LFA General Assembly - Minutes - November 13, 2020

Library Faculty Assembly Fall 2020 General Meeting

Friday, November 13, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Approved Tues., April 20, 2021

Members in attendance: Angie Rathmel, Elspeth Healey, Scott McEathron, L.Marie Avila, Betsaida M. Reyes, Marcella Huggard, Fran Devlin, Kevin Smith, Miloche Kottman, Marianne Reed, Michael Peper, Lea Currie, Lars Leon, Michiko Ito, Amalia Monroe-Gulick, Scott Hanrath, Sarah G Thiel, Sally Haines, Sara Morris, Beth Whittaker, Kent Miller, Marcella Huggard, Deb Dandridge, Ada Emmett, Lea Currie, Jon Giullian, Geoff Husic, Andi Back, Vickie Doll, Mary Roach, Sara E. Morris

Agenda

  1. Approve minutes from Spring 2020 meeting.
  2. Dean's address
  3. LFA chair update
    • University Senate Libraries Committee
    • Web manager update
  4. Committee Updates
    • LFA Committees (LCPT, SLPTR)
    • University Committees
  5. General Discussion Topics
    • COVID-19 statements for promotion and tenure
  6. New Business

 

Minutes

Angie Rathmel, chair-elect, called the meeting to order at 10 am.

  1. Approved minutes from Spring 2020 meeting with addition of “introduced” to statement about new members by unanimous consent.
  2. Dean's address
    • Kevin Smith opened with acknowledging the difficulties and stresses of working during the pandemic. He encouraged people to have life-work balance, especially when working from home, and to treat each other with kindness.
      1. Budget
        • The university administration gave the deans and directors a detailed budget update on Monday, which Kevin related. Projected operating loss for university and affiliates is $119,440,000.00 . Approximately $47.6 million of a budgetary gap remains after cost saving measures (salary cuts, hiring freeze, Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP), and unit carryforward balance sweep). The university administration is considering the ways online learning has decreased enrollment and applications and factoring the impacts of these decreases into the need to streamline administrative work and assess academic programs.
          1. Libraries have not been asked to consider furloughs, but Kevin does expect a 5-7% budget cut for the libraries. Money was swept from the libraries budget for vacant positions in the current fiscal year, but that money should be returned in the next fiscal year to support staffing.
      2. Libraries Hiring Plan
        • By the end of the year, with the 11 people taking the VSIP, the libraries’ staff and faculty levels will be very low.
          1. Two staff jobs have been proposed and one is posted now.
          2. Five faculty hires were submitted and are listed with their statuses below:
            • Special collections cataloging coordinator -- approved
            • Research Engagement Librarian for the Sciences -- approved
            • Content development librarian: Humanities and African American Studies -- approved
            • Archivist for the Latinx and Latinx Experience -- expected to be carried over to the next fiscal year
            • Special Collections Librarian – expected to be carried over to the next fiscal year
      3. Potential Class Action Lawsuit against Publishers
        • Lowey Dannenberg, public interest class action law firm, hosted a web session to gauge university interest in participating in an anti-trust action against major journals in academia for price-fixing.
          1. University General Council was interested in more information.
          2. This is an ongoing conversation and library faculty should be discreet, Kevin cautioned.
      4. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) efforts continue in the libraries. There also is a university council focused on this, and Kevin is a member.
        •  The university committee is focusing on training opportunities for faculty and staff.
        • Libraries EDI committee will be issuing a statement of purpose and community guidelines soon.
          1. Courageous Conversations about Race is the book that cabinet and the EDI committee are reading.
      5. Spring semester forecast
        • University would like to see more in-person spring teaching, but Kevin is uncertain of the action plan for this. Spring will look very much like fall. Those working remotely will continue to do so. HathiTrust emergency access will continue and the stacks will remain closed to the public. The sprinklers are almost fully replaced in the center stacks.
  3. LFA chair update, Angie Rathmel provided on behalf of LFA Chair Brian Rosenblum
    • University Senate Libraries Committee (USLC)
      1. Angie provided an update on the yearly activities for USLC. The annual reports of the committee and its subcommittees are available through the University governance website. Areas of interest include digital newspaper subscriptions for libraries and campus; equity issues with database subscriptions; the review of journal title cuts and the need for libraries to provide campus updates on such cuts. USLC will likely divide into subcommittees to address these issues this year.
    • Web manager update
      1. Michelle Curtright has accepted 3-year term as web manager. Michelle will be responsible for updating libraries website.
  4. Committee Updates
    • LFA Committees (LCPT, SLPTR)
      1. Libraries Committee for Promotion and Tenure (LCPT)
        • Geoff Husic reported LCPT they had one promotion and tenure file this fall. The committee had a minor procedural problem concerning the code, which requires votes to be cast by anonymous paper ballot. LFA Executive determined that an anonymous Qualtrics survey would meet the spirit of the code and allow for the committee to function under the current circumstances.
        • Next year the committee expects several files for review and there will be three vacant positions on the committee (two full librarians and one associate librarian).
      2. Committee for Sabbatical Leave and Promotion and Tenure Review (SLPTR)
        • Scott McEathron reported that the committee reviewed one sabbatical review and anticipate several post-tenure reviews in the fall.
        • Kevin announced people will have the option to postpone their post-tenure review for a year due to COVID-19.  
    • LFSA Committees
      1. Code and Bylaws
        • Jon Giullian, former chair
          1. Code and Bylaws made updates to the code for post-tenure review in the past year. The code is currently up to date.
      2. Committee for Research and Scholarly Activity
        1. Michael Peper will provide a written update to acting chair due to short time
      3. EDI Steering Committee, submitted by L.Marie Avila
        1. Ongoing reading partnership with Cabinet, “Courageous Conversations about Race” 
        2. Oct. 28 the Student Senate Director of Diversity & Inclusion Humberto Gomez Salina attended the Libraries EDI meeting to build rapport and growing ideas in partnering.
        3. Members of the EDI committee shared the working documents, Statement of Purpose and Guiding Principles for review and feedback at the Organizational Manager’s Forum meeting on Nov. 12.

