Faculty Meeting Minutes

Gannett Auditorium/Zoom
November 4, 2022

Michael Orr, Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m. and welcomed everyone to the third Faculty Meeting of the semester.  He noted that Media Services has been working to improve the technology to support the hybrid format for the Faculty Meeting since the last Faculty Meeting and hoped that the remote experience has been improved for remote attendees. He then requested everyone’s continued patience as we continue to experiment  with running the faculty meetings in a hybrid format and reminded everyone of the procedures to be followed during the Faculty Meeting,

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

DOF/VPAA Orr asked if there were any corrections to, or comments regarding, the minutes of the Faculty Meeting held October 7, 2022.  Hearing none, he announced the minutes were approved.

NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business.

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

President Marc Conner welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked those who attended his open office hours a few weeks ago.  He indicated that he continues to think about his role during faculty meetings and believes that the meetings provide him with an opportunity to share important updates and signal institutional priorities on various college matters with the faculty.

President Conner then provided an update on the recent Board of Trustees meeting held in October, noting that this is the fourth time the Board has met in person since the pandemic began. The Board received various presentations from faculty, student Ambassadors, SGA representatives, and staff in the career and professional development office, and unanimously approved this year’s Strategic Action Agenda (https://www.skidmore.edu/planning/agendas.php ).  The Board also discussed the Values and Visions project, received an update on the current year’s budget, and received a detailed presentation on health, wellness, fitness, and athletics. President Conner also shared that the Board is undergoing its own self-study this year, contracting with the firm Spencer Stuart to bring in external evaluators to assess our Board’s policies and practices in light of best practices for liberal arts colleges’ boards of trustees. President Conner noted that he considers this to be an admirable effort by our Board to ascertain its own levels of excellence and to find ways to improve that excellence.

Next, President Conner provided an update on the three Vice President searches, noting that the website on the HR page provides extensive information on the searches (https://www.skidmore.edu/hr/vice-presidential-searches/index.php).  He reported that, since the October faculty meeting, the search committees for the Vice President of Finance and Administration and the Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid have now been fully formed and have begun to meet. President Conner then reviewed the anticipated timetables for the searches, noting that the search firms will work to identify potential candidates during November and December, the search committees will review applications during late December and early January to identify semi-finalists, zoom interviews of semi-finalists will hopefully be conducted in January, with a goal of bringing finalists to campus in February with appointments announced by March or April for both searches.

President Conner then provided an update on the search for the next Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs.  He noted that semi-finalists have been interviewed and that three finalists have been identified, all of them identifying as women of color.  The Search Committee is extraordinarily excited about these candidates.   All three candidates will be brought to campus to meet with a wide range of constituencies, including students, President’s Cabinet, the Appointments and Tenure Committee members, chairs of other governance committees, members of their home department, the Dean of the Faculty, the Associate Deans of the Faculty, and staff in the Dean of the Faculty’s office.   In addition, each candidate will participate in an open forum, which President Conner noted is a rarity in searches these days, and which is why prior registration and a commitment to confidentiality is required. The open forums will be moderated by the Faculty Executive Committee and will start with a question that each candidate will be expected answer regarding their interest in Skidmore, and will then be followed by an opportunity for questions from faculty, staff, and students.   Following each campus visit, anyone interacting with a candidate, whether in private meetings or attending the open forum, will be invited to complete an electronic feedback form regarding the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the candidate.    President Conner then thanked everyone for their work in participating in the search process, particularly Professors Xiaoshuo Hou (chair of FEC) and Winston Grady-Willis (chair of ATC) who have been great partners in the search process.

Thereupon, President Conner opened the floor for discussion about what the college needs to do in order to welcome and ensure the success of our new Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, which President Conner described as a collective responsibility of our entire community. Discussion focused on suggestions for ways to be warm and welcoming to the new dean as we emerge from the COVID pandemic; concern for transparency and honesty about the climate on campus and in the community, particularly around issues of race and ethnicity; the importance of developing a series of listening and/or welcoming sessions so that the new dean can get to know various community members; and identifying initiatives through FEC or other governance committees to partner with the new dean upon her arrival.  President Conner thanked everyone for their suggestions and encouraged anyone with further suggestions to reach out to him.

President Conner then reported on a major project for supporting student wellness that had emerged from the campus master planning process.  The Health, Wellness, Fitness, and Athletics project will support student health and wellness by bringing all our health and wellness facilities into one state-of-the-art health and wellness center that will also include a new fitness center for the entire campus community, together with key athletic facilities including new outdoor tennis courts, an indoor tennis center, varsity athletic meeting rooms, a multi-purpose room, and varsity athletic locker rooms.

Adrian Bautista, Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs, then shared his viewpoint on the project from the perspective of student health and wellness.  He reminded everyone that the COVID pandemic had exacerbated mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and suicide, among adolescents and that there was a tremendous need for an integrated and holistic approach to health and wellness that could be housed in an enhanced and integrated facility.  Although there were initial concerns about locating the facility away from the center of campus, he noted that after looking at similar facilities at other institutions it was clear that we should take a truly integrated approach and design the facility to be a destination center.  Thus, the space has been designed to encourage healthy connections between the body and mind and to support both physical and mental activities.  Further, this new center will free up spaces in our residence halls currently being utilized by Health Services and the Counseling Center and will alleviate some of the pressure on housing that we are currently experiencing.

