June 2, 2020 Minutes

Council of Department Chairs

NOTE: These minutes reflect discussions that happened on the date of these minutes. Due to the COVID-19 situation, things are rapidly changing. For offical policy, please wait for documents from the appropriate offices.

As of 6/16/2020, since the date of this discussion there have been major changes to the research recovery discussion.

Attendees (6/2/20): Curtis Bennett, Barbara Taylor, Tangan Gao, Chris Brazier, Andreas Bill, Babette Benken, Christine Whitcraft, Dessie Underwood, Lisa Martin, Margaret Karteron, Rick Behl, Kris Slowinski, Will Murray (invitee, incoming Chair), Henry Wu, Maryanne Horton.

  1. Approved agenda
  2. Approve minutes from April 28.
  3. Announcements
    1. Scholarships
      1. Information to students will likely be going out 6/3. (Fine to announce; but there will be more acknowledgement and recognition later)
      2. Green Dean Awards will take a bit more work.
    2. ASM Update
      1. Staff Evaluations: Email from Henry by next week with a link to the form. Everything is still the same even though employees were remote. Must be submitted by August 31st; draft needed by the end of July. MPP can use Docusign.
    3. Dean's Report
      1. Minutes: Posting of CDC Minutes usually takes 1 to 2 weeks, thus when faculty and staff receive minutes by email, they are sometimes unaware that the information is out-of-date. This is a particular problem during the COVID-19 siutation as in one or two weeks there have been many changes. The decision was made that CDC minutes would be posted on the college website and an email would be sent to faculty that the minutes were available, rather than sending the minutes out to faculty.
    4. Other
      1. Dean's Council: We are waiting to hear what public health determines to be appropriate guidelines for fall repopulation. Current thinking is that the university will need to prepare for 25% occupancy to accomplish expected cleanings. 
      2. Response from Deans and Provost to civil unrest: College will post a statement echoing the President's sentiments on social media. Some department chairs and committees are also working to cr
  4. Associate Deans - Academic Programs
    1. Updates on SOAR and Webinars
      1. Good turnout
      2. CNSM 654 students signed up for SOAR; 419 transfer students signed up.
      3. All deadlines in the process must be enforced. SOAR workshop (by Student Affairs) is separate from Advising and Registraion (done by CNSM 7 days before SOAR))
      4. Webinars for incoming freshmen and transfer students, 10 thus far, over 1,000 attendees
    2. Course Notes: Time certain (2:00, Vanessa Hernandez)
      1. Enrollment Services will do a batch load of the current courses and convert most of the courses into 04-1 (Online Alternative Mode of Instruction).
      2. Class notes will be available for any other course added onto the schedule later on
      3. Free format notes can be added any time between now and census.
      4. When coordinators submit requests with courses coded with AMI there are no requirements to add rooms.
      5. May want to wait until we see the waitlists for courses before opening up new courses at parallel times.
      6. Contact CPIE for questions about international student enrollmen 
  5. Associate Deans - Research
    1. Approved documents for CNSM research recovery (laboratory and field)
      1. Approved by Provost as living documents; First round of revisions will be based on Chair feedback
      2. Labs vs. Field research numbers are still being discussed; these initial numbers are purposefully modest
      3. Important to release these to faculty so they can start completing the applications.
      4. Feedback due by tomorrow (6/3) at 5pm
    2. Expectations for Department Chairs during the processes
      1. Department Chairs should gather Laboratory Research Recovery Applications from PIs on the same floor so they can oversee 2 aspects of scheduling. Department Chairs should help faculty coordinate and collaborate to: 1) optimize scheduling for labs on the same floor; and 2) ensure that the use of common equipment and spaces will be manageable. Specifically, Charis should help PIs on the same floor worked together to prioritize early-career faculty, graduate students nearing completion, and the need to maximize the number of labs that can have a meaningful restart of their research.
    3. Additional issue raised:
      1. Consider the issue of unsupervised graduate students in labs
      2. Consider special expectations for faculty/lecturers/staff from vulnerable populations – will seek more direct instruction from Faculty Affairs
  6. Summer Faculty Development
    1. Identification of Leaders (and Organizers)
      1. Department chairs are asked to identify Faculty Leaders and Organizers by end of week.  Please send the list to the dean’s office if you haven’t already.
    2. FLCs
      1. Waiting for more clarity on tracking and payment.
  7. HVDI/SEF/CARES/Lottery
    1. HVDI changes from last CDC approved
    2. Chairs are asked to look at their SEF proposals and see if the money needs to be used in a different fashion given the primarily virtual Fall (the money can use it to buy codes for software, small kits, supplies for students, etc.). If a department needs to use SEF money for a new course, we must know that and add clarification.
    3. CARES
      Department chairs have been asked to specify uses on the CARES budget request where they have funds available, as the initial request was made on a very tight timeline.  We believe that we can request funds needed to make virtual labs.
    4. We cannot use these funds for what could be considered class preparation; they must be used for the creation of “products” that are needed, because of the teaching needs of being primarily virtual due to Covid-19 (e.g. creation of new labs or videos). 
    5. Please break down the funding by department with a list of courses. This will make it easier to get funded.
      Send to Curt by tomorrow (6/3) at 5pm.
  8. Mentoring Policy - Postponed. 
  9. Adjouned.

 

Upcoming Dates:

N/A

Submitted by Allie Puz (Communications & PR Coordinator, CNSM)

Meeting Minutes were APPROVED on Tuesday, June 16, 2020

*Note: This reflects discussion on the date of the CDC meeting about policies, not actual policy. Faculty and staff should wait for official communication on each subject before acting.