; this was a one-time program designed to help ease our acute financial deficit. 

Jeff said many times during the process that the ISP for faculty and staff would have a different timeline and different characteristics. The Council was told that for faculty who accepted the ISP they would have the right of refusal. In the end, that turned out not to be legal. On the same day that the new language policy framework (April 15, 2019) was announced, Jeff had a phone call with several senior administrators in Middlebury who informed him that the faculty and staff communication and timeline now had to be the same. They insisted that this announcement needed to go out by the end of the week. The Council tried to put extra guardrails in place to limit the number of faculty who could take the ISP from a single program, but that didn’t work as planned. Workforce Planning was not a process that we were prepared to undertake and based on the change handed down from Middlebury, it was designed more quickly than it should have been. There was no malice or ill will on anybody’s part, but unfortunately, a number of things happened that we did not intend to happen (i.e. decimation of the French and Japanese programs). Jeff acknowledges that we are going to have to fill some of the positions that will be vacant, which was an unintended result of the process. Laura Burian and Patricia Szasz are putting together a taskforce to address the holes in the language programs. 

Avner feels this is a painful topic and we should not continue to rehash the past, we need to move forward. He does not think a formal communication about the Workforce Planning process should go out from the VP’s Office. He is grateful Jeff provided the information so that the Senators can talk to their colleagues informally about what transpired. Everyone agreed, and Jeff offered to sit down one-on-one to discuss this with people.  

Although the current handbook language says that non-renewal of faculty contracts can take place based on financial constraints, it was not a practice before last year. Many faculty felt there was a strong chance they could complete their careers in Monterey, but now with non-renewals and the Institute Council’s new priority on market reactive degrees, faculty feel that when the market changes they’ll be asked to leave. The Senate would like to try to revise the handbook to include language that would make contract non-renewals less arbitrary and less sudden. Some suggested ideas are:  

• A warning system. This would put a program on notice and give them 2-3 years to come up with a new curriculum to meet market demands.
• A temporary alteration to employment terms. This would allow faculty to go to part-time for a three-year period to get through the lean times. 
• Another option would be allowing faculty to go to Associate Faculty status for three years mid-career. 
• Give three-year rolling contracts to faculty, which are renewed every year to allow a faculty member who is not renewed for non-performance reasons time to find a new position elsewhere.                      

Jeff thinks these are creative ideas and would like to work with the Senate to find other creative ways to address possible non-renewals. 

Avner does not think calling contract non-renewals the “new normal” is a good phrase. He understands that occasionally non-renewals for non-performance issues will happen, but saying it is the “new normal” does not reflect reality and will hurt faculty recruitment and retention. Jeff understands this, but states that if we don’t make financial adjustments we won’t be recruiting any new faculty. 

The current handbook says that individuals whose contracts are not-renewed because of financial constraints should be given an opportunity to be hired in another role by Middlebury. Was this explored for those faculty who were not renewed? Jeff responded that this was discussed within the Institute Council and with Hannah Ross, Middlebury General Counsel. The short answer is that when talking about faculty, compared to staff, the flexibility to find alternative spots is small. It was then asked if faculty were eligible to take positions on other Middlebury campuses? Jeff says yes, but for that particular case last year, anyone who had accepted the ISP and took a position on another campus would not receive their separation package. Jeff also mentions that some faculty on the MIIS campus have the background to teach in other areas and the Council is exploring “faculty flexing” as an option here. 

Enrollment: Jeff shared that the official 20 day report on student enrollment was just released. The total count for fall is 656 with new degree seeking enrollment at 303. T&I and TLM have 242 of the new degree seeking students. Next fall our goal is to keep enrollment stable. 

Faculty Senate Updates: Jeff left the meeting at 1:45 and Thor quickly informed the Senate about a few issues. 

• ILG. This group is being expanded to include more people and will be meeting less frequently. The President and Vice President of the Faculty Senate will be meeting with Jeff Dayton-Johnson once a month. William asks that Thor and Avner send an update to all Senators after each meeting. 
• Handbook. Thor has been compiling a document with the proposed changes to the handbook so he can manage the workflow process. Thor suggests that this fall he move the minor changes through the process to clean those out, leaving the big changes to be discussed more thoroughly in the spring. Sabino asks if it’s possible to come up with a list of big issue priorities, i.e. how program chairs are appointed. The Senate agrees with Thor’s proposal to move the minor changes through and all agree to divide the work of the major changes.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Andrea Hofmann-Miller (Zoom), Pushpa Iyer (Zoom), Katherine Punteney, Thor Sawin (President), Pablo Oliva. Absent: Sabino Morera. Guests: Pablo Oliva. Staff: Stacie Riley. 

