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FACULTY SENATE 

Meeting Minutes 

February 9, 2026

Senators Present:  Ann Abraham, Loretta Aller, Bob Antenucci, Omid Bagheri, Tina Bhargava, Casey Boyd-Swan, Jennifer Cunningham, Mark Dalman, Ed Dauterich, David Dees, Vanessa Earp, Julie Evey, Michele Ewing, Michelle Foster, Tianyuan Guan, David Kaplan, Sean Kennedy, Terri Kent, Janice Kroeger, Velvet Landingham, Aaron Maguire, Richard Mangrum, Taryn McMahon, Mahli Mechenbier, Ashley Nickels, Vic Perera, Linda Piccirillo-Smith, Helen Piontkivska, Lydia Rose, Susan Roxburgh, Athena Salaba, Jim Seelye, Deborah Smith, Gregory Smith, Jennifer Taber, Eric Taylor, Brett Tippey, Francisco Torres, Lauren Vachon, Laurie Wagner, Theresa Walton-Fisette, Christopher Was, Kyle Winkler

Senators Not Present: Matt Butler, Omar De La Cruz Cabrera, Michael Fisch, Taraneh Meshkani, Oana Mocioalca 

Ex-Officio Members Present: President Todd Diacon; Executive Vice President and Provost Melody Tankersley; Amy Quillen for Senior Vice President Eboni Pringle; Senior Vice President Jeannie Reifsnyder*; Vice Presidents: Sean Broghammer, Doug Delahanty, Amoaba Gooden, Doug Kubinski, James Raber*, Charlene Reed, Randale Richmond, Peggy Shadduck, Rebecca Murphy for Stephen Ward; Deans: Sonia Alemagno, Christina Bloebaum, Allan Boike, Ken Burhanna, Alicia Crowe*, Marcello Fantoni*, Versie Johnson-Mallard, Mark Mistur, Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Diane Petrella, Elizabeth Piatt*, Amy Reynolds, Scott Sheridan*, Deborah Spake      

*Interim 

Ex-Officio Members Not Present: Vice President Valoree Vargo,

Observers Present: Emeritus Professor Janson, Ms. Hanna Sietz (USG), Ms. Shiza Nisar (GSS)

Observers Not Present: 

Guests Present: Richard Adams, Erin Ahrens, Abdelhakim Al Turk, Daniel Alenquer, Jake Ball,  Melissa Bauer, Maureen Blankenmeyer, Autum Boone, Shelby Burkhart, Rachele Burkholder, Christina Burnworth, Carolyn Carvalho, Sheryl Chatfield, Kelly Cichy, Sue Clement, Vanessa Courie, Charmaine Crawford, Paul Creed III, Ian Davison, Emmanuel Dechenaux, Chris Dorsten, Shannon Driscoll, Yanhai Du, Valerie Feagin, Jay Frye, Jill Garst, Carla Goar, Suat Gunhan, James Hannon, Cody Harris, Jennifer Hebebrand, Ben Hollis, Jasmine Jefferson, Eric Johnson, Lynette Johnson, Jennifer Kellogg, Tiffany Kiphart, Nicole Kotlan, Cindy Kristof, Elizabeth Kudravy, David Larwin, Dana Lawless-Andric, Wei Li, Timothy Long, Jason Lorenzon, Jennifer Marcinkiewicz, Julie Mazzei, Sevim McCutcheon, Jennifer McDonough, Erin Michael McLaughlin, Stephanie Moskal, Paulo Mussi Augusto, Elias Nader, Hyunjoo Noh, Amy Nuesch, Bryn Oldham, Christa Ord, Brady Oxender, Collin Palmer, Daniel Palmer, Donald Palmer, Dhruba Panthi, Dirk Remley, Kara Robinson, Amy Rodenhausen, Susan Rossi, Alexander Seed, Bonnie Shaker, Sarah Smiley, Angela Spalsbury, Stacey Spearman, Nathan Steele, Kimberly Steele-Marks, Shelly Stefka, Pritha Subramanian, Lashonda Taylor, Lee Thomas, Therese Tillett, Steven Toepfer, Sue Wamsley, Zhiqiang Wang, Deirdre Warren, Kevin West, Sonya Williams, Sharon Wohl, Theresa Yogi, Melissa Zullo

1.          Call to Order 

Chair Kaplan called the meeting to order at 3:20 p.m. in the Governance Chambers, Kent Student Center. 

