At the final general assembly meeting of the semester, the Boulder Faculty Assembly engaged with campus leadership on issues related to final exams and the preparation for fall semester. It also approved a resolution that criticizes the University of Colorado Board of Regents on its handling of an open records lawsuit regarding 抖阴旅行射鈥檚 presidential search last year.
BFA heard updates from 抖阴旅行射 Boulder Provost Russ Moore, Interim Chief Operating Officer Patrick O鈥橰ourke, Associate Vice Chancellor for Integrity, Safety and Compliance Dan Jones, Executive Vice Provost for Academic Resource Management Ann Schmiesing and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications Jon Leslie. The latter three are leading the committee heading up the campus鈥檚听transition planning for AY 2020-21.听听
Moore and O鈥橰ourke said those plans are constantly evolving and, at present, are focused on finding ways to safely 鈥渃onduct as many activities as we can on campus.鈥�
鈥淥ur students are hungering for a campus experience,鈥� Moore said.
Moore said the fall planning efforts are being guided first by 鈥渢he health and safety of faculty, staff and students, then operating in the most robust way to provide the academic experiences everybody needs, and thirdly providing a high-quality experience for faculty, staff and students.鈥澨�
O鈥橰ourke said the fall transition group would give him, Moore and 抖阴旅行射 Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano recommendations for transition in the coming two weeks.听
鈥淚t鈥檚 vital to maintain the physical health of the university community, and we鈥檙e not in a position to ask people to do anything unsafe to do that. It鈥檚 important to have options so that we can enroll a class and keep the university operational,鈥� O鈥橰ourke said.听
Moore, in response to concerns raised regarding faculty representation in the planning effort, assured the group that faculty were providing input to the process and expertise to the campus in areas including health and safety issues, and said that involvement would continue through the BFA 鈥渁long with every school and college and their shared governance groups.鈥澨�
Other highlights听
- Leslie said the open rates for听抖阴旅行射 Boulder Today听and COVID-19 planning updates were occasionally hitting 70 percent鈥攁 rise of about 20 percent over normal open rates. He noted the campus鈥檚听听is among the top three sites now being visited and that its idea box had generated more than 300 submissions in its first week.听
- Schmiesing reviewed how the transition team was interfacing with deans, who are gathering input on ideas submitted by faculty and others, and reviewed with the group the complexities the campus is working through, including how to achieve safe social distancing both inside the classroom and elsewhere on campus. Jones said he was focusing on a variety of health and safety issues, including having a fallback to remote learning in case there is an outbreak on campus, developing a plan to gradually transition to research operations starting with a small group of researchers returning to work and exploring testing the community for the virus.
Other BFA business听
- The assembly passed a resolution expressing condemnation of the recent decision of the 抖阴旅行射 Board of Regents to appeal a court ruling that held that it violated state law in how it revealed finalists in its 2019 presidential search. BFA member Alastair Norcross of Philosophy, citing the resolution, said the board鈥檚 action violated 鈥減rinciples of openness and transparency and is an egregious waste of resources.鈥澨�
- The assembly discussed and then referred back to the BFA membership a resolution calling for the 抖阴旅行射 Boulder administration to adopt a set of principles and policies to guide the campus鈥檚 response to the COVID-19 pandemic next fall. The membership will circulate the resolution with 抖阴旅行射 Boulder faculty colleagues for input before the BFA executive committee鈥檚 review on Monday, with a vote on the resolution by membership scheduled by as early as Tuesday.听
- OIT鈥檚 Director of Academic Technology Applications and Design Aisha Jackson briefed the assembly on efforts to provide Proctorio to the campus as an alternative to the recently announced Examity, the online听exam proctoring software, that earlier this week suffered an outage and support issues. 鈥淭hat is unacceptable and not up to our standards,鈥� Jackson said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e licensing with Proctorio for faculty who do not trust Examity; it has been used by the Leeds School for many years and in computer science.鈥� Jackson also said the IT Service Center is extending its hours this weekend from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 鈥渢o ensure our students will have access to technical support鈥� as final exams begin. The help is available at oithelp@colorado.edu or 303-735-4357. Jackson said OIT is working on an integration of Proctorio with Canvas that would be available as soon as Friday.
- The assembly approved the creation of a new standing committee鈥攁rising from an existing three-year ad hoc committee鈥攐n climate science and education.