Updates and Business with FEC: Thor introduced Pablo Oliva, Chair of FEC. Pablo explains that faculty who are submitting for sabbatical, contract renewal, and promotion during the 2019-2020 academic year will have the option of submitting an “electronic dossier” through a secure Google drive. The reason FEC decided to offer this option is to make the processes more transparent, more secure, and more fluid for all committee members. FEC has also found paper dossiers with missing information and they feel the Google drives will help alleviate that problem. Stacie Riley will be creating a shared drive for each faculty member. Once complete, Stacie will email each faculty member inviting them to upload their documents. Pablo states it is advisable to upload a single pdf into each folder. Please note that in order to log into the Google drive faculty must use their Middlebury email address. After each deadline, Stacie will remove access from the previous party and grant access to the upcoming party. For example, on September 17th the faculty member’s access to their sabbatical dossier will be removed and the peer review committee will be given access. Once the review committee has written and signed their letter they will send it to Stacie who will upload it into the drive and send the faculty member a copy. This process will continue through the list of evaluators until final approval/denial has been made. On the first day of the next academic year all files will be deleted so it is important that faculty members keep a copy of all material uploaded into the Google drive.

William asks how to handle publications. It was recommended that links to publications be added to a pdf for upload. Mahmoud asks about books, since some foreign publishers don’t have web pages links are not available. It was suggested that a note could be added to the dossier telling reviewers that you have the book and they could check it out, or you could upload a copy of the title page and a chapter or two.

Thor reminds the Senators that a new rubric has been voted in, which will be uploaded into Faculty 180 and used for the upcoming FAR process. The breakdown of the new rubrics is teaching 40-60%, scholarship and professional impact 20-50%, Middlebury/MIIS service 10-30%, and the new optional category of professional development 0-20%. This was shared last spring at the Assembly and faculty were asked for feedback. Thor has received no feedback so the rubrics should be considered final for this year, with potential changes once this has been used once. It was pointed out that the same rubrics will be used for both GSTILE and GSIPM. 

It has been noted that faculty hired in January have issues when it comes to the process of contract renewals and promotions. Currently, faculty hired in January go up for contract renewal in their second semester and promotion in their ninth. These faculty have reported difficulty in every step of the review processes, including having to justify that they qualify. Last year the Assembly voted in a change for January hires, application for renewal in their fourth semester and promotion in their ninth. Unfortunately, HR prevented the implementation of this revised schedule, based on the logic that January hires would get a double benefit (having more data for contract renewal, as well as being eligible for promotion earlier). Thor discussed two alternate possibilities for January hires with HR and both were deemed acceptable:

• Two parallel FEC calendars. Current calendar for fall hires (contract renewal commencing on October 15th with notification on April 30th) and a second calendar for January hires (contract renewal commencing on March 15th with notification on November 30th).
• A compressed/expedited FEC calendar. Current calendar for fall hires would remain the same as above with contract renewal for January hires starting on February 15th and decision notification on April 30th. 

Consensus seemed to be around exploring the expedited calendar, which was presented for consideration at the ILG meeting on September 18^th.

Community Building Focus Groups: Pushpa presented on a series of focus groups she plans to facility on campus in her role as the Chief Diversity Officer. She will offer separate groups for faculty, staff, and students.

Pressing Needs for The Senate this Academic Year:

Thor asks the Senators what pressing needs the Faculty Senate should address this academic year. 

• Avner states there needs to be a sense of returning to normalcy after last year. 
• Mahmoud states that people are wondering what is going to happen now that the French program has been decimated by ISP and contract non-renewal. What are the next steps on how to shape programs with so many faculty leaving and how is the language framework policy going to be instituted?
• William can’t speak for all of GSIPM due to its fragmentation, but feels it is important to find new channels to stay informed about what is happening across GSIPM. He is also troubled there were no school-wide retreats this year in either GSTILE or GSIPM. His program is in shock knowing how many people will be leaving at the end of this year. All this while the program curriculum is undergoing accelerated and radical changes. It’s going to be a rough transition so faculty are looking for strong Institute leadership.
• Katherine thinks there needs to be community-wide conversations about the curricular changes in the various programs. Her question is who is in charge of changes and who will initiate the community conversations? She thinks the Senate needs to ask Jeff Dayton-Johnson to bring the community together. The town hall he held in late August was a good start, but we need more, perhaps some cross program faculty retreats.
• Andrea shares that the mood around campus and in the T&I is not very good, there is a lot of bitterness. She states that the high tuition charged by MIIS is a huge deterrent in attracting international T&I students, and the quality of US students who apply to the T&I program is just not there.
• Thor thinks faculty morale needs to be worked on. He asks the Senators to send him ideas that they think will be helpful in terms of raising morale and he will write to the Institute Council, who have been very responsive to the Senate’s requests. One idea is to bring back the school retreats and to let the Council know that there may have been good reasons to not have the retreats this year, but they were missed by all faculty. 

Updates from the Town Hall and Faculty Assembly: 

• Celebration for faculty not returning next year. Patricia Szasz has volunteered to be person contacting faculty who are leaving to discuss their interest in participating in a lecture series in their honor. Since Patricia is new to the Council and was not involved with the ISP process, it was felt she would be the best person to approach these faculty. 
• ISP. Thor was informed that there would be no formal list of non-returning faculty provided to all faculty, although program chairs are aware of who is leaving. It will be left up to each faculty member to let others know of their decisions. 
• When the Senate meet with President Patton she gave a strong statement about increasing the amount of faculty development funding. Thor feels the Senate should check in with Laurie about the status.

Updates from the ILG Meetings:

The five goals of the Institute Council this academic year was presented at the town hall, but those in the ILG have a bit more information that Thor shared at today’s meeting. 