2.       Roll Call 

   Secretary Dauterich called the roll.  

3.         Approval of the Agenda

A motion was made and seconded to approve the agenda (Cunningham/Nickels).

The agenda passed unanimously. 

4.       Approval of the Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes of December 8, 2025

           Chair Kaplan asked for a motion to approve the minutes of the December 8, 2025, Faculty                    Senate meeting. A motion was made and seconded (D. Smith/Piccirillo-Smith).                  

           The minutes were approved unanimously as written.

5.      Chair’s Remarks

          Chair Kaplan welcomed everyone back from Winter Break and expressed the hope that everyone had enjoyed it. He then introduced Rachele Burkholder, the new senate administrative assistant. He explained that this and future meetings will be using a new attendance system for working with Teams through the townhall function rather than the previous type of Teams meetings that had been held for Faculty Senate. This new method of attending will allow more streamlined observation from those who do not have the right to the floor. It will also give greater access to observers. Lastly, he announced that the agenda was particularly long today, and he expressed appreciation that presenters had agreed to limit the time that they had to present their information and action items.

          He then invited comments or questions.

          There were no comments or questions.

6.       Executive Vice President and Provost’s Remarks

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley delivered her remarks [].

She then invited comments or questions.

There were no comments or questions.

7.     EPC Action Items

       From December EPC Transmittal:

       1. UNDERGRADUATE POLICIES COUNCIL (presented by Co-Chairs Joanna Liedel and R. Dirk Remley) Grading Policies and Procedures. Revise policy (Fall 2026).

        Director Joanna Liedel explained the policy. 

          A motion was made to approve the policy (Earp).

          There were no comments or questions.

          The motion passed unanimously.

       2. GRADUATE DEAN’S ADVISORY COUNCIL (presented by Interim Dean Scott Sheridan) University Policy Regarding Graduate Assistantships. Revise policy (Fall 2026). Previous revisions approved by EPC on 10/20/2025.

       Associate Provost Sheridan explained the revisions to the policy. Issues of tuition remission were clarified in the revisions.

          A motion was made to approve the policy (Salaba).

          There were no comments or questions.

          The motion passed unanimously.

       From the January EPC Transmittals:

       1. OFFICE OF THE PROVOST (presented by Provost Melody Tankersley) American Civic Literacy Requirement. Establish policy for the new undergraduate university requirement (Fall 2026).

       Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley explained the requirement. The policy was required by the state.

          A motion was made to approve the requirement (Dees).

          There were no comments or questions.

          The motion passed.

       2. University Policy Regarding the Curricular Approval Process. Establish policy to comply with Ohio Revised Code 3345.457 (Spring 2026).

       Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley explained the policy. Secretary Dauterich (as Chair of the Educational Policies Council (EPC)) clarified that there were no changes to the process EPC already follows.

          A motion was made to approve the policy (Bhargava).

          Senator Tippey asked whether such a policy ever existed at ����ɫ��ҹ.

          Secretary Dauterich replied that it did not.

          Senator Torres asked if Faculty Senate could debate over the policy again, if the state bill is changed in the future.

          Vice President Kubinski answered that the state could change things, and the policy would have to be amended to follow state law and go through the approval process.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed.

       3. COLLEGE OF AERONAUTICS AND ENGINEERING (presented by Assistant Professor Benjamin Kwasa) Digital Engineering Design Center. Establish center (Fall 2026).

       Dean Bloebaum explained the establishment of the center.

          A motion was made to approve the establishment of the center (Torres).

          Senator Deborah Smith brought up the idea that many centers in the past never had meaningful assessment to see whether they met their aims. She wondered whether additional administrative or staff hires will be required, whether the budget will be from the college or academic affairs, and how the center could broaden its scope as mentioned in the presentation. Finally, she asked when the center would be reviewed by Faculty Senate.

