Faculty Senate Exec Council Feb 21, 2022
President's Report

1. Thanks to all for your efforts on behalf of shared governance I hope that the semester has not been too stressful.

2. The Senate leadership has been very active on several issues since we last met. A major matter of concern has been reports attacking the diversity efforts across the State universities and particularly at UTK under the name "Critical Social Justice". In discussions with the Chancellor and Provost, we decided that asking the Senate to formally respond to these reports and to the issues associated with a couple of bills before the State legislature on "divisive concepts" would not be as beneficial as having a statement come from the leadership of faculty Senates across the State. Therefore I am signing a letter from TUFS that was worked on over the past several days and is going to be distributed to legislators. You all also were sent the statement from the President and Chancellor. The System has been working to ameliorate the impacts of the bills on divisive concepts - these (and others including responding to efforts to remove tenure) are still ongoing. Please reassure your colleagues that the President has been very clear about defending academic freedom, maintaining commitments to diversity and noting that we in no way are "indoctrinating students" in any particular ideology. 

3. Regarding academic restructuring, the Senate leadership submitted a possible timeline and a few examples for how suggestions might be submitted. These are now posted on the Restructuring website and the Senate leadership worked in collaboration with the Provost office to establish a feedback form that encourages responses with alternatives aligning with the themes of the working group on restructuring. These examples are not in any sense ones we expect the senate to endorse - they are simply examples to indicate how benefits and challenges associated with each suggestion might be framed. Additionally, the Senate leadership has encouraged the Provost and Chancellor to focus efforts on the processes here that impede the ability of faculty to do their jobs effectively and to in particular consider ways to reduce the clerical burden on both faculty and Heads. Please encourage colleagues to suggest through the feedback form ways that we can change processes to do this.

4. After discussions with the Provost, and the evident challenges in implementing the Budget Model input we had hoped the Senate Budget and Planning Committee would have, I and Beth Schussler and Phillip Daves have attended the Deans presentations to the Provost (I was at all, Beth and Phillip were at some). The details of the budgets presented are still mostly being kept within each College since nothing is yet passed by the legislature so we don't know the budget for next year. Faculty are encouraged to ask their Heads and Deans if they would like to know details for their College. A consistent take-away from these budget presentations was the potential benefit for all Deans to hear from others and to make potential connections on projects that could benefit from collaborations. I would encourage that this be enhanced next year and that Deans be able to hear budget presentations from support units as well. Not as drawn out as we used to do it over many years prior to Chancellor Cheek, but to ensure broad understanding of the plans across all campus units. 

5. I am delighted that the policy on bullying is now coming before the Senate - this has been a very long process to get to this stage with many, many people involved but I want to particularly thank Beauvais Lyons, Mary Lucal and Diane Kelly for their efforts along with a large cadre of others. 

6. The TUFS meeting was held on Jan 28 and had input from VP for Govt relations Carey Whitworth and Terry Salzman (Govt relations from Tenn Tech). They both noted that a general statement similar to the one that TUFS is doing about the value of academic freedom noting that we encourage alternative perspectives and viewpoints throughout the curriculum and encourage students to make their own decisions would be very preferable over the type of resolution we were sent by the African American Policy Forum. They encouraged TUFS to submit a short statement and noted that the legislative process goes very rapidly and it would be difficult for any Senate to respond directly to particular bills due to timing. 

7. I continue to respond to requests from media reporters on various issues and always clarify that I am speaking as an individual faculty member unless the Senate has acted on an issue.

8. On a personal note, I have accepted the retirement incentive and will therefore retire on June 30. Although I had planned to be available next year to continue to assist the Senate leadership, that is not possible except informally. I thank you all for allowing me to again serve as President. The Bylaws are silent about how to deal with an opening in the Immediate past-president position. The Senate leadership have discussed this and I am now going to defer to President-Elect Schussler to describe the suggestion we have.