Provost Office Panel – 2021 UTK Faculty Senate Retreat (11:00-11:30am) Beauvais Lyons, Art (Faculty Affairs Chair) Stefanie Ohnesorg, MFLL (Graduate Council Chair) Martin Griffin, English (Appeals Committee Chair) Joanne Devlin, Anthropology (Undergraduate Council Chair) We appreciate the wealth of questions submitted for this panel. The questions below were selected from those submitted. To cover the range of topics, we ask that Provost Zomchick limit his answers to no more than three minutes per question. Joanne Devlin (Growing the Faculty) Your office announced that the strategic plan for increased UG enrollment was met early. Congratulations on that achievement but as you undertake the development of the next strategic enrollment plan, can you please comment upon the appropriate faculty size for a larger student population and what plans you have to achieve this goal and what mixture of TT and NTTF faculty are required to appropriately mentor our students? Martin Griffin (Faculty Oversight of Academic Programs) Many faculty are concerned that wider swaths of what have traditionally been areas of faculty expertise are being pulled under the umbrella of administrative units (advising, student success). Faculty are also concerned that curricular oversight has sometimes been undermined by administrative units -- as was the case with the "global tech" program the university launched last year. What is the Provost's plan for maintaining necessary limits on administrative overreach into areas of faculty authority like curriculum and advising? Beauvais Lyons (Anming Hu Case) What are the lessons from the Anming Hu case that apply to our handbook and protections of tenure and processes for the dismissal of tenured faculty? Stefanie Ohnesorg (Graduate Programs) THREE QUESTIONS In the context of graduate education, you mentioned meaningful growth opportunities “outside of traditional academic programs.” Would you give examples for different colleges? And with limited resources, how will you ensure that these opportunities will not come at the expense of existing programs? How might growth in the graduate student population through ORII affiliate programs be balanced with growth in other disciplines? Graduate students make up a large proportion of first-year instruction for students, thus making them a huge factor in first year retention rates. What campus-wide professional development for graduate students is needed to address this challenge? Martin Griffin (Academic Calendar) TWO QUESTIONS The slides indicate that a January mini-term is being “launched.” We were told last year that the 2022 mini-term would be a one-time experiment, to see how things go. Is the January mini-term being launched as a permanent feature of the academic calendar? Many faculty are attracted to an academic career because of the flexibility and productivity that comes from working a 9-month contract with three consecutive months each summer. One of the impacts of the new timetable is that it interrupts the standard three-month block of time in the summer to pursue research, scholarship and creative activities, etc. When exactly is a 9-month employee considered to be on contract? Beauvais Lyons (Academic Reorganization) You mentioned that one of the goals of the Provost's Office is to lead "discussions of our current collegiate structures”; what type of changes do you have in mind? What would be the practical goal of making these changes? Given that many alumni feel a strong connection with their home colleges, is there a risk to the university in making major structural changes to colleges? Based on your experience, what would be a different model you would aim for?