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BFA May Assembly Meeting

View the May General Assembly Photo Gallery

 

The BFA held it's final meeting of academic year 2023-2024 on Thursday, May 2, 2024 in-person at the Chancellor's Hall in the CASE building. 

  1. Address to Assembly – Provost Russell Moore gave representatives updates on a number of areas that Academic Affairs has been working on this year including:
  • Dean Searches:
    • Arts & Sciences – in conversations with leadership and A&S Faculty Senate (ASFS) regarding current structure and the path forward for search.
    • School of Education – search for new dean will begin soon.
  • APS5060 Faculty Appointments –
    • Lecturers – BFA Chair Shelly Miller is part of working group looking to resolve the current issue of departments relying on temporary positions instead of creating more permanent multi-year contracts as Teaching Professors.
    • Teaching Professors – job codes have been created to match the new titles and new offer letters will be coming in the next few months.
  •  Updates on campus
    • Meeting new Higher Learning Commission accreditation processes with more frequent benchmarking requirements
    • The financial outlook on campus is better than many peers since the lack of state support has required CU to work on different funding models for a long time.
  • Faculty 50 Years of Service – The Provost acknowledged both awardees for this year although they were not able to join the meeting:
    • Martin Bickman, English
    • Phil DiStefano, Education
  • . System Legal has recommended changes that include treating anonymous student letters as outside solicited feedback due to privacy concerns. is asking for faculty feedback on this proposed change. The majority of representative feedback was not in favor of this change. EPUS Chair Ravinder Singh encouraged representatives to ask their colleagues to email feedback to the BFA in order to be passed on to VP of Academic Affairs Mike Lightner.
  1. BFA FCQ Resolutions – Shelly Miller, BFA Chair

After receiving many comments on the campus FCQ process related to the resolution introduced in April, the BFA Executive Committee recommended withdrawing the resolution on open comments only, and instead to recommend campus create a task force to review the full FCQ process and make recommendations on the following questions:

  1. What processes do AAU peer universities utilize for student course evaluations and for course improvement based on student course evaluations?
  2. Do AAU peer universities utilize student course evaluations as part of faculty merit review and/or reappointment, promotion and tenure review? If so, how? 
  3. Are there academic units on campus that have enhanced their course evaluation processes based on recommended practices?
  4. Should information be added to the FCQ instrument to provide students with a better understanding about how academic units utilize FCQ results, why student feedback matters, and how to provide constructive feedback, in particular for open comment sections? 
  5. How can the university better provide students with guidance on reporting inappropriate faculty behavior and on available campus support services? 

Members unanimously approved withdrawing the open comments resolution. The new resolution will be voted on at the September 5, 2024 Assembly meeting. Representatives are asked to share this resolution with their colleagues and to provide feedback through August 23, 2024.

  1. BFA-M-2-031824 Create the BFA Campus Operations & Resources Committee 

Approved with 47 votes in favor; 0 opposed; and 3 abstentions. BFA Chair Shelly Miller appointed Peter Hamlington, Mechanical Engineering as chair, and the committee seats will be filled in September during committee elections. If you or one of your colleagues is interested, please email bfa@colorado.edu for more information.

  1. Recognition for BFA & Campus Service for Rolf Norgaard, PWR and Andrea Feldman, PWR.

BFA Chair Shelly Miller presented Norgaard and Feldman with certificates of appreciation from the BFA for the many years of contributions to faculty shared governance and to campus policies ranging from Teaching Faculty (Instructor) rights, contracts, pay, and titles to recognition of DEI in the FRPA and departmental merit review processes. Norgaard and Feldman are retiring this spring. The BFA wishes them well!

  1. BFA Elections Announcement

All three nominees were elected for a second term of one year. Please join us in congratulating:

  • Alastair Norcross, Philosophy – BFA Vice Chair
  • Vicki Grove, Germanic & Slavic Literature & Languages – BFA Secretary
  • Adam Norris, Applied Math – BFA Executive Committee At-Large Representative

 

 

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