President's Report: 4/22/22

April 21, 2022 / Anna Carlin

If you are current Faculty Senator and want to be included in an official Faculty Senate meetings or decision making over the summer, sign up for Summer Senate.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion climate survey is open for the campus community to complete until April 25 at 11:59 pm. I encourage you to respond to this one.
The Board of Trustees met on April 12. The BOT approved changes to regulations on Textbook Adoption and Affordability and Waiver of Tuition and Fees, and approved a new regulation on Bonus Plans for employees not covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The next BOT meeting will be on June 14.
There is a new faculty representative on the Space Committee - Dr. Victor Claar. He takes the spot previously held by Dr. Colleen Robb on the committee. The Space Committee reviews requests and proposals for use of facilities and spaces on campus.
Governor DeSantis signed SB 7044 into law on Tuesday, which contained a number of provisions impacting higher education. One section, regarding instructional materials and syllabi for general education core course, will require FGCU to take some timely action. Here is an explanation taken from the bill analysis online:

The bill modifies s. 1004.085, F.S., to supplement current law requiring posts of lists of required and recommended textbooks and instructional materials at least 45 days before the first day of class for each term. The bill requires the lists to:

1. 1. Remain posted for at least five academic years.
  2. Be searchable by the course subject, course number, course title, the name of the instructor of the course, the title of each assigned textbook or instructional material, and each author of an assigned textbook or instructional material.
  3. Be easily downloadable by current and prospective students.

In addition, if a course is a general education core course option, the list must include course syllabi information containing sufficient detail to inform students of all of the following:

- The course curriculum.
- The goals, objectives, and student expectations of the course.
- How student performance will be measured.

This bill goes into effect July 1, 2022. FGCU is working with BOG staff to determine what steps must be completed by the July 1 deadline and what we must to do comply with the new law. It is possible that the current course schedule system (currently in Gulfline) may work as the searchable list of required texts and syllabi. It will be a challenge for faculty to have their syllabi ready 45 days in advance. One solution is to create "shell" or template syllabi for Gen Ed core courses that will have the required elements, but not assignment details or dates. But having multiple versions of syllabi floating around may cause confusion. In any case, we don't have answers yet, but please know that I've been included in the communication.

6. I want to share an initial report out from the Senate Team Council of Chairs (STCC) about some work we have been doing regarding the development and review of academic related policy, procedures and guidelines.

There are a number of either official Policies (with a capital "P", approved by President's Cabinet) or unofficial policies (with a small "p," agreed upon by a college, team, committee, or office) that govern and direct practices in the university having to do with admissions, awarding of academic credit, academic standing, or progress to degree completion. Many of these are "codified" in the Academic Catalog. Academic Affairs, Student Success and Enrollment Management, and Faculty Senate have already written out an agreement about how content the Academic Catalog is to be managed. The process by which academic policies, procedures, and standards are updated and approved is still undefined.

To that end, a group of stakeholders in these processes, including the Faculty Senate President and Vice-President, Chair of the University Undergraduate Curriculum Team, and leaders in Academic and Curriculum Support and Innovative Education and Partnerships have been meeting throughout this year to work on developing Policy (with a capital "P") that would define a process that keeps Academic Affairs at the center of that approval process and includes the right faculty oversight. I think our team worked through a lot together and the process was really positive. Establishing this policy will give us a clear direction for faculty involvement when new proposals crop up for things like accepting new sources of college credit, new readmission rules, withdrawal rules, or any of the "catalog" content that determines the academic quality of the institution. I hope to be able to share the policy with you soon, but there are already proposals in the pipeline that Senate Teams can apply our new process to.