          Dean Bloebaum replied that a half-time director would be 40% paid for from funds from the center. Most of the funding will come from the Department of Defense, but the money for the expansion of the center will come from companies named in the presentation; there would be no additional cost or staff required. She said that right now, the budget is a grant, and the 10% the university pays would be internal to the college. Dean Bloebaum added that if the outside contributions went away, the center would no longer function; however, the faculty could now go to outside organizations and try to get grants to continue to get money to fund the center. She added that there is a regular schedule for the review of centers. She also mentioned that this would be the only center in the state doing this work.

          Senator Boyd-Swan asked whether faculty doing work in the center got workload equivalency and whether the college paid for that.

          Dean Bloebaum responded that some of the faculty who are high-performing in research have research load release, but others are expected to get grants to pay for graduate students.

          Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley added that many centers have been closed recently and asked that Associate Vice President Therese Tillett compile information on those.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed unanimously.

       4. School of Aeronautics (presented by Assistant Professor Jason Lorenzon) Aviation Science - M.S. Establish program (Fall 2026).

       Assistant Professor Jason Lorenzon explained the new program and the program that follows in the EPC Action Items below. 

          A motion was made to approve the new programs as a slate (Mangrum).

          Senator Boyd-Swan said she was concerned that the program relied on international students and asked what percentage of them was anticipated and what concern we should have about their visas.

          Assistant Professor Lorenzon said that domestic graduate student numbers have increased across the board in the last 3-4 years, and the domestic students were the majority of the students. There would be no heavy reliance on foreign national students.

          Senator Tippey said that the Honors Thesis would be a way to help build the domestic base of graduate students and encouraged the idea that the undergraduates in the college would undertake a thesis.

          Assistant Professor Lorenzon said that the program does take advantage of those opportunities and gave examples of students who have completed theses.

          Senator Nickels said she appreciated the inclusion of qualitative and quantitative research perspectives. She wanted to hear more about working with the Political Science department in particular.

          Assistant Professor Lorenzon replied that the choice was made in consultation with several departments and schools across the university. He added that they are open to working across the university.

          Dean Bloebaum asked Assistant Professor Lorenzon to talk about how aviation connects with many units across the university.

          Assistant Professor Lorenzon named geosciences, political science, law, the Office of Global Education (OGE), education, and psychology as areas that were working with the program.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed unanimously.

               5. Aviation Science - Ph.D. Establish program (Fall 2026).

          (This program was approved in the previous motion.)

          6. COLLEGE OF APPLIED AND TECHNICAL STUDIES (presented by Dean Peggy Shadduck, Assistant Professor Tim Long, Academic Program Director Kim Steele) Applied Organizational Leadership - A.B.A.S. Establish 90-credit bachelor’s degree and new degree (Fall 2026).

       Vice President Shadduck explained the new program.

          A motion was made to approve the new program (Antenucci).

          Senator Boyd-Swan brought up concerns from the Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship (ACCBE) that some of the courses in the degree were encroaching on courses offered by ACCBE. She said newly created courses were using the same textbooks and content that was being taught in ACCBE. She wanted to know how the new courses would be distinct and how they would benefit students in a way that is not already possible by using pre-existing courses in ACCBE.

          Vice President Shadduck said that they were trying to focus on organizations in a broader sense than the for-profit side currently does; she mentioned government, non-profits, charities, and NGOs as focuses, which would be a broader approach to meet the needs of CATS learners. She said that the approach was complementary rather than encroaching.

          Senator Boyd-Swan responded that faculty in her college havevery specialized public administration courses on leadership and management because how you engage in those topics in a public administration setting which is public or nonprofit can be very different from other how you engage with organizations. She said that the courses offered in ACCBE are not focused entirely on the for-profit aspect, and she remained unconvinced that the courses being created for the proposed degree were distinct from courses that ACCBE was already running for free.

          Vice President Shadduck responded that the College of Applied and Technical Studies (CATS) was not a disciplinary based college. She added that CATS works in a lot of different areas and has people with expertise in some of the same areas as ACCBE. She said there are some possibilities if there are faculty in ACCBE who might like to offer to teach some courses via the regional campuses that would fit, and she said she would be open to conversations about this, but she added that offering the program through CATS would be less expensive than drawing from Kent-based courses.

          Senator Deborah Smith asked whether Senator Boyd-Swan’s complaint was more about the courses or the program, and she wanted to know whether ACCBE was consulted about the courses. 

          Vice President Shadduck said that the consultation at the course level did take place through appropriate channels. 

