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February 21st, 2025

ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY SENATE MEETING

February 21st, 2025

Reynolds 222

 

Attendees: Amanda Mohler, Audrey Folsom, Argelia Lorence, Julie King, Alexandr Sokolov, Rollin Tusalem, Karen Graham, Shanon Brantley, Stephanie Hoeckley,  Rashele Wade, John Hershberger, Kristen Sumler, Savannah Cormier, Jessica Curtis, Pradeep Mishra, Trinity Pullam, Sarah Scott, Robert Williams, Donna Caldwell, Ed Salo, Suzanne Melescue, Hung-Chi Su, Guolei Zhou, Khem Aryal, Scott Mangan, Hao Yang Teng, DayDay Robinson, Mark Lewis, Richard Segall, Eric Dry, Bert Greenwalt, Gary Edwards, Paul Finnicum, Ibrahim Duyar, LTC Morgan Weatherly

Proxy Attendees: Trinity Pullam for Katie Camden,  

Guests: Calvin White, Will McLean, Alyssa Wells, Kevin Hennings (parliamentarian)

Absentees: Zahid Hossain, Kim Vickrey, Veena Kulkarni, Toccara Carter, Jamie Pasmore, Dwayne Powell

 

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm.

 

Order of the Day: Motion to approve the order of the day by Richard Segall, seconded by Rashele Wade all in favor, motion carried.

Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve the February 7th, 2025 meeting minutes by Richard Segall, seconded by Sarah Scott, all in favor, motion carried.

 

New Business: Provost Q&A

No questions submitted.

Comments from the provost:

Fall admit applications are up by 1600 more than last year. Now we must yield those. Spring orientation is coming up, on Saturdays. Please consider helping your college with those.

Current student mix: Online 50.5%, traditional 49.5% students

AOS is still growing, up 7%, and so are our traditional student numbers – this is healthy growth!

Research status, we are reaffirmed as R2 ($10.3 million research expenditure dollars reported)

The plan is to not drop the research status but to deepen it.

We had a large grant this year, but we are still up $3 million.

About the executive orders from the government (federal and state) – currently, no negative impact on the campus. We have been actively managing it.

Go look at the access bill from our governor that dropped last week. https://governor.arkansas.gov/news_post/sanders-announces-arkansas-access-higher-education-reform-legislation/

HB1512:  https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?id=HB1512&chamber=House&ddBienniumSession=2025%2F2025R  

We will be notified if negative impacts are coming.

Everything has been pretty quiet, so far.

Our chancellor was in Washington, DC 2 weeks ago to meet with senators and representatives. We are looking at expanding.

We are staying out of the fray.

Questions from the senators:

What role will the faculty have in the review process for performance review of faculty? (new HB1512 bill)

We are still weeding out the details. There is nothing concerning in the bill. The governor’s goal is for us to teach students how to think, not tell them what to think. The pushback from other higher education institutions is the common portal for the state (one fee to apply to all the state universities). But we are good with that because we will get access to a larger pool of applicants, our competitors are not liking it.

Question: why can’t we do online lessons when we have a snow day when we have proven we can do online well?

It disadvantages everyone who does not have internet access in rural areas. When students sign up for online modalities, they accept the online format. When they sign up for face-to-face, they may not have access to the internet from where they live. This is also part of HLC and ADHE’s truth in advertising requirement. If it is listed as traditional, it must be in a traditional format and it can’t be switched to online. You should also not be compelled to attend online meetings when the campus is closed due to winter weather conditions (for the same reason that it disadvantages anyone who may have lost internet connection or does not have reliable internet at home).

Senators expressed concern about indirect cuts and budget cuts from NIH, could it spread to other funding institutions? It is a real fear that it would be cut to a flat 15% and might spread to other funding sources. But we don’t have a lot of NIH money on our campus, so we are currently only minimally affected.

 

 

Old business:
  1. Committee Reports:
    1. IRB committee will meet next week
    2. The equity committee is finalizing a proposal
    3. The ombudsman committee is formed

 

The meeting was adjourned by Amanda Mohler at 3:33 pm.

Minutes prepared by Audrey Folsom, approved on 3/7/2025 (uploaded to KB 10/14/2025)

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