September 19th, 2025
ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
FACULTY SENATE MEETING
September 19th, 2025
Reynolds 222
Attendees: Amanda Mohler, Audrey Folsom, John Hershberger, Julie King, Jason Causey, Suzanne Melescue, Anne McGee, Dwayne Powell, Stephanie Hoeckley, Jamie Pasmore, Rob Williams, Karen Graham, Bana Aghayeebianeh, Eric West, Kristen Sumler, Kim Vickrey, Alexandr Sokolov, Richard Segall, Hao Yang Teng, Eric Dry, Scott Mangan, Donna Caldwell, Savannah Cormier, Toccara Carter, Mark Lewis, Bert Greenwalt, Ibrahim Duyar, Pradeep Mishra, Rollin Tusalem, Gary Edwards, Robert Bradley, Veronika Scudamore, DayDay Robinson, Maj. Jeremey Matt Weeks
Proxy Attendees: Addie Fleming for Kacie Altom, Fredrick Webb for Rashele Wade
Guests: Kevin Hennings (parliamentarian), Russ Hannah, Todd Shields, Calvin White, Will McLean, Alyssa Wells, Ray Benson, Tom Moore, Matt Harmon, Johnny Richwine
Absentees: Khem Aryal, Marceline Thompson-Hayes, Veena Kulkarni, Guolei Zhou
The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm.
Order of the Day: Motion to approve the order of the day by Eric Dry, seconded by Eric West, all are in favor, the motion carried.
Approval of Minutes: The motion to approve the September 5th, 2025 meeting minutes by Richard Segall, seconded by Rob Williams, all are in favor, and the motion carried.
Chancellor & Provost Q&A
- Provost: Thank you for all the hard work and welcome. Smoothest start in the last 5 years because of the work and changes put in tplace. Thank you for teaching larger classes. This is good for financial security. All metrics are going in the right direction. Wingate Hall and Vet school are well underway. Record enrollment. Freshman class of 2300 students, 2100 on campus.
- Chancellor: 2nd visit for the vet school in January, MArch approval, students admitted in Fall 2026. Freshmen to Physician got over 100 million views. NYIT is expanding their DO cohort and adding a PA program. We may renovate the Education Leadership building (or demolish it) to expand NYIT. Workforce project with ASU-Newport and ANC partnership (students start there and finish with us) like the PEAK innovation center. Steel testing and research center moves forward. We can be the third-party tester for steel testing. 800 school closings last year. We are staying ahead of it. Number of 18 yr olds is down. Board passed an increase in tuition and fees. We made sure we were still cheaper than competitors. It did not hurt enrollment.
- Considering the current practices taking place throughout the nation, what is the University and University Police doing to ensure the safety of international students?
We are meeting with those students in private (for their protection) and they have a plan. As a state institution we must comply with the law. Dr. Hannah: we have had extensive conversation with UPD about our concern for our students. We have had discussions about protocol with UPD and legal counsel.
- Learning Support Services states that, "there is not an established resource to assist students with reading, but we are working towards remedying that." (Kyle Walker, 9/16/25). Can you inform us about the status of this remedy? Will the remedy be robust enough to fully meet the need, considering high school seniors have had the worst reading scores since 1992?
Learn to read until 3rd grade, then read to learn. This is a national trend. We have beefed up UC to address this issue. We are supporting this effort by increasing the resources of UC. We are dealing with these issues.
- On the agenda for A-State’s Board of Trustees meeting, a discussion was held to rescind the current telecommuting policy and replace it with a new remote work policy. Can you update the faculty on this policy change and explain what it means for the faculty?
That was tabled and not passed. It must be in compliance with the governor’s executive order that applies to executive administrators like the provost and chancellor (they cannot be remote). We are making sure that the policy makes sense. From now on you must be in a contiguous state to be hired into AOS in a remote work position. A system level policy. This is due to workmen’s compensation programs and healthcare coverage. Tenure-track positions will not be 100% online.
- Parking: parking passes for adjuncts – can the cost be adjusted? That is a valid point. We do have enough parking on campus. You will have to walk more.
New Business
Dr. Hannah.
1. Equity pool of $60,000 – why is it so small, can we make it higher? It would have to come through the budget process. It would have to come from somewhere else.
Provost - Legal does have our updated faculty equity policy. It will come before the Faculty Senate for feedback soon. We can evaluate it with the one that the Faculty Senate Equity Committee has developed.
2. Outstanding balances from the Fall term will prevent students from registering for Spring classes. Can we put a framework in place to help students register? We will work with any students that need help. Refer students to the emergency fund for issues that come up and are hard to deal with.
The Chancellor and Provost thank you for all your hard work.
Old business
Committee Reports
Equity Policy – can we look at the policy with all the feedback soon? A suggestion is that a letter of recommendation could come from the faculty senate committee, or maybe from PRT committee to support pay equity requests. How would we deal with the workload? Do we need to form a university-level committee for Equity? Do we need to work with the budget committee to increase the equity pool?
Toccara brought up concerns about the students’ high bills and their inability to purchase books for their classes. She suggests doing inclusive access through the bookstore so they have the book for the class at the beginning of the class and it is billed as part of the tuition. It is a higher price for some books. A kit can be a book. Toccara will send info about this.
The meeting was adjourned by Amanda Mohler at 3:39 pm
Minutes recorded by Audrey Folsom, approved on 10/3/2025 (uploaded to KB 10/14/2025)