          Senator Tippey said that the CIM proposal for the program said that there “should be no duplication issues.”

          Senator Ewing added that there are courses in the College of Communication and Information (CCI) that also seem similar to courses in the new program and wondered whether CCI had been consulted.

          Vice President Shadduck replied that the consultation had taken place.

          Chair Kaplan asked whether more 90-credit-hour programs were coming.

          Vice President Shadduck said that there is pressure from Columbus and in higher education in general, so having a few degrees set for target audiences is good, but she did not anticipate ����ɫ��ҹ would go to all 90-degree programs.

          President Diacon said it is a state law that we have at least one such program. He added that these are for people who live near the regionals who are working full-time and who could benefit from the program; he added that this was not about increasing revenues and maintained that students would not be stolen from other programs. He said that CATS is going after students who would not attend ����ɫ��ҹ otherwise. He also praised the regional campuses and ����ɫ��ҹ’s position as an access institution.

          Senator Boyd-Swan said that one benefit she saw to getting rid of RCM is that it should encourage multidisciplinary programs, and she acknowledged that with the right collaboration, it could work. She added that the classes being offered in the proposed degree were already online in her college. She asked how much this would cost in the long run to establish the program and said that we need to be careful about even small changes like the establishment of the program. She reiterated that the courses already exist and did not need to be duplicated.

          Vice President Shadduck responded that no new personnel would be required.

          Senator Boyd-Swan asked whether the faculty for the new program would be taken from CATS faculty teaching other courses.

          Vice President Shadduck replied that they would be moved from those other courses.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          Chair Kaplan called the question.

          There was a motion and a second for a roll call vote (Abraham/Nickels). 

          The motion for the roll call vote passed.

          Secretary Dauterich called the names for the votes. The final result was 14 yeas, 22 nays, and 6 abstentions.

          The motion to establish the degree did not pass.

          Senator Deborah Smith said she would approve the establishment of the degree in the future if it made more efficient use of existing courses.

          Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley asked whether those objecting to the program agreed that bringing back the proposal with the same courses would be acceptable if regional campus students could take them through ACCBE at the regional campus cost. She also asked whether ACCBE would be able to make sure there was room for the regional campus students.

          Senator Boyd-Swan replied that it would be acceptable.

          Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley added she wanted to make sure that Dean Spake (ACCBE) was okay with that as well; she wanted to make sure the proposal could go through in the future. She said that she was under the impression that ACCBE had already been consulted with and approved the changes, so she wanted to know what Faculty Senate would like to see in addition to the usual consultation that is done in these cases.

          Senator Deborah Smith said there were historical problems with encroachment conversations. She said the curricular body of the academic unit in question should have been consulted (not just a chair or dean), and that if they had been, that information should have been included in the relevant documents in the CIM system.

          Senator Walton-Fisette added that there was consultation, but the concerns remained. There was never a point where the ACCBE faculty felt their concerns were addressed.

          Vice President Shadduck said that CATS requested feedback from the curricular body two months before they got it; she added that the feedback arrived the Friday before the Monday EPC meeting to approve the program, but CATS was not invited to meet and discuss the feedback with ACCBE faculty in time for something to be worked out at EPC. She said she would appreciate being given the opportunity to speak to people and not be given valuable information at the last minute.

       7. Human Services - A.A.S. Revise name to Social Work Assistant and Addictions; revise delivery from mostly online to online only; revise description, outcomes (Fall 2026)

       Academic Program Director Kimberly Steele explained the revisions [].

          A motion was made to approve the revisions (Piccirillo-Smith).

          Senator Wagner called attention to the tone of the CIM information and said she was concerned that one program felt they had the authority to nullify the concerns of faculty in other programs (as was stated in the slide presented). She added that as a sexual health educator, she values affirmative consent, and she said that she saw none in the proposal. She said that no units had been consulted about changes other than CATS, and that there were emails in the CIM proposal that also reflected dissent on the issue. She added that she had been approached by as a senator from EHHS to address the concerns of both the Counseling faculty and the Human Development and Family Sciences Faculty to address their concerns.

