Leading the Faculty Response to the Extended Public Health Crisis

Alternative Framework for opening campus in Fall 2020: developed and distributed a 3-part framework, prioritizing shared governance on teaching modes and pedagogy; robust COVID health and safety; and social and racial justice. Published letter to the editor in the Daily Orange “SU professors demand more power in education decision making” (June 2020).

control over teaching modality:
Communicated with senior administrators to advocate for faculty and graduate student control over teaching modality, promoted data-driven decisions on air-flow and safety, and advised on COVID dashboard structure and metrics (Summer and Fall 2020).

SU AAUP Social and Racial Justice subcommittee formed to identify key issues and initiate communications with the Chancellor, Provost, senior administrators, the Graduate School, staff unions, GSO, Adjuncts United, and the Open Working Groups (Summer 2020).

Social and Racial Justice subcommittee publishes op-ed in the Daily Orange, “Judson Albahm’s death is traumatizing. We need to come together to grieve.” calling for action around Judson Albahm’s murder by police in Jamesville. Reached out to our Asian and Asian-American student organizations after the Atlanta spa killings (Spring 2021).

mid-semester undergraduate course evaluations: Interrupted administration’s planned changes to mid-semester undergraduate course evaluations. Worked with the Senate Committee on Instruction, which recommends mid-semester survey results only circulate to the instructor and that all future surveys not be administered without faculty consultation. The administration agrees (October 2020).

faculty concerns working under pandemic conditions: Sent out survey re: faculty concerns to 1000+ SU faculty, working from a new campus-wide email list that we created. Held 2 open forums that drew over 140 registrants(October 2020).

Instruction During Pandemic–SU AAUP Report: From the 300 survey reponses and forums with faculty, wrote and released a report about instruction during pandemic, with 9 recommendations. The Executive Committee met with the Provost to discuss those recommendations (November 2020).

Provost search: Advocated for an open and transparent search process. Submitted SU AAUP statement on qualities of Provost to the search committee (February 2021).

Faculty Information System (FIS):
Proposed and passed successful Senate Resolution calling for faculty oversight and Senate involvement in the administration’s move to establish a digitized Faculty Information System (FIS); communicated with deans in all colleges about faculty concerns over new digitized data-summary in tenure and promotion and questioned the role of the Board of Trustees in initiating the requirement and assessing the data (April 2021).

Shared Governance: Launched ongoing ‘Shared Governance’ campaign to promote credible, meaningful faculty participation and oversight in matters where faculty hold expertise and institutional prerogative; conducted outreach to all Faculty Councils and each Senate Committee to share observations on obstacles to and practices of shared governance; began institutional mapping of governance structures at SU (March-April 2021).

Held Open Meeting: “AAUP What is Our Vision of Shared Governance?” with Michael DeCesare, chair of the national AAUP’s governance committee, on how to strengthen the faculty’s role in governing universities–including SU (April 2021).

Discussion and Connection: Held monthly open chapter meetings and two separate open forums to listen to faculty concerns and experiences and to collectively determine SU-AAUP’s actions.