• Linguistically and interculturally competent graduates. Recruiting has begun with the new language requirements for DPP, IEM, IEP, and TLM. The Council has appointed a task force (led by Laura Burian and Patricia Szasz) to create a transition plan for languages in 2020/21. At the end of October, the task force will present to the Institute Council and in December MIIS will start to develop study abroad packages that combine language learning with career-focused courses at partner universities. 
• Market responsive, career-focused MAs. At the end of September the Council received a report on employer relations activities and proposed modifications to increase effectiveness, which serves as the basis for new staff positions/redeployment of existing ones. By the beginning of October there will be instructions developed for programs on what “career focus” implies, and programs will receive instructions to provide market response report by the beginning of March. By the end of October non-language gaps in curriculum will be identified (e.g. analytics, econ). 

As time was running out, the remainder of the Council’s five goals were not reviewed. Thor briefly touched on a few things the Senate will be working on this academic year. 

• Handbook modifications. Senate has initiated a process for handbook modifications so we don’t vote in a change and then have it blocked at implementation. 
• Handbook additions to protect faculty from non-renewals, or create a fairer process. The Senators should come up with suggestions about the process and other ways to ensure cost savings, i.e. as a department we all take a pay cut. Thor did caution that HR might have a problem with this because senior faculty could coerce junior faculty. What can be done when a program finds itself with market constraints? The Senate will create a committee to discuss this further.
• LPP faculty with multi-year contracts. This is very important and we need to figure it out this year, we can’t just keep kicking it down the road.

Faculty Senate: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Andrea Hofmann-Miller (via Zoom), Pushpa Iyer (via Zoom), Katherine Punteney, Thor Sawin (President). Assembly Members: Philipp Bleek, Alaina Brandt, Marie Butcher, Paige Butler, Lijian Cai, Anne Campbell, Wallace Chen, Avner Cohen, Monica Galligan, Mike Gillen, Gabriel Guillen, Sharad Joshi, Renee Jourdenais, Samuel Kim, Jeff Knopf, Barry Olsen, Katherine Punteney, Max Troyer, Anna Vassilieva, David Wick, Tanya Williams, Via Zoom: Netta Avineri, Sandra Dow, Jacolyn Harmer, Wei Liang, Eva Klaudinyova, Deniz Ortactepe, Naoko Matsuo, Moyara Ruehsen, Cas Shulman-Mora, Lyuba Zarsky. Staff: Stacie Riley.

Quorum was not reached at today’s meeting, which requires a minimum of 37 faculty members be present. No votes were planned to be taken, however.

Greeting New Faculty: There were no new faculty members present at today’s Assembly. The new regular faculty in Chinese T&I are Lijian Cai, Yuanyan Ding, Xiaoyan Shen, and Xiaojing Shi. Chinese T&I has also hired two visiting faculty: Wei Ding and Chiaming Fan. TLM has one new faculty member starting this fall, Eva Klaudinyova. 

Encouraging News Items: 

• A third section of Chinese T&I is up and running this fall.
• We have an excellent group of undergraduate students on campus this semester, mostly in NPTS. Middlebury is really excited to work with us to build study away site connections.
• College Fall Faculty Forum has invited three MIIS faculty members to campus for this event.
• Enrollment numbers are up. We have a larger incoming class, which due to the smaller than normal second year group means that we met our enrollment targets. We will know after the third week survey if our FTE grew. 
• Muchadei Zvoma in Marketing relayed that we are off to a positive start as far as inquiries for FY20; as of July 31st we are 50 inquires ahead of target so we are looking good from a marketing standpoint. 
• A new professional certificate program in Spanish Community Interpreting started this fall.
• In Fall 2020 TLM will launch an online program for domestic students, which will not compete with our current residential TLM program.
• TSEOL/TFL is working on designing a practicum class for students enrolled in the Schools Abroad with online capstones to begin in Summer 2020, which would allow students to complete all coursework in one year. 
• The Schools Abroad directors are very willing to develop programs for graduate-level School Abroad options to host MIIS students. 
• The library has a new search system, which allows you to search multiple media simultaneously. The search is located on the library’s web page.

Committees’ Members and Roles:

• Faculty Senate: GSIPM representatives: William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), and Pushpa Iyer. GSTILE representatives: Mahmoud Abdalla, Andrea Hofmann-Miller, and Sabino Morera. At-large representatives: Katherine Punteney (ex-officio) and Thor Sawin (President). There are no new Senate members this year. Now that ISP is over, handbook revisions will be the Senate’s highest priority for this academic year. 
• Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC):GSIPM representatives: Paige Butler and Sharad Joshi. GSTILE representatives: Pablo Oliva (Chair) and Tonya Williams. At-large representative: Anne Campbell. Anne and Pablo are the two continuing members. Anne announce a digital dossier option (not required) for this next year’s sabbatical, contract renewal, and promotion processes. Anne asks that faculty notify Stacie Riley of their desire for the digital option so she could set up a secure Google drive for them. This system is more secure, faster, and more reliable than the paper dossiers. FEC is hoping that for fall 2020 these processes will be done in Faculty 180. Faculty 180 will still be used to complete the annual FAR and will be uploaded to reflect the new rubric, including the optional category of development. For those who choose not to use the development category they can set the scale to zero. 
• Academic Policies, Standards, Instruction Committee (APSIC):GSIPM representatives: Maha Baimyrzaeva and David Wick (Chair). GSTILE representatives: Wallace Chen and Heekyeong Lee. At-large representatives: Jinhuei Dai. David Wick is in his third year on APSIC, and Jinhuei and Maha are continuing members. Also on APSIC are the Student Council Vice President and Seamus Dorrian (ex-officio). David suggests contacting him if you are considering changing your curriculum, he has a list of questions that can help you think through your proposal. David is also happy to provide guidance on things that can make the proposal as clear and complete as possible.  