          Academic Program Director Steele apologized for using the word “nullify” and said that her intention was not to say that their concerns were not valid. She said that the intent was to show that the concerns related to Human Services as being a part of Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS) were related to when Human Services was a concentration, which is no longer the case. She said that the primary concern that HDFS had expressed was the use of the term “social work” related to their program. 

          Senator Wagner said that Academic Program Director Steele was explaining someone else’s concern, and she asked whether those objecting could have the opportunity to speak for themselves. Senator Wagner wished to give her time to Associate Professor Maureen Blankenmeyer and her HDFS colleagues.

          Chair Kaplan acknowledged Associate Professor Blankenmeyer and her colleagues.

          Associate Professor Blankenmeyer explained that she and her colleagues had voted unanimously not to support the proposal. She said that HDFS values the Human Services associate’s degree highly and agreed that there was no longer a curricular collaboration with the elimination of concentrations that had been mentioned by Academic Program Director Steele. She added, however, that there was still a conceptual and professional relationship with Human Services; many of their students get employed in that area. The biggest concern for them is that the work they do under the Human Services umbrella is very broad (child welfare, homelessness, intimate partner violence, veterans’ issues, etc.), so to change the name from Human Services to an occupational title (Social Work Assistant) is a misrepresentation of what the degree is.

          Associate Professor Steven Toepfer asked why something more in line with HDFS could not be reflected in the title instead of presenting it as an entirely different discipline.

          Senator Dees asked whether doing away with concentrations was enrollment-driven and wondered what changes had been made since the concentration was eliminated.

          Academic Professor Blankenmeyer said the 2+2 articulation was gone, but students who did the associate’s degree could still move into the bachelor’s degree. She said that the many students who would be interested in doing so would be dissuaded by the “Social Work” term because they would not know there is an HDFS possibility and might not know about the other areas that HDFS entails.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          Chair Kaplan called for a vote.

               The motion was defeated.

          Academic Program Director Steele asked whether it would be possible to change the title to “Social Services.”

          Senator Wagner said it would need to be taken back to the actual faculty involved for real consultation.

                        Senator Dees asked whether the concerns were brought up at EPC.

                        Secretary Dauterich (as EPC Chair) responded that they had been.

       8. GRADUATE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (presented by Associate Provost Scott Sheridan and Dean Liz Piatt) Graduate College and University College. Merge Graduate College and University College to become University College (Fall 2026).

       Associate Provost Sheridan and Interim Dean Piatt explained the merger.

          A motion was made to approve the merger (Torres).

          Senator Deborah Smith asked whether there was still a need for these colleges. She suggested that perhaps we should revisit the reasons for their existence rather than merging them. She added that getting rid of both could reduce expenditures. 

          Interim Dean Piatt responded that a number of positions in the University College had been eliminated for a salary savings of over $600,000 not including benefits. An associate dean spot had already been eliminated. 

          Associate Provost Sheridan added that they had addressed the conceptual budget last year, but he said that there was a lot of attrition in the Graduate College as far as positions went. There is only one full-time employee left. He said that the staff of the Graduate College had definitely been whittled down through attrition.

          Senator Nickels said that as the University College representative, with her work from the college and faculty teaching with it, the benefit of it being its own college is that it does provide resources that engage with faculty and students across the university and allows it to help centralize services and navigate changes more efficiently.

          Senator Deborah Smith said she was not opposed to centralized services; she simply wondered why they had to be a college.

          Senator Salaba commented on the name of the new college. She explained that having two colleges merge and giving the new entity the name of one was hiding the mission of the Graduate College.

          Associate Provost Sheridan replied that this was discussed during the creation of the proposal, and in later meetings with the GCAC, and they finally decided that collectively, both are the university even though the University College designation was used for only undergraduates in the past. 

          Senator Salaba said that there are still conflicting messages; if graduate education is important enough to have a college, the merger taking place does not speak to that.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed.

       9. HONORS COLLEGE (presented by Vice President Marcello Fantoni and Associate Vice President Paulo Mussi Augusto) Honors College Merge Honors College and Office of Global Education to become College of Honors and Global Education (Fall 2026).

       Interim Dean Fantoni explained the merger. 

          A motion was made to approve the merger (Tippey).

          Senator Deborah Smith expressed concern about the merger not leading to greater administrative efficiency. She said they already need to add an associate dean, and she added that all the other colleges had real cuts with T28. She did not see much of this in the proposal for the merger. She wanted to know more about actual long-lasting cuts.