Thereupon, President Conner shared a Powerpoint presentation outlining the concept and proposed design.  He noted that when an earlier version of this project was proposed in 2019, there had been three principal concerns: the impact of construction on the Greenberg Childcare Center, the sustainability of the architectural design, and uncertainty regarding how this project fit into other campus priorities. President Conner indicated that these objections had now been addressed: the Greenberg Childcare Center had been moved to a much better location; the new facility will now be designed in accordance with the College’s Sustainable Construction and Renovation Policy and will achieve LEED Silver certification; and the Campus Master Planning process had highlighted the need for this project and its relative priority compared to other projects.  The anticipated cost of the project is $35.5 million, of which $10 million has already been raised and additional funds have been allocated from the capital budget in 2019 and from the Capital Master Plan fund, leaving a fundraising goal of approximately $20 million.  The project has already been discussed at IPPC and with the Athletic Council, and earlier it was presented at the monthly staff meeting.  It will be discussed by the Sustainability Sub-Committee and SGA Senate shortly, and an all-campus forum with the architects will be held at the end of the November.

President Conner then concluded his report and opened the floor for questions. Discussion followed focusing on the Board’s enthusiasm for the project; the improvements made to the project since 2019; the feasibility of building an ice hockey rink on campus in the future; the need to ensure that the project is built to ensure access for those with disabilities; whether the College might acquire some of the adjacent land to the athletic fields; whether the facility could include space for religious life; and whether it will be possible to offer more wellness programming prior to the building being built in response to the increased demand for counseling services. Following discussion, President Conner encouraged anyone with further questions to reach out to him.

DEAN OF THE FACULTY AND VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS’ REPORT

DOF/VPAA Orr began his report by following up on the email that the FEC sent out regarding the discussion held at last month’s faculty meeting and the survey it had conducted.  He noted that he and FEC had decided to keep the reports from the President and the DOF/VPAA at the end of faculty meeting when the agenda includes faculty business that needs to be conducted with the understanding that at least 10 minutes would be allotted for questions and discussion of those reports.  In addition, we are actively exploring a different location for faculty meetings to try to encourage a more interactive experience, possibly in the Payne Room at the Tang, providing that technology issues can be addressed.

DOF/VPAA Orr then commented that he just returned from the Northeast Deans meeting and shared that one of the topics of discussion was how institutions are conducting their faculty meetings following the pandemic. He noted that there was a straw poll amongst those in attendance that had showed that only one other institution (other than Skidmore) is attempting to conduct a fully hybrid faculty meeting. The vast majority of schools are either holding meetings exclusively in person, or they are holding partial hybrid meetings in which anyone who attends remotely can observe the meeting but not participate.  DOF/VPAA Orr stated that we can take a measure of pride in leading the way in trying to make hybrid meetings work for us.  Nevertheless, there still remain some technical challenges, especially with voting when some people are in person and some are remote, particularly given the faculty’s clear indication that only those individuals who are eligible to vote should be able to vote and the anonymity of those voting needs to be preserved.  DOF/VPAA Orr indicated that iCloud has proven to be problematic; although some eighty or ninety faculty members attending the last faculty meeting remotely, only about 35 faculty members cast their vote.  As a result, we are looking at other approaches to managing the voting. 

Next, DOF/VPAA Orr provided an update on the two appointments his office is working on. The first appointment stems from a grant from the Mellon Foundation in which the New York Six schools are each able to support an opportunity for a faculty member to explore a leadership role at their home institution as a faculty fellow attached to the Dean's office. Calls for nominations were issued at the very beginning of the semester, and the selection process is nearly complete, with an appointment expected to be made within the next few weeks.  The second appointment concerns the replacement of Professor Michael Arnush as Associate Dean of the Faculty for Student Academic Affairs. DOF/VPAA Orr indicated that he had received a strong set of nominations and self-nominations for the position and will be contacting finalists for interviews shortly with the hope of making an appointment before the end of the semester.

DOF/VPAA Orr then reported that he expects to return to a more normal schedule this year for reviewing and approving requests for tenure-track replacements and new position requests.  An email will be sent out shortly with details concerning submission of proposals, in tandem with the distribution of the operating budget worksheets and information regarding capital budget and new initiative requests.  It is anticipated that the deadline for submission of these requests will be in February.

In concluding his report, DOF/VPAA Orr reminded those departments currently conducting the approximate 20 tenure-track searches this academic year, that this is an important opportunity for the college to bolster the faculty with a series of outstanding hires and to strengthen the diversity of the faculty. He urged search committees to be attentive to this strategic priority in their search processes.

DOF/VPAA Orr then opened the floor for questions. 

• A request was made by a faculty member for DOF/VPAA Orr to consider organizing a forum for the faculty to discuss post-COVID teaching challenges and, further, to have the classroom clocks in Palamountain fixed. DOF/VPAA Orr indicated that he would be happy to host such a forum but indicated that FEC is already planning to hold a faculty-only meeting towards the end of the semester, specifically around issues related to the post-pandemic teaching challenges that everyone is facing.  He further indicated that he would be happy to host further discussions on this topic if there is any desire following the faculty-only meeting. He then noted that the capital budget process will be starting soon which could be an avenue for addressing the clock issue.
• In response to a question about the definition of diversity for hiring, DOF/VPAA stated that he strongly endorsed a broad conception of diversity that went beyond race, ethnicity and gender and included queer and non-binary candidates among other forms of difference.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:49 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,