Updates on Workforce Planning and Incentive Separation Plans: The Senate has received no official update on where we are now in the process. Thor has reached out to HR and the Institute Council about a status update. Thor stated that there were ten faculty who accepted the ISP offers, two contract non-renewals, and two retirees, which put us close enough to the saving goals that there will not be a second round of ISPs this year. 

Thor received word that breaking contracts (what was referred to as plan C) is now off the table for the foreseeable future. Thor also stated that administration shared that contract non-renewals for non-performance are going to become a “new normal” with those going up for renewal being more highly scrutinized. This does not mean they will happen every year, but they will happen at a higher rate than the past (which was nearly never).  Contract non-renewal decisions can be made not only for performance issues, but because of financial constraints.

Another option now offered at MIIS is the Associate Faculty position, which allows a faculty member to have a more gradual transition into retirement by being employed at 60% with access to benefits. Faculty can stay in this position for up to three years.

Thor did ask Cathy Vincent, Karen Miller, and Hannah Ross about the fact that MIIS faculty have a letter of appointment and not a “contract”. He was told that in higher education, the combination of the letter of appointment and the Faculty Handbook make up the contract. The handbook can be found at go/handbook.

Due to Workforce Planning, there will be a larger than normal group of faculty not returning next year. The Senate spoke to President Laurie Patton in May about ideas on how to recognize these faculty. The idea of a lecture series has been mentioned, Laurie also mentioned increasing faculty development funding, perhaps with a named presidential fund.  The MIIS Council is deciding how best to approach this recognition process.

A discussion about the two past and potential future contract non-renewals followed. Many faculty think this could be very problematic, not only for morale but for recruiting and maintaining faculty members. What are the standards that will be followed for non-renewals and should the Senate be involved in checking those standards? Faculty are concerned that they were never told how these decisions were made. 

Thor did share parts of a letter he wrote to the Institute Council. He specifically addressed:

• While another round of ISP will not be carried out this year, and contract breaking is no longer being considered to deal with the ongoing deficit, will contract non-renewals for fiscal/enrollment reason continue?
• When performance is deemed satisfactory, individuals in programs facing enrollment challenges could face non-renewal of contracts. In this case, what is the criteria for decisions, especially when multiple faculty in the same program are up for renewal? 
• This year, two faculty members in the same department were up for renewal and one contract was not renewed while the other was. Both non-renewed faculty had long records of service to the Institute so what criteria are being used when making these decisions: seniority, teaching evaluations, retaining diverse faculty pool, etc.?
• Clarity on the departure of Dean Rebecca Henriksen.

Thor then shared the response from the Institute Council via Vice President Dayton-Johnson, who had no objection to the Senate sharing the response. 

• Because of strict confidentiality guidelines, the Council can release no information on the departure of Dean Henriksen.
• Confidentiality constraints also are present in discussions about renewal of faculty contracts, although the Council can talk about the criteria used to make renewal decisions. The criteria used are laid out in the Faculty Handbook including teaching, scholarship, and service, but also include financial sustainability of a program. The financial criterion was applied more frequently last year than in the past, and will be applied in the future. 
• The Council cannot go in detail about particular renewal cases, but parallels can be made to selecting a final candidate for a job. You apply objective criteria, then select finalists, then look at what distinguishes finalists from each other, and after considering everything you make a subjective decision based on instinct and judgement. It is also worth noting that the double-firewall on information about the ISP process means that I was operating in the dark as to the intentions of the various candidates when renewal cases were considered. To sum up, though anchored in the same handbook-based guidelines, each year’s set of decisions will be qualitatively different. 

Thor does clarify the double-firewall comment reference in the Council response. He states that when Vice President Dayton-Johnson and Provost Cason were making contract renewal decisions, they were not aware of who was interested in accepting the ISP. Once that firewall was removed and the administration saw who took the incentive separation package, the administration thought that they had the right of final refusal. However, this turned out not to be true, in fact it’s illegal. This was not how anyone wanted this to play out, and it could mean that we will need to hire some people to replace the faculty lost who had critical skills. 