          Interim Dean Fantoni said that the cuts are from both the Honors College and the Office of Global Education (OGE). He said that savings were in the ballpark of $800,000. He listed the cuts. He said that between 25-30 % of staff had been cut. The new associate dean position is not an addition to costs; it will be a position with faculty status, and it will replace the position of an assistant dean who is currently there. He said the budget plan is readily available.

          Senator Deborah Smith wanted to know about “faculty status.” She said that being a full-time faculty member is incompatible with being an administrator. She asked whether the person would be an administrator.

          Interim Dean Fantoni agreed that the person would be.

Senator Tippey said the CAC of Honors supports the merger, but he added a statement expressing some concerns [].

Senator Boyd-Swan said she was concerned about the number of students in OGE and wanted to know whether the cuts to administrators there are equal to the cuts in the number of students who are no longer being served.

Interim Dean Fantoni replied that coming to a final decision on a new organizational chart was complicated, and both sides needed to be reconciled to the numbers of students. Honors is growing in enrollment, so they have to keep that up even while OGE is serving fewer. He gave numbers for how Honors grew. 2015 was OGE’s peak, but this is why cross-training needs to be done. International student numbers are smaller, but right now recruiting is much harder than it used to be.

Senator Boyd-Swan asked whether the number of administrators cut was equivalent to the number of students they were no longer serving.

Interim Dean Fantoni said they needed to calibrate the budget with the necessity of not discontinuing student services. He added that the Honors College had increased in enrollment.

Associate Vice President Mussi Augusto added that the way they recruit involves creating a strategy for internationalization and that instead of bringing students to campus they need to go abroad to offer services. New strategies and positions will be needed to offer these services.

Senator Boyd-Swan said that she appreciated that, but all colleges have had to take substantial cuts. She said those colleges had to do more with less and said that if there were fewer students in the proposed merged college, the work would be the same amount, while the budget appears to be increasing.

Associate Vice President Mussi Augusto said that the application numbers are higher than ever, but there were many more processors for applications in the past; they are doing more with less.

Senator Wagner said that a lot of travel seems to be happening that involves seeking applications that are not adding to the actual number of students recruited. She wanted to know why we are trying to recruit students that we do not have GA funding and stable housing for.

Interim Dean Fantoni said they are doing more with less. He said this was evident in the decrease in the overall staff of the colleges being merged. He asked Senator Wagner whether her other question was whether too much money was being spent to recruit international students.

Senator Wagner answered that there seems to be a lot of international travel and advising in order to initiate applications, but she wanted to know what the overall yield of the applications was for students.

Interim Dean Fantoni replied that the ROI is good, as is the revenue generated. He said that the ROI is over 1,000% compared to what is spent to recruit and added that it is reductive to say we only want international students for revenue. He said that we also need international students to make the learning environment richer and more diverse.

Senator Deborah Smith said faculty bodies are frequently being told by administration that the focus on ROI is reductive and that we must focus on cuts. She said if the colleges are being forced to make cuts, it needs to happen in other areas of the university as well. She said another concern is appropriate consultation and thanked Senator Tippey for his previous statement. She said they appeared to be on the right track, but she was still concerned that the CAC in the Honors College had not been shown the org chart because it had not been determined yet. She said that consultation cannot be something that happens after decisions are made; it needs to be done in a way that faculty feedback is considered before decisions are made. 

            Chair Kaplan thanked Senator Smith and asked whether there were any other comments.

Senator Tippey said that Honors needs to be consulted about the thesis option. He said that there should be someone who works with that option on the new org chart. He added that student support services and extracurricular services will also need dedicated individuals.

President Diacon said he agreed with the definition of consultation put forward by Senator Deborah Smith and added that they will try to improve on that in the future.

          There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed unanimously.

8.     Discussion Item: ADA Compliance (Update from Interim Associate Provost Scott Sheridan and Executive Director Ben Hollis)

       Associate Provost Sheridan and Executive Director Hollis updated the Faculty Senate on changes being made to ADA compliance by federal law.

          Chair Kaplan invited senators to express their concerns.

