Dear SCU Faculty,

As I’m writing this, we celebrate the one year anniversary of Santa Clara County's shelter in place order. Personally, I’ll never forget that panicked feeling of packing up my office, not knowing what would come next. One year later, a return to normalcy is on the horizon. Many of us have started receiving vaccinations, students are moving back into the residence halls spring quarter, and the campus is slated to fully reopen next fall. Though we should be celebrating, many of us are exhausted by the thought of one more quarter on-line. I know it’s been tough, but I’ve been so impressed with how faculty are supporting each other, our students, and advocating for positive changes at SCU. 

One issue that remains a challenge is the cut in salary and benefits, particularly for the lowest paid among us. Associate Professor Linda Kamas just collected the narrative experiences of many of our faculty and staff. It was heartbreaking to read about the challenges many of us are having to make ends meet. I am working with John Ottoboni, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Legal Counsel, and Michael Crowley, Vice President of Finance and Administration, to convene a special FSC Town Hall on finance and budget where faculty can ask questions about the restoration and restitution of salary and benefits. I’m also committed to a FSC Working Group on budget transparency and priorities that will continue the good work that the Faculty Senate has done on these issues. Another issue is the unionization effort of our lecturer community. In the last FSC meeting, AFLOC presented their position on election practices along with actions faculty can take to support a fair vote. FSC members widely voiced disappointment and dismay at the administration’s position on election rules. I have asked Acting President Lisa Kloppenberg to come to the next meeting to answer questions about unionization and other matters.

I’ve often heard the combination of winter and spring quarter called the world’s longest semester. It definitely feels that way this year! I hope you can recharge a bit over spring break.

Please share your concerns with us, either through this Faculty Senate Feedback Form or by sending an email to: facultysenate@scu.edu. Our next Faculty Senate meeting is Wednesday, April 14, 2021 from 3:30-5:30pm. We hope to see you then!  

Be safe and best wishes,

Leslie Gray
Faculty Senate President, 2020-2021

February/March Highlights

• Faculty and Staff Emergency Fund. The Faculty and Staff Emergency Fund, a Faculty Senate initiative spearheaded by Past President Jane Curry, has generated a total of $88,810 to date. A total of 127 grants have been awarded, totaling $62,057.

• Teaching Evaluations during Covid. SETS will be used, but the Provost encourages departments to consider multiple forms of teaching, beyond the SET, especially for lecturers for whom teaching is usually 95% of their position at SCU. Provost Kloppenberg also addressed the overuse of SETS as the primary source of evaluating faculty and asked departments to use holistic assessments of teaching beyond only the SETS. 

• Title IX Interim Policy. In our February FSC meeting, Laura Ellingson, Chair of the Prevention of Unlawful Harassment and Discrimination Task Force, reported that the Interim Policy (an integrated policy for faculty, staff and students for discrimination of all types) reflects the University’s desire to do more than the minimum required by Federal law in order to exert the greatest amount of care and protection for the people who are part of our community. Faculty were asked to bring this policy back to their departments for consultation with voting in the March meeting. See the voting results in the “FSC Resolutions” section of this eNews.

• A&S Rank and Tenure Committee. Professor Ed Schaefer submitted a proposal on behalf of the College of Arts and Sciences, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences Rank and Tenure Committee. This proposal was motivated in part by a larger-than-usual number of cases (12) that the committee had to review within the usual four-week period. The proposal recommends changes to Chapter 2 and Appendix A of the Faculty Handbook. The revised wording suggests that once there are more than 8 R&T cases, then there is an option to break into subcommittees, each having its own caseload. This issue is now under review by the Faculty Affairs Committee. 

• Unionization Efforts. AFLOC is asking faculty to consider if the administration is following fair election practices and to be consistent in their statements. Members shared 10-actions items that FSC Representatives can do to support the unionization efforts (see 10-action items here). AFLOC is currently in negotiations with the administration to determine voting procedures and hope to have an agreement by April 1st. 

• Email List Proposal. Justin Boren, UCC Chair-elect, presented the draft email lists proposal for which the UCC is collecting feedback. The FAC will be drafting a proposal that will come to the Faculty Senate for discussion with a vote likely in April. 

• Teaching Lines Proposal. Nydia MacGregor, Chair of SubFAC, presented a draft proposal for new Teaching Faculty Ranks. In April the SubFAC will come back to get feedback from the FSC. Please look for a survey in the early weeks of April to get feedback and take the proposal back to your departments to discuss. Section 2 will be discussed in April and Section 3 in May.

• Provost’s Update. Provost Kloppenberg gave a short update on COVID-19, the budget, and DEI work. For spring, as of now, the university can only have 25% of students in classrooms, if the county moves to the next tier this could increase to 50%. This spring about 10% of classes will be in hybrid. The assumption is that for the fall we will be primarily in person, with exceptions allowed for faculty and students. Town Halls about future teaching issues related to the pandemic will be held in the spring. There were no new budget updates. There are now new DEI working groups in the Provost Office to help coordinate work and keep up accountability. 

