# September 6th, 2025

#### **ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY**

#### **FACULTY SENATE MEETING**

#### **September 6, 2024**

#### **Reynolds 222**

**Attendees:** Katie Camden, Dwayne Powell, Alexander Sokolov, Shanon Brantley, DayDay Robinson, Suzanne Melescue, Gary Edwards, Ed Salo, Kim Vickrey, Robert Williams, Ibrahim Duyar, Rollin Tusalem, Toccara Carter, Bert Greenwalt, Richard Segall, Guolei Zhou, Sarah Scott, Jessica Curtis, Scott Mangan, Savannah Cornier, Eric Dry, Donna Caldwell, Stephanie Hoeckley, Hung-Chi Su, Hao Yang Teng, Paul Finnicum, Veena Kulkarni, John Hershberger, Khem Aryal, Pradeep Mishra, Audrey Folsom, Mark Lewis

**Proxy Attendees:** Karen Graham for Sarah Scott, Addie Fleming for Trinity Pullam, Fredrick Webb for Raschele Wade

**Guests:** Tom Moore

**Absentees:** LTC J. Morgan Weatherly

**Meeting Called to Order:** Ed Salo established a quorum. The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm by Ed Salo.

**Passing of the Gavel:** Succession of new Faculty Senate President, Amanda Mohler.

**Order of the Day:** Motion to approve the order of the day by Audrey Folsom, seconded by Donna Caldwell, all in favor, motion carried.

**Approval of Minutes:** One edit to correct word in section 3B. Motion to approve the April 19, 2024 meeting minutes by Katie Camden, second by Paul Finnicum, all in favor, motion carried.

**Election Senate Secretary:** Audrey Folsom volunteered for the Faculty Senate Secretary position, seconded by John Hershberger, all in favor, Audrey is the new Faculty Senate Secretary

##### **Provost Q&A:** 

 Dr. Calvin White welcomed everyone back on campus and highlighted the growth experienced on and off campus and all the changes that made this growth possible. Dr. White laid out 4 goals for our campus:

1. **Advising**: we are fundamentally changing advising, including a change to the registration format because of the many mistakes and issues that were happening 
    - The FASFA changes are hard for faculty to keep up with
    - Advising is not mandated by the Chancellor
    - Conversations are happening across campus about advising and what it should look like, the Deans are involved, and concerns of the chairs and faculty should be voiced and addressed.
    - Your degree plans should be up-to-date.
    - Professional advisors will not replace faculty mentorship (which is what we are currently calling advising) but will keep up with the financial aid implications and keep the students updated.
    - Only 2% graduate with no course substitutions, this needs to change
2. **Centralized Scheduling** is coming for Fall 2025 
    - We are the only school in the state not doing this
    - This will help us account for where everyone is at any point in time, in case of an emergency (think active shooter)
    - We will have exceptions for lab spaces and sim labs that are dedicated to or used by specific programs
    - The system we will be using to do this is Coursedog [https://www.coursedog.com/](https://www.coursedog.com/)
3. We are revamping the **A-State webpage**. It is outdated. 
    - The new site will go live next summer
    - We will seek feedback from all programs, departments, …
    - This is imperative for HLC and ADA compliance
    - We are on an old platform that is no longer used by anyone in the business
4. Accountability to **goals**
    - We have full parking lots and full classes, and we are hiring more people
    - These are good things, every campus has these issues (parking,…)
    - We are teaching more, or larger classes.
    - White announced a plan for a bonus in November. This is a one-off. Raises will still have to wait. We have decades of losses, and it will take a while to turn it around. We have $60,000,000 of deferred maintenance that needs to be done.
    - Our classes are fuller, which is a good problem, but we should not be expecting to be paid more to teach full classes.
    - We have over 16,000 students enrolled, a 12% growth, 48% are online and 62% are in person. This is due to our new enrollment strategy. We beat UCA by every metric.
    - There will be a campaign around Honors College to improve it
    - The Provost will teach a class next fall.
    - Salaries will be addressed as we get more students on campus. We are headed in the right direction. We are going to change more. The goal is to increase by another 10% for next year.
5. Questions from the Faculty Senate: 
    - Question about how the centralized scheduling will work. The system will assign you a classroom, it will not dictate when and what you teach (only where you teach).
    - Question about what to expect for this legislative session: it will focus on Higher Ed this January. If they could change our funding formula, it would help us. We are 41% funded by the state. Also, an anti-DEI legislation proposal is coming. We will fight for DEI. Will we see the same issues with tenure as Florida and Texas? We will fight for our faculty.
    - Another question about centralized scheduling: will there be a location priority or stratification? You could be assigned to teach anywhere on campus. Only labs and sim labs can be assigned exclusively to certain programs.
    - Questions for the Provost or Chancellor can be submitted via this Qualtrics form: [https://astate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV\_4JctnSrgsZuB7tI](https://astate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4JctnSrgsZuB7tI)

**Election of Vice-President:** John Hershberger self-nominated to serve as Vice-President. Motion to approve John Hershberger as Vice president by Paul Finnicum, seconded by Ed Salo, all in favor, John continues as Vice President for this term..

**Reappointment of Parliamentarian:** Kevin has agreed to continue to serve as Parliamentarian

##### **New Business:** Amanda Mohler asked, what are our needs?

- Speed up the faculty hiring process – it takes too long and it is too complicated.
- What is centralized advising going to look like? The general advising hold has been lifted for all students. How will this impact students’ matriculation through programs? The bulletin still states that student advising is needed. We will invite someone to talk about centralized advising and centralized scheduling at upcoming Faculty Senate meetings.
- Concern about parking issues and students getting access to prime parking (paid for) when it takes years for faculty to have the same access.
- There is a rumor that the Chancellor is leaving (?)
- We need rank development for non-tenured faculty (instructors). Alexander Sokolov has agreed to chair this committee. Any faculty can serve on this committee, they do not have to be a faculty senator. The committee simply needs to be chaired by a faculty senator. If you want to serve on this committee, please reach out to Dr. Alexander Sokolov.
- What about the Pay Equity Committee? Does the Provost still want this? It will be a standing committee.

##### **Old Business:** Any reports? None

Our goal is to deliver the meeting minutes a week before the next meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 4:01 by Dr. Amanda Mohler

Minutes prepared by Dr. Audrey Folsom and approved on 9/20/2024 (uploaded to KB on 10/14/2025)