Chancellor Plowman and Provost Zomchick, Thank you for arranging to meet with us on Thursday October 14 at 1PM. We assume that we should meet in the 5th Floor Conference Room in AHT but as Shawn is off campus it would be helpful to have a zoom option set up. Below are some possible agenda issues for discussion. The below do not focus on pandemic matters, but we encourage you to follow the recommendation of the Senate Executive Council regarding maintaining consistency with CDC guidance. Also we have heard that Heads are now responsible for faculty requests to modify course modality and just want to confirm that. Some of the below are continuing from previous meetings. Please feel free to focus and/or add others when we meet. 1. Employee notification policies regarding release of information. There appears to be concordance that it would be helpful to clarify these issues. Perhaps this could start with a simple statement as to how requests for information are currently handled and what if any campus role there is in this or whether it is completely a System responsibility. This could include a description of legal constraints on employee notification regarding data release. 2. Academic restructuring. We understand that the report from the Working Group laid out a plan for campus discussion - how do you suggest that the Senate be involved to best support the objective of obtaining broad input and discussion? 3. UTORII - can we obtain a summary of the status of efforts by Vice Provost Bienvenue particularly as they relate to the originally stated plans for graduate recruitment and rapid expansion of the Bredesen Center as well as recruitment of new research faculty? 4. Expectations of 9-month faculty. The changes in the calendar now essentially leaves only two months (June and July) in which 9-month faculty do not have responsibilities for formal instruction. Although the vast majority of faculty have historically continued during the summer three month period (from mid-May to mid-August) without salary to mentor graduate students, supervise their staff and carry on their scholarship, it was typically not expected that they be available for academic unit or campus service during this 3-month period. Under the new timetable, are 9-month faculty going to be paid for 10 months of effort and if not, during what 3-month period are faculty not expected to be available for their teaching and service responsibilities? 5. Support for the Senate. A promise was made last year that there would be new resources available to support the Faculty Senate. This included course-release support that is not however being funded at the rate that is expected for release-time and under the BAM this will require Denas to provide support from their College budgets. There are also issues regarding federal compliance if external funds are charged a different rate for course release from that provided for the President. Stay well, Lou