• Transfer Student Update. Tedd Vanadilok, Director the Center of Student Involvement, and Gabrielle Garrard, Assistant Director for Student Involvement, presented the results of a survey they did with transfer students and the desire for transfer students to be more connected to the SCU community. Faculty are encouraged to help support and connect transfer students to resources.

• UCC Update. Tim Urdan, UCC Chair, informed faculty that the UCC has begun the nomination process for staffing UPCs and task forces. He thanked faculty for submitting self-nominations and nominations via the UCC survey. The UCC survey is now closed, but additional nominations may be sent to ucc@scu.edu. 

• FSC Working Groups. Leslie Gray, Faculty Senate President, introduced the idea of forming Faculty Senate Working Groups and/or committees that would serve as a mechanism for enabling initiatives to emerge from the FSC. Working groups would increase the FSC’s ability to do a deep dive into specific issues, enhance the FSC’s ability to coordinate with other university governing bodies, and increase Faculty Senate participation in governance. She provided an overview of the Staff Senate model/structure for consideration, and recommended that two possible working groups could focus on racial justice and budget transparency. The details for forming Working Groups of the Faculty Senate Council in Budget Transparency and DEI will continue to be discussed with the hope to start their formation in the spring/summer to begin work in the fall. These groups will be open to any faculty who wish to be involved.

• The February minutes were approved by FSC Representatives by a vote of 22-1-1 (Y-N-A). The rolling minutes may be viewed here.

Resolution to Bring the Interim Policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct to a Vote of the Full Faculty [Resolution ID:  FSC2021.03.10.1R]

This resolution to replace Appendix F of the Faculty Handbook with the Interim Policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct was approved to go to the full faculty for a vote. FSC Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 25-0-5 (Y-N-A). The full text of the resolution may be viewed here. A full vote of the faculty will occur the week of March 29th.

DRAFT Resolution on Faculty Salaries and Retirement Benefits [Resolution ID:  FSC2021.03.10.R2]

Due to time, the draft resolution was introduced during the open forum portion of the FSC meeting but a full discussion and vote were tabled to the April FSC meeting. The full text of the draft resolution may be viewed here. 

Solicitation for nominations for the Faculty Senate Professor Award will be sent in April!  To learn more about the award go to:  https://www.scu.edu/faculty-senate/about/faculty-senate-professor-award/. This is an opportunity for you to recognize and honor one of your colleagues for outstanding professional achievement during a significant period of time as a faculty member at Santa Clara University.

Dear SCU Faculty,

This is an important time for voting for open positions on Rank and Tenure and Promotion committees. Currently election preparations for School/College Rank and Tenure Committees are underway. Thank you in advance for reviewing sample ballots and reporting any errors in eligibility to Ixtlac Duenas at iduenas@scu.edu. And then please do remember to vote. Our elections often get a very low turnout and we appreciate you looking out for the notice from Ixtlac when the ballots are open for voting and in helping one another to remember to vote in these important elections. 

Thank you to Sanjiv Das, Professor of Finance, for agreeing to serve as the University Rank and Tenure At-Large replacement member for Katherine Aoki. Here is the membership for University Rank and Tenure Committe for 2020-21:

• Hoje Jo, Finance, 2019-22
• Naomi Andrews, History, 2020-2023
• Sanjiv Das, At-Large, 2021-22 
• James Lai, Ethnic Studies, 2021-22 (replacement for Elsa Chen who will resume her term in 2022-23)
• David Feldman, Counseling Psychology, 2020-23
• Ed Maurer, Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, 2021-22 & 2023-24
• Nam Ling, Computer Science and Engineering, (replacement for Ed Maurer in 2022-23)

Thank you,

Laura Nichols
Faculty Senate President-elect, 2020-21

Election Results 

• Summary for 2020-21 elections

Elections in Progress

Please remember to vote!  Voting closes on Tuesday, March 23 for the following College/School Rank and Tenure elections: 

• Natural Sciences & Social Sciences
• Leavey School of Business
• School of Engineering

Upcoming Elections

• School R&T, Leavey School of Business (second ballot for replacements for S. Liqi and D. Shin)
• Committee on Promotion to Senior Lecturer
• Provost’s Adjunct Faculty and Lecturers’ Council

FAC Camino Site

Remember to regularly visit the FAC Camino Site to review documents, minutes, and current agendas. Anyone with an SCU email can visit this site as a class "observer":  https://camino.instructure.com/courses/64168. Other archived FAC materials will continue to be maintained on the University Governance website.

Faculty Senate Templates

• Resolution Template [A sample can be viewed here.]
• Motion Template
• Statement Template

Voice your concern! Share your input! Suggest an agenda topic!

We invite you to share your priorities with us either through this Faculty Senate Feedback Form or by sending an email to: facultysenate@scu.edu. 

Our next Faculty Senate Council meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 14, 2021 from 3:30-5:30pm.

All faculty members below the level of dean are welcome to attend FSC meetings in accordance with our by-laws. While administrators at the level of dean or above are not Faculty Senate members, they may attend when officially invited and during the time they are on the agenda.

We hope to see you virtually on Zoom!