• Paige points out that the non-renewal process is arbitrary since it is based solely on when a faculty member’s contract comes up for renewal.
• Jeff Knopf asked that if it is illegal to rescind the ISP, is that also true of contract non-renewal, can it be rescinded and the person retained? Thor states he does not know the answer to that, but will ask the Council.
• Jeff also states that it is very unsettling for faculty here at MIIS to have contract non-renewal hanging over our heads, but it could also make it very hard to recruit new faculty and retain current faculty.
• Sharad points out that it will also make it hard to recruit international faculty members.
• William Arrocha thinks the Faculty Senate needs to discuss this further, based on the comments at the Town Hall on August 29th about market changes and how fast a program needs to respond to the change. He states that the handbook needs to reflect a solution that offers faculty some protection, especially since we don’t have tenure. The Council is basically telling us that if you don’t catch the market you’re out.
• Thor agrees that the Senate should work with legal council to determine what a governing body at an institute can do to protect the faculty, and how this language can be added to the handbook.
• Katherine suggests that the Institute should publish enrollment targets so faculty know if they might be targeted, i.e. if your program has been under target for the last two years then you might be up for non-renewal.
• Paige agrees and thinks there should be more transparency, first you have a chance to respond as a program (think about creative ways to address the problem) and then, if that fails, the process moves to possible non-renewal. Further discussion ensued.

New Middlebury-Wide and Middlebury Institute Policies: 

• New health care package starting in 2020.
• A family leave policy is being worked on.
• New romantic relationships policy beginning fall 2019 for the College, and has been added to the Middlebury Handbook (B.1.a.C). The exact language for the forms for exceptions for faculty at the graduate institutions is still being worked on. Thor also points out that this will be a Middlebury-wide policy and violation could result in termination.  
• Faculty asked over the summer whether we are legally nine month or twelve month employees. Thor reports that the handbook and faculty appointment letters do not explicitly say, which is to the faculty member’s benefit. If faculty were nine month employees there could be healthcare benefit issues as well as challenges from the benefit providing company. 

Faculty Development Fund Guidelines:

The Committee has revised the guidelines and is encouraging proposals for activities beyond conference travel. If you are submitting for conference travel, the Committee has instituted suggested award caps in the amount of $2,800 for international travel and $1,800 for domestic in the hopes of encouraging frugal budgeting. Historically, recipients of the Mark award are invited to report out to the Mark family once a year. New this year, Mark recipients will participate in a poster fair to showcase their award activities to the Institute community. Also new this year is the Robert and Betty Lundeen Fund for Junior Faculty Development supporting qualified teaching and research at MIIS. Sharad asks if funds can be carried over to the next year. The answer is no, if you are not participating in the activity you were funded for you must either resubmit a new application, including budget, or wait to reapply in the next round of funding. 

Updates on Last Year’s Faculty Assembly Legislative Items: 

Deans’ and program chairs’ evaluations. The Deans have seen their evaluations and have access to see the program chairs’ evaluations. A question that came up is do we, as faculty, have the right to see how colleagues rated the deans? Thor asks that if faculty want to see the deans’ evaluation they need to let their Senators know so that could be written into the process. This time around only the deans and Jeff Dayton-Johnson will see their reviews. 

Revised timetable for January hires. Currently, January hires have to apply for contract renewal in their second semester at the Institute and promotion is delayed. The Assembly voted that January hires should be able to go up for contract renewal in the fall of their second year of teaching and promotion in their ninth semester instead of their 11th. HR thinks it is unwise to offer January hires two advantages. HR proposed a compromise: January hires will be hired on a 3-½ year contract with contract renewal done in their fourth semester and promotion done at the same time fall hires are eligible. Another option is to have an alternate cycle for promotion and renewal for January hires, which could create a problem aligning the processes with the financial cycle.  Senate will pursue this option to test its viability.

Multi-year contracts for non-degree-program faculty. HR is okay with this change with one caveat, these faculty must go through the same evaluation process as regular faculty. Currently, the non-degree program faculty, of which there are very few, are not required to serve on faculty committees and are not eligible for development funding or sabbatical. If we want to allow non-degree program faculty to serve on committees and apply for sabbatical and development funding, then HR would like to eliminate the category “non-degree program faculty”. We will have to decide if this is something we should pursue.  

As a reminder, the Faculty Handbook is the priority for this year’s Faculty Senate. The Senate has instituted the following triage system for proposed changes:

• Minor changes such as updating terminology: check with MIIS Council, legal, and HR. 
• Medium change such as putting in place practices we currently do: check with MIIS faculty once change has been drafted, then confirm with deans, HR, and legal. 
• Major changes such as new policies: initial check with deans, HR, and legal about the possibility of said change, followed by consultation with MIIS faculty for revision, then a final check with the deans, HR, and legal. This would be followed by final wording from the Senate and then brought to the Assembly for a vote. We are hoping that all the consultation prior to a vote will prevent things from getting stuck after the vote.

Present: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Pushpa Iyer, Sabino Morera, Thor Sawin (President)

Absent: Andrea Hofmann-Miller, Katherine Punteney

Staff: Stacie Riley

Election Update: Thor sent out the election ballot. Quorum has been reached in both schools. The deadline for ballot submission is Friday, May 17. Sabino asked if anyone expressed interest in serving on the Faculty Senate. Thor states that no one approached him so those Senators due to rotate off will serve an additional year.

