FACULTY SENATE MEETING
OCTOBER 18, 2022 – 3:30 PM
1008 NURSING BUILDING
PRESENT: Serena Blount, Seth Bordner, Spyridoula (Litsa) Cheimariou, Shibin Dai, Susan Dewey, Rona Donahoe, Amanda Espy-Brown, John Giggie, Brittany Gilmer, Jessica Goethals, Courtney Helfrecht, Kim Lackey, Nathan Loewen, Di Luo, Christopher Lynn, Micah McKay, Moises Molina, Alessandra Montalbano, Shanlin Pan, Matt Reynolds, Sara-Maria Sorentino, Erin Stoneking, Edith Szanto, Alexandre Tokovinine, Soledad Sanchez Valdez, Laura Erin Watley, Charlotte Wegrzynowski, Todd DeZoort, Chapman Greer, Matthew Hudnall, Clay Voorhees, A. J. Bauer, Leah LeFebvre, Bharat Mehra, Cynthia Peacock, Steven Yates, Dale Dickinson, Nathan Culmer, Andrea Wright, Stephanie Buckner, Nirmala Erevelles, John Petrovic, Stephanie Shelton, Nicole Swoszowski, David Walker, Xiaoyan Hong, Tonya Klein, Patrick Kung, Weihua Su, Jialai Wang, Ruigang Wang, Barbara “Babs” Davis, Amy Ellis, Yeon Ho Shin, Jeri Zemke, Heather Elliott, Barbara Dahlbach, Sara Whitver, Kristi Acker, Michael Callihan, Rebecca Owings, Amy Traylor, Carrie Turner
ABSENT: Paulo Araujo, Nikhil Bilwakesh, Sheila Black, Lyndell McDonald, Luke Niiler, Craig Armstrong, Tom Baker, Doug Bish, Ruth Ann Hall, Hasan Isomitdinov, Sara McDaniel, Sriram Aaleti, Kelly McPherson, Thomas Herwig, Charles (Ian) Crawford, Paul Horwitz, Dan Joyner, Kim Parker, Robert Riter-parliamentarian
ABSENT with an ALTERNATE: Kim Colburn/Matthew Boyle, Tyler Walker/Ibrahim Cemen, Nelle Williams/Raghu Ganugula, Joy Burnham/Stacy Hughey Surman, Sushma Kotru/Mark Weaver, Sundar Krishnan/Keith Williams
GUEST: Laura Braddick – Strategic Communications, Susan Norton-UA Benefits Office, Dr. Steven Hood-VP for Student Life
Roll call and quorum check by Faculty Senate Secretary Barb Dahlbach. Minutes of the September 20, 2022 Faculty Senate meeting were approved.
Susan Norton, UA Benefits Office, started the meeting with an annual benefits update. Open enrollment began October 15 and will end October 30 at 11:59 PM. There will be a 2.5% increase in vision premiums. Physical therapy sessions increase from 30 to 35 visits. HSA seed money increases from $400 to $450 for employees and from $800 to $900 for family coverage. IRS requires minimum HDHP deductible to increase from $1,400 to $1,500 for employee and from $2,800 to $3,000 for family coverage. Health Care FSA maximum contribution increases from $2,750 to $2,850 and HSA maximum contribution increases to $3,400 for employee and to $6,850 for family. No action Is needed if the employee is satisfied with their coverage. Action will be needed relating to FSA and HCFSA.
Dr. Steven Hood, Interim Vice President for Student Life, expressed appreciation to faculty for their dedication and support for students. There are twenty plus departments under the Student Life umbrella. The Career Center recently had a job fair with over 300 employers and 4,000 students in attendance with several hundred interviewing for those positions. The average beginning salary is $54,000 for those graduating students.
Student Life attempts to reach students in these areas – Global Learning, Leadership Development, Community and Belonging, and Learning and Development Goals. There are 8,000 freshmen enrolled this semester. Participation in recreational facilities averages 15,000 students. Student assistance is available through mental health services. The Student Life office does not validate doctor’s excuses for missing a class.
The Counseling Center has hired four new positions to shore up available counseling services.
There are 650 student organizations and opportunities are available for students to find connections to one of those organizations. Students may find connections through University Program events including “Script A” which had 3,000 students participating this year and Get- on-Board Day”, with approximately 5,000 students participating this year. The Greek community is the largest in the country, with 12,000 student membership. UA offers many other ways to be active in student activities. There is a new Greek Assembly Hall under construction which will be finished in the summer of 2023 and will be dedicated to the NPHC and Greek Council. This building will also serve as a storm shelter.
UA’s Student Government Association won the Southeastern Award in that division for encouraging attendance at diversity, equity and inclusion events. Several hundred students participated in the leadership and community involvement area with over 9,000 community service hours.
The Crimson White is collaborating with an historic African American organization on an article.
End Overdose is an organization offering training on how to administer Narcan. The organization has received a grant to distribute Narcan with more planning and issues to be resolved before implementation.
Students may report micro-aggression through several avenues including UA Act and Student Council. There are only two incidents currently being reviewed.
Further discussion and questions included: hazing (which should be completely eliminated); supporting students with economic difficulties (including a food pantry and donor dollars finding living situations for student internships).
