A professor, a college dean and a police officer walk into a… Zoom meeting.

It is not the start of a bad joke but, rather, a productive afternoon.

At a meeting of the University of Delaware’s Faculty Senate, held virtually on Monday, Oct. 4, much time was spent on important presentations given by three members of the University community. Topics included faculty assessment, graduate school happenings and campus safety. 

But first, Provost Robin Morgan addressed the crowd with a plea: Get tested for COVID-19, even if you are vaccinated and symptom-free.

“It is fast, free and convenient,” she said, adding that UD has the capacity for 1,500 surveillance tests per day, an underutilized resource. “Please take advantage of this.”

The first resolution passed by the Senate recommended that UD increase access to this resource by, among other avenues, adding additional testing time slots. Seventy-one percent of Senators voted in favor. The second, and final, resolution of the day recommended an extension of the deadline for students dropping a class, sans academic penalty, from week eight of the semester to week 11.

“I strongly support this,” said John Morgan, associate professor of physics and astronomy. He noted that the change, which was also in effect during the 2021 spring semester, will allow time for instructors to give two mid-term exams before students need to make a decision regarding their registration status. “I think it is a significant step forward.” Ninety-seven percent of Senators voted in favor.

When it was his turn to take the (virtual) podium, Matt Kinservik, vice provost for faculty affairs and professor of English, gave an update on the Working Group for Student Course Feedback, which has been researching concerns related to the utility and reliability of student evaluations as a measure of teaching quality. He and a team of people, including faculty, staff and representatives from the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning, conducted a review of recent scholarship on the issue as well as a review of promotion and tenure policies at UD.

“What we found — and what our report shows — is that student course evaluations figure very heavily into these policies at the University… and sometimes in problematic ways,” Kinservik said, adding that quality teaching is “more than just classroom performance. It is more than just what you see in those student ratings of instruction. So how do you account for all the other labor that goes into great teaching?”

To answer this question, the group developed a set of recommendations for Faculty Senate review at a later date. One suggestion is that UD create a common instrument for collecting student feedback, one focused more on learning opportunities and less on satisfaction with a given course and instructor. Another recommendation is that UD develop what is known as a teaching quality framework, or TQF, a model for richer assessment of instruction. Additionally, the working group hopes that UD departments will use a forthcoming report to evaluate departmental policies, and that the University will explore the feasibility of adopting a third-party student course feedback tool with strong reporting features.

“First of all, this is many years overdue, to establish a rubric for teaching quality,” said Alan Fox, professor of Asian and comparative philosophy and religion. “We’ve been talking about teaching quality for years — the difference between high quality and excellence — and we’ve never had a rubric for that. I think this is an incredibly important step in that direction.”

Speaking of important steps, Lou Rossi, dean of the Graduate College established at UD in 2019, presented his annual report on what he called “a very special mission:” achieving excellence in education, research, scholarship and creative expression.

The first step toward achieving this excellence is, Rossi said, “really building that welcoming, respectful, strong, diverse and resilient community.” To this end, the Graduate College is giving students a voice in the issues that affect them the most.

Equally important to success is innovation: offering new graduate programs, becoming a home for interdisciplinary programs and thinking outside the box when extending education to nontraditional learners, Rossi said.

Also central to the college’s mission is providing professional development opportunities for students. The unit has launched several initiatives, including an alumni and peer mentoring program and a series of short workshops on topics ranging from professional resilience to grant writing.

Efforts are also being made to recruit and retain the best students — see targeted international marketing campaigns and the launch of a Competitive Counteroffer Program to help sway potential Blue Hens deciding between similarly priced universities. Such work, Rossi said, has helped the graduate student population grow by 6.6% in one year. The Graduate College also works to enhance research and scholarship through fellowship programming and the Graduate Student Seminar Series, among other efforts.

“Whether we are working with the Graduate College Council, the graduate students or the other deans and their colleges, we want to be collaborative,” Rossi said.

As a late addition to the Faculty Senate agenda, Chief Patrick Ogden of the UD Police Department addressed concerns related to a limited building access program that his unit is piloting this fall.

Because the process of locking building doors on campus can be cumbersome, requiring an allen wrench, it can take a great deal of time to get to them all, Ogden said. This translates to some buildings being locked for only four hours per night, before custodial staff need to start the process of reopening. To mitigate any safety issues, the UDPD had begun unlocking only select doors and ADA-approved entryways at most buildings on the Newark and Lewes campuses. While all doors — locked or unlocked — are still exit-friendly at all times, and while UDPD is working closely with building managers to ensure that the most appropriate doors are open during standard weekday business hours, the pilot program has still generated complaints from some members of the campus community concerned about crowding, especially during a pandemic.

“I think it’s a risk-versus-reward kind of scenario,” Ogden said. “Are we more concerned about the inconvenience of going through certain doors only? Or are we more concerned about not if, but when, something bad will happen if we are leaving these buildings unlocked--with either no one or a limited amount of people inside?”

The solution, Ogden added, is to work toward a card access program which would eliminate the need for manual door locking at all. While a substantial investment — approximately $5 million for 100 campus buildings — it is an effective option that Provost Morgan called “certainly one of our priorities.”

In the meantime, Senate President Chris Williams, professor of wildlife ecology, announced that the Executive Committee has decided to explore via an ad hoc committee the value and feasibility of expanding the number of elected Senators, especially from underrepresented departments, and he put out a call for interested volunteers: “No guarantee we can fit everybody who might want to join, but we are certainly going to do our best.”

New Senate business included a resolution introduced by Senate President Chris Williams on behalf of the University of Delaware Antiracism Initiative recommending that UD and the Board of Trustees formalize a Living Land Acknowledgement recognizing that UD sits on historical lands of the Lenni Lenape and Nanticoke tribes and that UD commits to building future relationships with the tribes to identify formal initiatives that will support the academic opportunities, cultural expression, financial partnerships and mental well-being of Indigenous peoples. Senator Jonathan Russ introduced a resolution affirming UD’s commitment to vaccinations while assuring false narratives surrounding vaccination experimentation be removed.

Further information about the Faculty Senate, including meeting minutes and agendas, can be found on its website.