Dean and Program Chair Evaluations Update: Thor offered to send out the dean and program chair evaluations for the Institute Council when it became apparent they were not going to get them out. Thor sent the evaluations to all eligible faculty through Qualtrics. Qualtrics allows users to send reminders to those who have not completed the evaluations, and these reminders will continue to go out until the deadline, which is May 19th. 78 faculty received the evaluations and so far 11 people have finished. There have been a few issues reported when using Qualtrics through Firefox, Chrome is more stable so that is the recommended browser. Update – there were several issues reported with Qualtrics, including going to junk mailboxes. We may need to use a different system in the future, or the more time consuming method of sending an individual link to each eligible voter, if we cannot still identify the issue with this. 

Avner states that year Philipp Bleek is the acting chair for NPTS while Jeff Knopf is on sabbatical, so who should the NPTS faculty be evaluating? It was noted that since the evaluation period is this academic year, Philipp is the one being evaluated. Sabino asks what is going to happen with the information that is collected from the evaluations, is it going to the VPAA and will faculty receive feedback? Thor states that what happens to the information collected is not the Faculty Senate’s decision. Pushpa thinks it is best that the Senate stay out of the evaluation process. Thor agrees, but states if he didn’t send out the evaluations they would not have gone out. He also states his assistance in starting this process was a one-time only offer.

Avner feels that the Senate should see the evaluation results, the degree of satisfaction or lack of satisfaction should be seen by the faculty not just the Institute Council. Pushpa and Thor disagree, faculty were told this was an anonymous process. Avner proposed a compromise, ask the deans to share some information out of their evaluation, similar to what Kent Glenzer did when he was dean. After the deadline, Sabino would like to know how many faculty responded and what the level of interest was; did people find it awkward to evaluate the deans and the program chairs?

It was pointed out that the Institute Council needs to take more responsibility for this process. Thor will send a message to the Council stating that the Senate will not design the evaluations again. He will also ask them how the reporting will be done (i.e. by whom and by what deadline). It is important that this information not go into a black-hole. It was also suggested that the reporting process be included in the Faculty Handbook.

There have been many violations of the handbook in the past, including how program chairs have been appointed. In the future, the Faculty Senate will be a watchdog, bringing violations of the handbook to the appropriate people.

President Patton’s Upcoming Visit: The Faculty Senate will be meeting with President Patton on Friday, May 17th at 11:30am.

Feedback on Faculty Assembly: The Senate sent a message to the faculty asking for their feedback on Vice President Dayton-Johnson’s comments about “Plan C” that he shared at the Faculty Assembly on May 7th. Sabino is concerned that the administration might use “Plan C” to get rid of senior faculty members. Thor had previously sent the feedback to the Faculty Senate and a discussion ensued about some of the comments. Pushpa felt that one comment in particular was uncalled for, and as the Chief Diversity Officer she plans to address why people need to be so cruel to one another. William states that the comment was distasteful, but it is not the Senate’s place to edit people’s comments. The Senate can take the lead on this issue by modeling and encouraging people to treat each other respectfully.

Faculty Handbook: It was decided that a ballot on proposed handbook changes will be sent electronically to eligible faculty when classes resume in August. This gives time for Thor to consult about the process with Hannah Ross over the summer. 

Faculty Senate Summer Work: There will be no committee work over the summer. Thor does ask that everyone go through the handbook one more time. It was also decided that if “Plan C” comes to fruition and contracts are terminated, the Senate needs to be ready to assist and respond to faculty. Jeff Dayton-Johnson mentioned that two to five contracts could be terminated based on the outcome of the ISP process. The Senate should send out a note to faculty letting them know we are here for them during the summer.

Faculty Senate: Mahmoud Abdalla, William Arrocha, Avner Cohen (Vice President), Sabino Morera, Katherine Punteney, Thor Sawin (President).

Assembly Members: Abdelkader Berrahmoun, Philipp Bleek, Alana Brandt, Paige Butler, Sandra Dow, Jacolyn Harmer, Maria Jesus Iglesias-Barca, Rana Issa, Sharad Joshi, Samuel Kim, Elaine Korzak, Heekyeong Lee, Wei Liang, Jason Martel, Robert McCleery, Deniz Ortacepte, Alix Sehr-Stewart, Yuwei Shi, Nancy Tsai, Max Troyer. Via Zoom:  Netta Avineri, Kathi Bailey, Canri Chan, Wallace Chen, Naoko Matsuo, Pablo Oliva, Barry Olsen, Cas Shulman-Mora.

Staff: Jeff Dayton-Johnson, Stacie Riley.

The Faculty Assembly meeting was called to order by President Thor Sawin at 12:14pm.

Faculty Emerita Nominations: Thor states there are two faculty members who have been nominated for faculty emerita. As a reminder, faculty are eligible for emerita status if they have taught at the Institution for at least 10 years, have the desire to become emerita, and commit to not taking a full-time position at another university after retiring. The two emerita nominations are Jan Black and Nukhet Kardam. Unfortunately, the Assembly meeting does not meet quorum so this vote will have to be done via electronic ballot, which Thor will try to send out this afternoon.

