You can speak out at next Monday’s (6/13) Faculty Senate meeting.
Read below for more information!
At Monday’s faculty senate meeting (June 6th), both President Percy and Provost Jeffords denied the request to halt the Program Review and Reduction Process (PRRP).
The request to stop the process pointed out the lack of transparency and poor communication as the process has been executed over this past academic year, as well as concerns highlighted in APRCA’s report to Faculty Senate.
Because the Faculty Senate was not able to complete all of its regular business at Monday’s meeting, an additional meeting has been called. That meeting will be focused on the PRRP.
Next Monday, June 13th at 3PM, the Faculty Senate will convene to:
- Ask questions of the Provost and President in light of their responses to the request to halt the process; and
- Entertain the APRCA Resolution (on page 64 of the Faculty Senate Packet) that demands APRCA’s Guiding Principles and Priorities be utilized as units continue Phase III of the process.
Now is the time to speak out!
The Phase III targeted units are: Applied Linguistics, Conflict Resolution, Educational Leadership & Policy, International & Global Studies, and Theater Arts.
Adding salt to the wound, the Provost shared with the Senate on Monday that each Phase III unit is receiving $25,000 “support” to write additional reports over the summer — a time when instructional faculty typically are off-contract, doing research, writing publications, and in many cases doing additional work to support their families.
Let’s call the $25,000 “support” what it really is: it’s an insulting kind of payoff to get Phase III targeted unit faculty to participate in harming their own programs and students for no discernible reason.
We have heard members describe the Provost’s process as traumatizing, callous, and polarizing. Although the Provost remarked during the Senate that the program reduction (i.e., people cuts) is a “one-time process,” even if that were true, why should any of us believe that at this point? And why should these 5 unit faculty, staff, and students be harmed as the price of that promise?
For the health of the entire university, PSU-AAUP urges all faculty to attend and speak out at this coming Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting as a show of solidarity and mutual support to the five units that have been senselessly targeted for Phase III.
You can voice your opposition to this PRRP process by speaking at the Senate floor. The PSU-AAUP urges other faculty (i.e., non-Senators) to reach out to their current Senators and request to be “given the Senate floor” on Monday, June 13th. (Of note: A faculty member has to be officially recognized by a senator to speak.)
“How can I attend the Faculty Senate meeting? How can I speak on the Senate floor?”
Information regarding meeting materials and streaming information can be found here, at the Faculty Senate materials and calendar page. The link to observe the Faculty Senate meeting goes to a Youtube stream; that link is posted shortly after the meeting starts on that calendar page.
If you'd like to speak during the Faculty Senate meeting, contact your Senator. Your senator can send you a different link that allows you to speak on the floor.
To learn more about the financial position of the University, please join AAUP for our Howard Bunsis watch party, held both in person and on Zoom.