Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda – October 19, 2021

FACULTY SENATE MEETING AGENDA

October 19, 2021 – 3:30 PM

GET Discussion of Next Steps

Roll Call and Quorum Check – (Barb Dahlbach)

Approval/Correction of the Minutes for September 21^st – (Barb Dahlbach)

President’s Report – (Chapman Greer)

• Fall Assembly (10.27.21 – 1:30 pm – Bryant Conference Center)

Vice President’s Report – (Matthew Hudnall)

• Meeting Rules (see attached)

Secretary’s Report – (Barb Dahlbach) – No Report

Senate Committee Reports:

• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – (Lyndell McDonald & Luke Niiler)
  • CRT (see attached)
  • DEI events for October (see attached)

• Faculty & Senate Governance – (Ibrahim Çemen & Jeri Zemke)
  • Call for nominations for new Faculty Ombudsperson
  • Mediation committee nominations and election
  • Upcoming nominations and elections
  • Worked with Parliamentarian Robert Riter on Zoom Rules

• Academic Affairs – (Rona Donahoe & Babs Davis)
  • Academic Misconduct Policy
  • Graduate Council Discussion
  • Academic Program Review Committee Proposal
  • Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy Proposals

• Community & Legislative Affairs – (Joy Burnham & Steven Yates)
  • United Way Campaign
  • Brewer Porch Luncheon: Details forthcoming

• Faculty Life – (Heather Elliott & Ruth Ann Hall)
  • Update on Childcare Recommendation
• Financial Affairs – (Mary Stone & Byung-Cheol Kim) – No Report
• Research & Service – (Shanlin Pan & Douglas Bish)
  • Updates on software purchase procedures
  • Postdoc salary top / ceiling issue
  •  Center for Convergent Bioscience and Medicine approved by BOT on Sept 16-17
    • Open house in AIME Building at 3 pm on Oct 27
  • New Centers and Institutes
  • Meeting with VPR

• IT & Strategic Communications – (Patrick Kung & Nathan Loewen)
  • Move of Blackboard to SaaS (i.e. cloud-based hosting) has already allowed for three seamless security updates
    • The appearance of the “Ultra” user-interface will be piloted in Summer 22, and made available in Fall 22
    • Faculty should remember that the CIT has many resources to assist using BB; and, there is a ‘help’ button on BB
    • CIT/OIT is interested to work with FS and SGA to create a ‘template’ for new BB courses; currently, the default is basic and ‘clunky,’ since there is no cross-campus template
  • Building access and ACTcards – OIT is working with Health & Safety and the Registrar to pilot an integrated building/room access in the College of Engineering. If the pilot is successful, this will be rolled out across campus
  • Software purchasing – OIT is working with Procurement to ensure that the various circumstances affecting software purchasing are clearly communicated to faculty, department chairs, and college purchasing supervisors
    • The procurement/purchasing process may change without notice due to State or UA policy and/or UA platforms (e.g. shift to PCard use: e.g., sub-$5k purchases no longer need UA-level approval; e.g., UA legal needing to review end-user agreements)
  • Phishing – OIT’s effectiveness at preventing phishing has led to a significant decrease in attacks for 2021
    • Faculty should notice if an email is tagged as external, signaling it is not coming from a UA user
    • UA Directory is now behind CAS/DUO for this reason. O365 is also effectively blocking junk/phishing
    • College-level websites are outside OIT control, but they do communicate best practices to them
    • Absolutely eliminating phishing would make UA’s website very user unfriendly
  • A new myBama site will be soft-rolled out in Spring 22
  • OIT is making progress with supercomputer backbone infrastructure
  • Duo has a new look: updates are being rolled out with a fresh, clean design and a new arrangement of the approve/deny buttons.  Functionality remains the same

• Student Life – (Jennifer Dempsey & Amy Traylor)
  • UA REACH
    • Marketing
    • Needs
    • Upcoming plans
  • Items from meeting with VP for Student Life, Dr. Pope
    • Capstone Creed campaign: ideas on communicating student expectations
    • Housing for next year is being accepted: site crashed the 1^st day due to volume
    • Respect Rolls Here- campaign to bring more awareness to sexual assault prevention/resources

Reports from Other Committees

• Compliance Committee (Babs Davis)
• Faculty & Staff Benefits Committee (Rona Donahoe)

Old Business

New Business

Reminders

• Next FS meeting: November 16^th – Venue: TBD

Adjourn