Faculty Senate Nov 15, 2021
President's Report

1. Thanks to all for your efforts on behalf of shared governance

2. The new Senate administrative Asst. Loretta Link has been getting up to speed on a host of Senate activities. Please do cc Loretta on any Senate correspondence to me or the Past-President and President-elect. 

3. Appointments since Senate meeting - Professor Jon Hathaway of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will be serving this year as the Faculty Senate representative on the Campus Planning & Design Committee. Professor Randy Small of EEB has agreed to be the Faculty representative on the Classroom Upgrade Committee and will serve until summer 2023

4. The Senate leadership conversation with the Chancellor and Provost on issues regarding 9-month faculty expectations led to the decision as the Provost noted that 9-month faculty should not be generally expected to carry out service activities during the winter mini-term. Regarding 9-month faculty charging to external funded projects as part of "summer" according to Associate Vice Chancellor Kim McCullock charging time in January is not allowed. Faculty with summer support on grants should charge this only during May, June and July, though the amount allowable to be charged in May is limited due to the expanded Spring term. 

5. Regarding clarity on current processes used when an external request is made to UT for release of information that involves an employee, I don't think we yet have agreement on any summary from the OGC. 

6. The Senate leadership had a meeting with the BAM team and received many answers to questions about how how this affects Colleges. I have posted a long set of questions and answers on my website under the BAM portion. There are a variety of issues associated with how BAM requires Colleges to cover both in state and out of state tuition that may create challenges for Colleges. Also, tuition revenue will not be returned to interdisciplinary units such as Bredesen center under BAM so it is not clear how these units will be funded. Some basic calculations I have made indicate that it will be much more costly to a College to hire a GTA than to hire a NTT faculty member. 

7. As per requests to the Graduate School and discussion with the Graduate Student Senate, we now have an answer regarding the possibility to cover Grad student fees other than tuition - this is not allowable as it would create problems with Uniform Guidance. So Colleges cannot under BAM cover any GTA fees other than tuition. I have recommended to the GSS that they consider ways to encourage Deans to increase spends as there is not an option to cover fees. 

8. The NTT Issues Committee is having discussions about ways to enhance the value to UTK of the tremendous skill set and experience of our NTT colleagues and to provide means to enhance compensation for those who wish to expand their service and research mentoring roles here. This aligns with the Strategic Vision process to both be more nimble and to enhance the processes we have in place to build student success.
 
10. I have been attending ERP sessions with the two possibles vendors. Cayuse is unlikely to be replaced, but a vast collection of processes in HR and Finance will be changed and this will take tremendous effort to both learn and transition to.  

11. On the situation regarding former Professor Hu, there is a formal litigation hold in place that a variety of UT individuals have received information about. I have purposely avoided further public comments since attending meetings last month with the OGC though remarks I made prior to that have appeared in publications including the Chronicle. 

12. We are asking for nominations for UTK Advisory Board and TUFS representative but also I encourage anyone who may be considering running for Faculty Senate President to have a discussion with President-Elect Schussler and myself. There are many benefits to serving in this role and I encourage you to consider it if appropriate.