Faculty Committee and Service Needs: In December 2018, the Assembly voted in a change to the length of standing committee membership from two-year terms to three-year terms, and also to aim for approximately a one-third turnover rate per year in each committee. We are in an interesting position this transition year, as we have people finishing two-year terms and these are allowed to extend to a third year if they wish.  However, if everyone who was elected to a two-year term in 2017 converted to a three-year term there would be no new people on any of the committees this year, or in 2022. There are three standing committees where we need faculty to serve:

• Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC), which has the responsibility to review faculty dossiers for promotion, contract renewal, and sabbatical. They also have a role in the Faculty Annual Review (FAR) grievance process. Robert McCleery, current FEC Co-chair, states that being on this committee is some work, but it is a great way to learn about our colleagues and get impressed by their accomplishments. Heekyeong Lee, current FEC Co-chair, states that each year the number of files to review changes, this year there were eight sabbatical dossiers, 15 contract renewals, and seven promotions. There will be three open positions, two GSIPM and one GSTILE.

The caveat to serving on the FEC is that members should not serve while their own contract renewal, promotion, or sabbatical is being evaluated. However, if this leads to an insufficient number of faculty members eligible to serve on FEC, then one of two exceptions can be made. First, if a new member is up for contract renewal or promotion in the third year of their term they can run for a two-year term. The second option is new members up for sabbatical in the third year of their term can recuse themselves from deliberations over their application.

• Academic Policies, Standards, and Instruction Committee (APSIC) provides oversight of Part 1 of the MIIS Policies and Standards Manual, evaluates and provides recommendations on proposed curriculum changes, deliberates on student academic grievances and appeals, and has a role on the Student Conduct Board. There will be two open GSTILE positions on this committee.

• Faculty Senate. Thor states there may be no available seats on the Senate. The three Senators elected to two-year terms in 2017 have all expressed interest in extending their two-years to a third year, remaining on this committee. So there is not a pressing need for new Senators.  However, given the long standing tradition at MIIS that at least one Senate slot opens each year, a compromise position reached after consultation with this year’s Senate and last year’s leadership is that if anyone who would like to join Senate, they should let him know and an election will be held with the new candidate and those current Senators extending to a third year. However, if there is no interest that’s okay since there is a full Senate, but there would be no new Senators next year, nor in 2022

Interest in all three of these committees can be expressed in the following GoogleForm: (https://tinyurl.com/NominationsAY1920) 

Dean and Program Chair Evaluations: The current handbook stipulates that the Deans and the Program Chairs are meant to be reviewed by the faculty by April 30^th. Thor states that if this was a practice in the past it has not been done for quite some time. The Senate has drafted a set of questions for these evaluations (see framework handout). Thor has spoken with the Administration and they are willing to send out these evaluations. Hopefully, by the end of this academic year faculty will have a chance to evaluate their Dean and Program Chair.

It was pointed out that if these evaluations are meant to be substantive the April 30^th deadline would need to be conducted earlier in the academic year, since the Dean’s input into their evaluation has to be sent to Middlebury by March 15^th. If it’s meant to serve as a learning tool, then the April 30th deadline is not a problem.

FAR Evaluation Categories and Rubric: Thor reminded everyone that in December 2018 the Assembly voted to add faculty development as an evaluation category to be used starting with the FAR for calendar year 2019. A handout was distributed showing the proposed rubric for faculty development and the updated rubrics for the remaining categories. Thor encourages everyone to look at the handout and provide any suggestions by May 7^th, before Senate finalizes the document.

Faculty Senate Handbook Retreat: This Friday, May 3^rd, from 3:00-6:00pm, the Faculty Senate will hold a handbook retreat in Morse A101. This retreat will concentrate on identifying and fixing areas of the handbook that are not working well, that are no longer in practice, and updating the handbook to reflect our current practices. The plan for making changes to the handbook (go.middlebury.edu/handbook) is to triage all suggested changes into three categories:

• Minor changes the Senate will make.
• Medium changes will be added to a list to get faculty feedback on before the Senate acts.
• Major changes would be brought to the Assembly for a vote.

The handbook is only officially updated once a year by the Counsel General’s office.  Therefore, if we want any changes to apply in the AY 19-20, we need to make them now. Thor asks that if you are aware of any areas in the handbook that need attention please let one of the Senators know prior to Friday. The Senate plans to have a ballot ready in late May/early June so that these changes can be implemented.

Workforce Planning Update: Vice President Jeff Dayton-Johnson joined the Assembly meeting at 12:50pm. Jeff reminds everyone that the objective behind Workforce Planning is trying to reduce faculty compensation sending by $1.3 million per year starting the year after next. This reduction represents approximately 14 positions, however, the target is not the number of faculty but a dollar value. Since the Institute is also in the market to hire new faculty (two Chinese T&I and one TLM) the target we have to meet is higher, approximately $1.5 million.

The principal mechanism used to meet this financial goal is Workforce Planning. In March, most faculty received an invitation to apply for the voluntary separation package (ISP). Of the faculty who were eligible to apply, 20 chose to put in an application. Separation offers were sent to those faculty, who are currently in the window of deciding whether to accept or decline the offer. Jeff should find out who applied by the May 3rd. Jeff does not believe that 17 faculty members will accept the ISP.

For a variety of reasons, the Administration had to start thinking about a “Plan B”. The official answer to what happens if not enough people accept the ISP has always been, “we are committed to the voluntary program”, which Jeff realizes is not much of an answer. From the beginning, Jeff has said that when it comes to faculty contracts, non-renewal is possible. Another option on the table is early termination of contracts.