President’s Report – (Chapman Greer) Provost Dalton sent an email to all faculty concerning the General Education Reform proposal. A vote will be taken in November, a “yes or no” response. The key differences in the GET proposal and the provost’s proposal is a reduction in required hours for majors from 42 to 38 hours.
The Board of Trustees will meet on November 3 and 4 in the Bryant Conference Center.
The childcare proposal is completed and will be shared with the provost and Matt Fajack, Vice President of Financial Affairs.
Vice President’s Report – (Mathew Hudnall) Vice President Hudnall advocates for Grammarly which is an add-on software package for electronic devices detecting grammatical errors and allows correction of those errors. OIT is reviewing the possibility of making this software available to all faculty, staff and students.
Secretary’s Report – (Barb Dahlbach) The Chime-In survey data is being given to the Campus Culture Taskforce to review narrative and data points. Recommendations from that process will be reported back to the Office of Academic Affairs by December 31, 2022. There was frustration in the past because changes were not implemented according to the survey data.
IT & Strategic Communications – (Patrick Kung & Xiaoyan Hong) This committee met to discuss strategy for the meeting with OIT and Strategic Communications on October 10, 2022.
This committee met with UA OIT on October 14 to discuss faculty losing access to MyBama. If you were not in the payroll system for some reason, you were prohibited from MyBama due to the system failing to recognize you as an employee. These were isolated incidents linked to payroll status. OIT is investigating a new identity and access management system in collaboration with the Human Resources office which would be effective and reliable.
OIT is currently investigating Grammarly as a system-wide software with UAB on board. UA wants ownership of data which is an issue needing to be resolved. There is a final cost meeting with Grammarly next week. Several requests were submitted to OIT prior to Grammarly’s consideration. Similar requests can be sent to OIT or there can be a proposal to create a mechanism for such requests.
OIT had a security consultant conduct a penetrative test on UA systems in March 2022. Their findings determined issues that needed to be remedied by September 30 for insurance renewal. Cybersecurity insurance is more exigent now, so we will see more Duo use and additional prevention against malware. Simulated phishing scam resulted in a 2% fail rate. This is a good rate for a large institution. Most people fall for file sharing scams.
PCs with older OS versions (e.g. Windows 7 and earlier) will have to be removed from the network. OIT is working with faculty to set up a plan.
The IT Security Team is coming to the Faculty Senate in January 2023. Please send any questions to our committee.
High Performance Computing (HPC) is looking at student internships to assist with vacancies created by support staff leaving for better positions.
The IT & Strategic Communications will be meeting with Strat Com in November. Questions can be coordinated through our committee co-chairs.
Cybersecurity insurance was renewed on September 30th.
Academic Affairs – (Rona Donahoe & Babs Davis) There was a meeting with Provost Dalton and the Dean of Arts & Sciences regarding the General Education Taskforce concerning the process.
Communication with SGA concerning open education resources is ongoing. SGA was invited to make a presentation at the Academic Affairs Committee meeting in November.
Faculty Handbook revisions have focused on Appendix B with changes to be made in December. Those changes will be sent to the Steering Committee in January with Faculty Senate voting to take place no later than March.
Lesley Reid is pursuing several faculty initiatives including faculty recognition, awards and leadership training opportunities. More information will follow.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – (Thomas Herwig & Alessandra Montalbano) The committee met with Dr. Christine Taylor, Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, to discuss ways to improve classroom diversity and to share results from the town hall meetings. Included in that meeting was discussion about the establishing and implementing a faculty mentoring program focused on diversity. A Faculty Summit to be held in November is being considered.
Research & Service – (Shanlin Pan & Clay Voorhees) The Research and Service Committee had a meeting with IRB. There was good discussion but there is no action being taken on the information. There seems to be a disconnect between faculty perceptions and compliance and IRB on research standards. The committee will follow up with Vice President Mumper. It would be advantageous to accelerate the timetable for benchmarking by possibly partnering with other SEC schools. Another meeting will be necessary to determine the next steps to be taken. Any procedure moving forward will wait until after the General Education Taskforce vote is taken.
Financial Affairs – (Todd DeZoort & Tom Baker) This committee met with Vice President for Finance & Operations, Matt Fajack. His report to the Board of Trustees was shared in this meeting. The University of Alabama is in a good financial position considering inflation, economic downturn and the pandemic. There were 20% losses this year with 30% gains last year. The Cares Act funding was a great help in this situation.
The request to regain the retirement money match was denied.
The merit pool raise was the largest since 2008. Grad students received a 5% raise. The raise pool is taxed first and then given to department heads to distribute to faculty.
Questions asked concerning a base equity rate was answered with no set equity raises. It is merit based. The minimum wage on campus was increased to $10-$14 this year and will increase to $15 beginning in January of 2023.
There will be a follow-up meeting in November to do a salary analysis.
Community & Legislative Affairs – (Joy Burnham & Steven Yates) The “You Make UA Great” event was successful.
The United Way campaign is underway and is hosted by the College of Education. A Legislative Reception is being considered for next spring.
Compliance Committee report – (Babs Davis) Everyone was reminded to complete compliance training by October 31. If the training is not completed by the deadline, the new-hire training will have to be completed.
Faculty & Staff Benefits Committee – (Rona Donahoe) The deadline on benefit elections is October 30th, which is a Sunday. The office will not be open. The IRS sets the deadline which does not allow any variations.
Meeting adjourned 5:15 P.M.