Faculty Senate (2025 – 2026) Meeting Minutes - Draft
Monday, April 27, 2026
3:30-5:15 pm Woolsey Hall, 110A
Present:
Allen, Asmatulu, Billingham, Bowen, Boynton, Castro, Celestin, Chang, Chesser, Cooper, Cossell, Dai, Flores, Foster, Griffith, Hakansson, Jamkartanian, Jones, Jorn, Kim, Kirby, Koop, Kreinath, Loibl, Lynch, Ma, Myose, Nelson, Nicks, O’Bryan, Ott, Price, Pulaski, Rani, Ray, Sarionder, Shan, Sherwood, Showstack, Small, Stone, Swindle, Terry, Tew, Thompson, Williams, Zhu
Excused:
Dowling, Vasquez
Absent:
Beck, Butler, Demissie, Dudley, Gilstrap, Kuhlman, Proctor, Twomey
Call to Order
- President Stone at 3:30
Approval of Minutes
- March 9, 2026 - no comments, approved by consensus
- April 13, 2026 - no comments, approved by consensus
Informal Statements
- None
Teams meeting recording started at 3:33
President's Report
- Document sharing and the Senate website
- Publishing all senate files online is not sustainable given the recent website standards updates.
- Clarified with General Counsel that Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) does not require all files to be published online.
- A Microsoft Team will be created for senators, and all files will be housed there. Goal is to launch by end of this semester. More information to come.
- Agendas and minutes will continue to be published online.
- Historical documents will continue to be archived and available in SOAR.
- Questions
- Board Effect – functionality was not as hoped. Will not continue.
- Academic Affairs has agreed to provide administrative support for Faculty Senate next year.
Committee Reports
- Rules Committee – Vice President Myose
- Overview of spring elections. Reminder it is important to have all seats filled so that units have adequate representation in policy development.
- President Stone acknowledged all committees and their chairs for their work this year and coming work.
- General Education Committee – Samantha Corcoran
- Major work – updated gen ed goals to outcomes to align with HLC visit next year (last updated in 2016). Provided brief overview of new outcomes. Will have a proposal at next meeting or beginning of next year.
- Working with the assessment committee to streamline needs.
- Evaluating using Territorium for digital badges.
- Faculty Affairs Committee – Dr. Nathan Filbert
- Worked on workload policy to align with KBOR, including analysis of faculty and chair survey results.
- Committee openings for Business, Nursing/Health Professions, and LAS Natural Sciences.
- Tenure and Promotion Committee – Dr. Atul Rai
- Reviewed T&P dossiers; first time used Watermark with a few lessons learned;
- Started work on aligning post-tenure review policy with KBOR requirements – reviewed policies of a variety of institutions, most have a policy; looking at lower number of levels of approval.
- Additional work will be to propose language for adverse decisions – punitive, remediate, etc. Policy proposal expected in fall.
- Faculty Support Committee – Dr. Ginger Williams
- Funded 20 applications for research funding.
- Approved 11 sabbaticals
- Made recommendations for 10 awards.
- Reviewed applications for Foundation grants.
- Reviewed pre-proposals for external funding.
- Denied request to transfer funding to support FARE’s mutual mentoring grant.
- Approved request to add NTT eligibility for early career funding award.
- Student Affairs Committee – Dr. Stephanie Nicks
- Committee seated in early fall with 6 charges.
- Created a proposal to update the academic integrity policy and procedures – will be presented in fall.
- Collaborated with and provided oversight for the combined GRASP and URCAF
- Still need a graduate student representative.
Old Business
- None
New Business
- Syllabus demo - Dr. Carolyn Speer - Unable to attend; will invite to future meeting.
As May Arise
- None
Adjourn
- Next FS meeting is May 11, 2026, at 3:30p in Woolsey Hall 110A
- Meeting adjourned at 4:20
Minutes prepared by Rhonda Williams