          Senator Piccirillo-Smith said she was concerned about faculty complying in time and about how NTT faculty will suffer in some disciplines if they have a 5/5 load and 10 different preps in a year. She said she was speaking on behalf of Professor Ruth Leslie in Chemistry who is very concerned about the amount of time that it takes to bring her online material into compliance. She added that it could take thousands of hours to reach compliance in chemistry. She also said that there will be a large load to lift for other NTTs as well, and she wanted to know whether there were people who can work within a college or department to help do the work.

          Interim Associate Provost Sheridan replied and thanked everyone for their patience. He gave a history of how they have tried to understand the issue, and he talked about webinars and other early engagement from faculty as well as feedback faculty gave. The faculty wanted to know what tool would be used. They worked with software vendors and the University Teaching Council, and they agreed to deploy a software solution called YuJa Panorama. 

          Executive Director Hollis added that all public institutions were having similar concerns. He met with Professor Ruth Leslie and Director Jenny Marcinkiewicz (Center for Teaching and Learning) to address faculty concerns. He elaborated on the capabilities of the YuJa Panorama platform and a product called DocHub that can be used to organize files that need remediation. He said the new technology will help, and different units may receive additional assistance. He added that SAS can still help with a lot of issues. YuJa Panorama can scan your course and show you how to fix it. He suggested that 90-100% compliance is ideal, but it is a goal to be working toward, rather than a hard number to be met. He said people should reach out to him with further concerns. He also gave timeframes for training. 

          Associate Provost Sheridan added that faculty should go to training sessions if possible.

          Senator Tippey said it must be hard to do all this. He said he had connected with Executive Director Hollis and Director Marcinkiewicz about being compliant in the visual fields, but nothing he has heard is helpful when the skills being taught are visual or auditory analysis. He gave an example of Starry Night and said that alt-text would actually do a disservice to students in describing the painting. He said there are bigger questions to be answered and wondered about which students could be taught effectively. He suggested that the legislation actually provides a way out of the problem. Subsection H, clause 35.204 says when a public entity can demonstrate that compliance with the requirements of 35.200 would result in fundamental alteration in the nature of a service program or activity or undue financial or administrative burdens, compliance is required to the extent that it does not result in fundamental alteration or undue financial and administrative burdens. He argued that turning an image into alt text is a fundamental alteration of an art history course. He wondered whether the administration had looked at that portion of the legislation.

          Senator Wagner said she was on the accessibility committee until 2021, and people had been asking for these changes since 2013. She said we need to get it done, and she added that the trainings have been available for decades. She asked faculty to calm their resistance and engage with what is available before making any judgments.

          Senator Piccirillo-Smith wanted clarification. She said that her understanding is that the expectations being required are above and beyond what she was led to expect. She said she had made accommodations happily in the past without too much of a challenge, but she warned that the current legislation and the expected response to it are not as simple as they seem. 

          Senator Salaba had two questions: (1.) what the timeline for training is; and (2.) what tools being made available would solve the issue rather than merely identifying them? 

          Executive Director Hollis replied that they are meeting with the vendor by Thursday at the latest, and then training will begin. In response to her second question, he said that resources will be added to the website, and some products have already been sent out. He described the functions of the YuJa Panorama platform again.

          Senator Bhargava appreciated all the comments and all the work that had gone into reaching compliance. She said that SAS had been very helpful in the past, but she echoed concerns about the amount of time that it might take to reach an acceptable level of compliance and wondered where she would have to cut back to achieve it.  She added that she hoped the new platform has as much potential as the presenters suggested, but she said it would still be helpful to have more assistance to figure out how to make innovative teaching accessible.

          Senator Torres asked how much of a strain that this platform and others are putting on the university’s budget.

          Associate Provost West replied that they have been having conversations with IT about the things that they can build in house and the things that they need to go outside for. He added that building things in house could be a problem because it would require more professionals on staff to maintain what was built. He said that they are trying to be good stewards when acquiring new platforms and trying to get the best deals possible on them. He said that they have benefited by being early adopters of programs like Simple Syllabus and that a faculty committee was fully involved with the process of moving forward. 

          Associate Provost Sheridan agreed with Associate Provost West and added that they had done a good job of negotiating prices with vendors. He added that they are trying to keep costs down and minimize the amount that they must spend to keep the software operating efficiently.

