From: Gross, Louis J Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2021 4:58 PM To: dplowman ; Zomchick, John P ; Scoggins, Matthew Cc: Gross, Louis J ; Spurgeon, Shawn Lamont ; Schussler, Elisabeth Ellen ; England, Susan Elizabeth ; Cross, Angie (Angie) Subject: Agenda for Faculty Senate Leadership Discussion Thursday Aug 26 2PM Chancellor Plowman and Provost Zomchick, Thank you for arranging to meet with us on Thursday Aug 26. Below are some possible agenda issues for discussion. Several of these are part of our ongoing discussions. Please feel free to focus and/or add others when we meet. We are not sure if you prefer meeting in person (Shawn will not be able to do so this term) or if you'd prefer zoom for all of us. 1. Pandemic matters - what data might we be able to pass on to faculty regarding the levels of vaccination among students and employees? We continue to get requests for this and some faculty have been surveying their classes. We have not undertaken an initiative to faculty for a broad campus survey but have received requests to do so. Similarly, what information is available on class absences? Again we have received requests for maintaining an ongoing survey of absences as a proxy for the level of illness/isolation on campus that may not be captured by other means. It is not clear what information is getting to students when a class member tests positive. We thought that there was no contact tracing going on yet a message from RJ Hinde says "The COVID support team will handle any notifications to other students, as they did last year." Faculty are asking whether they should, if notified of a positive test in a class, inform all the students in the class and move to on-line - this is inducing stress about what is expected of faculty to maintain safety. Is the message to students that they need to contact their close contacts on their own? 2. There are a wide array of different responses that units are making to the rising number of infections including having staff work mostly remotely. Are there any constraints that you have put in place or plan to set regarding the flexibility of units to deal with rising case loads as they impact their unit? As it stands, the only constraint we are aware of is that faculty moving to permanent on-line classes requires a Dean approval. 3. The Thursday football situation is a real mess. We are getting messages from instructors who don't know how to handle this because classes have not been cancelled. There are lots of classes in buildings such as McClung Tower and HSS that clearly must be cancelled or changed in modality since the buildings are being locked down at 2PM and everyone has to leave. This is tremendously costly particularly for courses which have lab sessions scheduled Thursday afternoon - it means the students lose an entire week of lab. There is a real cost to this that I suggest be covered by Athletics - reimburse students for the lost classes. Similarly staff are being told to get off campus and work remotely while it makes much more sense to simply cancel all classes after 2PM and give all staff a paid leave for half a day. And tell Athletics to pay for it all. 4. Are there further plans to release messages regarding racial profiling given the continued concerns expressed by some of our colleagues and others around the country as connected to the Hu case? We continue to receive notes of concern that attracting faculty and students will be a greater challenge than it has been in the past due to the negative publicity and implications from this case. 5. The UFC was told over a month ago that each campus was working on messaging regarding the impact on campus (or mostly lack of impact) of the new gun legislation allowing permit-less carry. We suggest that clear messaging on this could reduce some concerns. 6. ERP - President Boyd informed the UFC that he is working on having this system be developed for many higher education institutions outside of the UT System. David Miller noted that an RFP is to be issued in the next two weeks though. A new ERP developed to be applicable across many institutions may not be very flexible to UTK needs. What might we do to ensure we are not constrained by a system that is designed for general needs and will not accommodate ours in a flexible manner? 7. There are a variety of different faculty hiring initiatives being implemented or on the table (e.g. constellation hires). Is there any overall goal for this year and next regarding hiring and how this relates to student demand, retirements, and initiatives such as ONE Health? Where do we stand with regarding to TT and NTT faculty numbers vs losses over the last two years? Stay well, Lou