      4. University Committees
        1. International Affairs Committee
          1. Whitney Baker reported the committee had met once and will meet again to discuss how the OFFICE OF WHAT will interact with university and its students to better support
        2. Calendar Committee
          1. Miloche Kottman reported that the committee has received some requests about finals, particularly from Education students who have conflicts with internships and finals schedules.
        3. Faculty Senate Research Committee
          1. Lea Currie reported the committee has heard reports from Simon Atkinson, vice-chancellor for research, about research activity. Atkinson says research has resumed in all labs, increase in number of grants, but decrease in the number of accepted grants this year. Human subject research has not resumed unless it can be done remotely. Humanities research is delayed because it requires travel. The university is having a difficult time recruiting doctoral students at this time, which may have some impact on future research.
        4. Faculty Senate
          1. Lea Currie reported some angst among faculty senate about the consultants hired to review academic programs. These reviews will be shared with the Kansas Board of Governers (KBOR).
            1. Kevin added that faculty of any departments that are recommended for elimination will be absorbed into other programs.
  5. General Discussion Topics
    1. COVID-19 statements for promotion and tenure
      1. Michael Peper is a member of the University Design Team for Faculty Success along with Sara Morris. The committee has discussed the impact of COVID-19 on promotion and tenure and annual reviews. The committee is currently discussing the inclusion of an optional statement about the impact of COVID-19 on their files. The intent is to capture the different ways the pandemic has affected people’s work. Discussion of how long the optional statement would continue is also underway. Review committees also would be allowed to share how they incorporated the candidate’s impact statement into their review of the file. There are concerns about this being an additional burden to candidates, who may feel compelled to disclose personal information and that the process will introduce many biases into the review process.
        1. Discussion ensued about equity and privacy issues around this proposed measure.
          1. Ada Emmett suggested the committee ask deans or supervisors or unit review committees be responsible to writing a statement to address any effects of COVID-19 to protect the privacy rights of individuals.
          2. Betsaida Reyes suggested the committee survey promotion and tenure candidates.
        2. People may follow up with Michael or Sara for more input or information, and Michael will keep LFA informed of the ongoing discussion. 
  6. New Business
    • No new business.
  7. Meeting adjourned by unanimous consent at 11 am.