Contract renewal decisions from Jeff Dayton-Johnson and Provost Jeff Cason went out on Monday, April 29^th. Of the fifteen cases up for renewal only two were not renewed, and they were not renewed based on section C.7.c of the Faculty Handbook (non-renewal of contract due to reduction in program). Jeff states he has received two reactions to the news that two contracts were not renewed, either total surprise or relief that it was only two when it was thought there might be closer to ten non-renewals. It is important to know that when it came to the non-renewals, there were several layers of analysis used before the decisions were made. The first layer looked at productivity by program, helping to determine which programs were overstaffed and which were understaffed. The second layer of analysis looked at academic integrity, defined as how many faculty we can lose per program before that program becomes non-viable, and also what roles those faculty played in delivering the core curriculum of their program. When it came to contract renewals, Jeff used the above information to determine which faculty would not be renewed.   Depending on how many faculty end up accepting the ISPs, the results of Plan A (ISPs) and Plan B (two contract non-renewals) may be insufficient to meet deficit targets.

The last step we can use to reduce faculty compensation is “Plan C”, early termination of contracts. This is not something the Administration takes lightly, and before we progress down this path it needs to be carefully assessed. There are other cost-saving measures we could use to help reduce the deficit such as retirements and resignations (retirements and resignations would only contribute to deficit reduction if those position are not filled). Another option is reducing the adjunct budget, which is not easy to do because of the heterogeneous roles played by those instructions. We are currently spending $2 million a year on adjuncts, which keeps increasing, even as enrollment numbers decrease. This year we did cut $250,000 from the adjunct budget, and with a little more foresight we could reduce it further.

To reach the remainder of our goal we have two options – 1) continuing an increased rate of non-renewal of contracts over several years or 2) the early termination of contracts now. Neither option is good, both have important downsides to consider. Contract non-renewal would be slower, dragging this morale-damaging process out for several years. It also has a built in unfairness to it, since it would be based on where faculty are in their renewal process, and those faculty up for contract renewal this year or next year bear a disproportional share of the risk. Early termination is more violent, but quicker. Jeff is leaning towards early termination of contracts to end the uncertainty. Contract non-renewal might still be occasionally used even in this scenario (it was almost never used in the past), but les

Termination of contracts would need to be done very swiftly so those colleagues whose contracts are terminated early will be on the same calendar as those who accepted the ISP. This would allow affected faculty to know by the end of June (as required in handbook section C.7) so they can prepare over the summer and be ready to go on the academic job market in the fall. There would be a severance package offered to faculty terminated early, similar to what is being offered in the ISP.

Before we move in this direction, there will be a series of conversations with program chairs to determine where cuts could be made. We will not be asking the chair who to cut, instead we will clarify that we understand the program’s curricular responsibilities, each faculty member’s role within the curriculum, and whether there are extenuating circumstances, such as why a professor was teaching mainly small or elective courses (perhaps they were asked or volunteered to teach such course to create opportunities for others). Early termination allows us to be more strategic over the long run in who is let go. If, after we know who accepted their ISP offers, and after taking into account retirements and resignations, we are still short of the deficit reduction target, early termination of contracts could be the next step.

Lastly, Jeff states that performance has nothing to do with these cuts. This is strictly a way to reduce faculty compensation. Jeff understands that this is an usually unpleasant and demoralizing process we are going through.

Faculty asked several questions:

1. Is early termination of contracts legal?  The answer: It is complicated but Middlebury and MIIS lawyers consider it legal. MIIS appointment terms say it is at-will employment, but also specifies an end date. The severance package won’t be a buyout of all remaining years of the contract, but will be on par with what was offered in the ISP.
2. Have we really focused sufficiently at revenues or are we just looking at costs? Weren’t the projected enrollment numbers positive?  The answer: An increase in enrollments, but still operating at a deficit. The deficit has been reduced from 4.2 million per year down to between 1 and 1.3 million per year, but this has largely been driven by cost-cutting. This workforce reduction is driven by financial considerations. We have looked for many years at revenue generating plans, specifically significant energy and money invested in advancement and in enrollments. These plans have not borne enough fruit to offset the increased costs of faculty compensation, and decreased tuition revenues.
3. What can be done to boost morale?  The answer:  Morale will probably be better in the medium term if workforce planning is not dragged out over several years.  What could motivate faculty is a chance to refocus our academic programs.   One faculty member suggested a series of lectures and celebrations over the coming year, when a larger than normal cohort of faculty will be leaving the Institute.   Other faculty members commented that knowing we are making a more strategic decision is a morale booster.
4. What is the time table of this?  The answer: Between now and the end of May, input will be gathered from the program chairs to ensure that the MIIS council correctly understands the degree maps and the role of faculty within them. 
5. What do people at the College think of us, what did they think when they first acquired us?  The answer: Probably less frequently than we realize. Ron Liebowitz’ original vision centered on complementarity, that we are many things that the College was not (East vs. West coast, undergrad vs. grad, liberal arts vs. professional).
6. Will any ISP offers be rejected? If a faculty member accepts the ISP, will MIIS decide to not extend it to them?  The answer: That was considered at one point, but at this point we will likely not be rejecting any ISP applications.  We may need to hire some new faculty to replace ones lost however.