FA Minutes, Sept 9, 2020

Faculty Assembly
 9/9/2020

Presenters: Naseem Choudhury (FA President),  Peter Mercer (College President), Susan Gaulden (Provost), Roark Atkinson (HGS),Scott Frees (FA, Vice President)

Kim Lorber (Secretary)

Meeting began at 1:08pm.

Assembly Minutes: April and September minutes will be approved via Qualtrics.

Faculty Assembly President’s Report

Congratulations: to all for the hard work of the faculty to make this semester a success. Faculty twisted themselves to accomplish new course delivery without knowing they could do it. They did.

Colleagues Gone: It is with a heavy heart we learned about the terminations of some colleagues and being unable to celebrate them.

Courses: Classes are full, we seem to have retained our enrollment numbers.

New Faculty: Welcome to 9 new faculty members.

Fundamental Truth: We want to be a vibrant community, supporting our students, the hallmarks of a liberal arts education. We have a lot to be proud of, to recommit ourselves to, and to keep working hard.

Presidential Search Committee: Trustee Valerio said we are on track as expected and she will provide an update today or tomorrow.

Human Resources: We are working with HR in coming up with exact dates and times regarding a sabbaticals, tenure and promotions calendar for this year.

FAEC Opening: The Councilor-at-Large Over 11 is open. Ashwani Vasishth has served admirably all summer and now.

EOF/CRW Position: This will be discussed at the Faculty Forum.

GECCo Voting Item: Professor Sarah Carberry discussed a vote for the Global Awareness representative position. If you have a course to add to the Gen Ed program, the ARC submission deadline is 10/15. If you are considering submitting a course, please let her know (and Steve Rice for ARC) so they can plan. Member names were given. The first meeting will be held soon.

PROVOST’S REPORT

Welcome: This is a very exciting atypical academic year. It is amazing to have started this year after an incredible amount of work. She expressed her appreciation of the faculty.

Class Teaching Formats: We have approximately 100 lab/hands-on/studio type classes holding some face-to-face meetings enrolled with 1000 unique students.  The schedule includes time for cleaning between classes and the outfitting of 34 classrooms with kits to be able to have a live WEBEX session while conducting a live class. Instructions/videos for faculty will be provided. Assuming we will be remote this spring, she will make sure there are photos so all can see what Ramapo is doing to keep people safe. Returning face-to-face is not as it was. The number one goal right now is to do the course schedule to represent exactly how courses will be held in the spring in advance of registration; students will know how their course will be held in advance as opposed to format changes since the time of registration and the start of the fall semester. Letters from students and parents note some students are uncomfortable coming to campus to participate online. Parents are not happy with asynchronous courses. A balance is needed. A census will be conducted of how people prefer to teach for next semester. Some faculty are meeting face-to-face once a month and it is possible to give exams in-person. In the spring, we need to look at space availability for conducting classes and possible occupancies in order to know the space inventory before deciding which courses will be face-to-face.

Black Lives Matter: There are many campus events to support this. Everyone should come as these will benefit all of us as a community.

Tenure Binders: HR is scanning applications and will make them available digitally to committee members.

Promotion Binders: HR is scanning applications and will make them available digitally to committee members.

Promotions/Sabbaticals: The number of opportunities is being determined for each.

3/1: has begun and there are at least 10 students in each program.

Social Work Spring 2021 2/2 at PCCC: The BSW program had to be approved by the social work accrediting body and Middle States to offer a BSW program at Passaic County Community College. There is an enormous amount of interest in this program.

Student Health Insurance: Students can opt out of Aetna’s student coverage ($2,000 undergrads/$5,000 grads) by 9/18 or they will be billed).

Pass/Fail Emergency System: We are not planning this for this semester as we have had much time to prepare.

Class Delivery Model Vocabulary: We are not conducting online courses by majority; instead most are virtual via Webex, synchronously and asynchronously. Existing online classes remain as they were.

Spring Stage: Will we be moving to stage 3? The governor seemed to merge stages 2 and 3 procedures so we are at stage 2+. But there is more we can offer under Executive Order 175. Another executive order can be made. We need an inventory of campus space. We may not be able to accommodate a huge request for face-to-face courses while maintaining safety requirements. Requests to teach freshmen face-to-face will likely be a priority to provide them with the campus/college experience non-virtually.

Teaching Style/Student Learning Style: It is challenging to find what fits. Some parents are asking for more synchronous time versus part asynchronous (hybrid formats). Students had a half semester of experience. Right now students do not feel face-to-face classes are critical.

Requests for Faculty to Be on Campus: We haven’t had a survey yet this semester but we want to match what students want with what we deliver. The Provost will not require anyone to teach in person if they feel unsafe. This semester is different from last as we had known our students for 6 weeks; this semester we are meeting our students virtually. Be flexible.

Computer breakdowns/Webcams for Staff: There is some balance of the $2.3 million for student use still available (per Chris Romano). Students who need money now can seek help from the Finance Office. The second round of funding will be distributed once it is better known who is staying and who might drop classes. Let ITS, your dean, and the Provost know if students have technology issues. There is a big effort to help refurbish computers and work with an organization that helps upcyle repaired computers for students in need. Some students on campus are also participating in repairing and upcycling computers.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Budget: President is hopeful we will get additional money from the state in base funding with designations for which we applied. The deadline was yesterday. We wait anxiously for information about the government appropriations for this year. We had many expenses and revenue losses due to the pandemic costs of the last 6 months and government funding cuts. These resulted in layoffs, the first time since President Mercer came to Ramapo College. The numbers are good regarding enrollment despite limited numbers of residential students.

VICE PRESIDENT OF ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT AND STUDENT AFFAIRS REPORT (CHRIS ROMANO)

Wait list: Enrollment is strong and the usual level of wait list applicants was accepted (as last year). Graduate enrollment is at 120%. First year class has seen similar melt as previous years, roughly 5%. We have about 52 students who have deferred enrollment to S21 or F21. We have 1,021 first year students this semester with another 50 starting in the spring.

Demographics of Entering Student Body: File freeze is September 17th, which finalizes the counts on enrollment for Fall 2020.  Chris can send a report to Naseem to distribute to us.

OSS Emails: OSS emails and communications should reflect challenges of remote learning for some students.  Chris will share feedback with OSS.

Enrollment: VP Romano offered thanks for everything everyone did.

Test Optional for The Next Semester: This is not a COVID-19 decision or because of enrollment concerns. This is a data driven decision. Jeremy Teigen (HGS) is the Faculty Fellow for Enrollment Data and has been crunching the data for several years. This is about student retention. High school GPA has almost an 8 fold predictive power compared to the SAT, which is a very poor predictor of student success for students who self-identified minority students.  Some joint programs in TAS, HGS, and SSHS have programs with other schools requiring standardized testing. This year a review will be conducted of nursing applicants about the merit of SAT scores. These scores can be submitted but will not have the weight of the high school GPA. Jersey City University remains the only NJ institution that requires SATs. Ramapo was one of the last two to move to this model (TCNJ). EOF is reviewing their programs to see if there are any implications on their processes.  When more information is available, it will be shared. The deadlines remain the same.

Scholarships: Scholarships awarded this year were more focused on need versus merit. This model will be continued. Many schools are moving in this direction.

Joint programs: We hope some of our partners will drop standardized test requirements. There have been logistical problems for some in taking the test this year. It is likely more schools will move to this model.

3+1 Numbers: Passaic is starting classes today so a final account should come in a few days.

Meeting Adjourned at 2:01pm.

Categories: FA RCNJ Minutes 2020, FACULTY ASSEMBLY MINUTES, Faculty Assembly Minutes 2020