Senator Maguire asked what the cost was. He asked for an approximate bottom line.

Associate Provost Sheridan said the cost would be around $100,000 for the first year.

Senator Gregory Smith asked what happens when the deadline passes on April 24. He wanted to know whether a good faith effort would be enough when courses are assessed for compliance.

Executive Director Hollis said that there is no institutional reporting mandate yet. However, the

software in YuJa Panorama will assist in the reports, so we can show a good faith effort using the

software. He said that there was no case law about this yet, and he explained how old ADA cases

were handled.

Vice President Kubinski added that this has been under ADA with no specific standard in the past.

He said that we will not be 100% compliant by the deadline, but effort must be shown.

Associate Provost West added that he did not want people to misinterpret Vice President

Kubinski’s statement to mean that they do not have to do anything. He reinforced the idea that

we need to show we are making appropriate strides to be compliant and to serve students well in

alignment with the regulations.

Senator Piccirillo-Smith wanted to know what federal department had oversight in this matter.

Vice President Kubinski said it is primarily the Department of Justice.

There were no further comments or questions.

9.     SSIRC Recommendation (presented by Professor Tina Bhargava)

Senator Bhargava updated Faculty Senate with the recommendations from the Student Survey of

Instruction Review Committee (SSIRC) in a PowerPoint [].  The main concern was

whether or not students who were not earning credit for courses should be banned from

receiving the Student Survey of Instruction for those courses.

Chair Kaplan asked whether those students were getting the surveys currently.

Senator Bhargava replied that they were and that it would take a while to implement a process

that would take them away.

Senator Boyd-Swan moved to have non-credit earning students be removed from the list of those

receiving SSIs. Senator Nickels seconded the motion.

Chair Kaplan invited comments or questions.

Senator Seelye mentioned that people at his campus did not want senior guests to get SSIs. He

said his biggest fear is that in the current political climate, a non-credit student could be used as a

test case to abuse the SSI system.

Senator Vachon said that one way to get around this problem would be to make sure that senior

guests never get evaluations and added that another way was to not have the results not

be generated in official reports.

Lead Applications Support Analyst Paul Creed III said that excluding guest students from either

the reported results or the distribution of SSIs would involve an equal amount of work.

A senator asked whether there was a quorum to be able to vote on the matter.

Secretary Dauterich confirmed there was a quorum.

There were no further comments or questions.

          The motion passed.

10.   Old Business

Senator Bhargava made a motion to amend the recently passed workload policy to reflect concerns of 12-month faculty. The motion was "to revise the sentence in Section B of Policy 3342-6-18 stipulating the full-time workload for tenured and tenure-track faculty on a 12-month contract by replacing ‘thirty-two (32) credits’ with ‘twenty-nine (29) credits’ and to revise the sentence in Section C of Policy 3342-6-18 stipulating the full-time workload for full-time non-tenure-track faculty on a 12-month contract by replacing ‘forty (40) credits’ with ‘thirty-six (36) credits’."

Senator Deborah Smith seconded the motion.

Chair Kaplan invited discussion.

There were no comments or questions.

The motion passed unanimously.

11.   New Business

There was no new business.

12.   Additional Items

       There were no additional items.

13.     Announcements/ Statements for the Record

Chair Kaplan invited announcements or statements for the record from the floor.

Graduate Student Senate representative Nisar delivered the following statement:

“The Graduate Student Senate invites faculty to serve as judges for the 40th Annual Graduate Research Symposium, taking place March 19–20, 2026. This year’s theme is Science Communication and Public Speaking. 

As mentors and evaluators, your presence matters. Graduate students from across the university will be presenting their research. Your feedback and recognition not only shape the judging process but also signal that their work is seen, valued, and taken seriously.

Over $6,000 in awards are at stake. Flexible judging slots are available, and all faculty are welcome to attend our Friday luncheon and awards ceremony. We will also have a Judges’ Lottery.”

She also provided information for those wishing to judge or learn more about the Symposium (, . The deadline to sign up is February 13, 2026.

Senator Torres delivered a statement [}.

There were no further comments or questions.

14.    Adjournment                                                  

Chair Kaplan adjourned the meeting at 6:44 p.m.

          Respectfully submitted by Edward Dauterich

          Secretary, Faculty Senate