Shannon Davis

Mason Korea

Faculty Link: Expanding representation at Faculty Senate

Colleen Rich — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 17:00:08 +0000

Faculty Link: Expanding representation at Faculty Senate Colleen Rich Thu, 03/11/2021 - 12:00

By now you have seen the announcement for the General Faculty meeting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 17. This is a critical meeting for all faculty to attend. It is the first General Faculty meeting since 2000 where business will be conducted, and a quorum is required.

We are proposing to increase the number of elected representative members by one (1) Senator in order to accommodate those faculty who do not have primary affiliation in a collegiate unit. These faculty are primarily those who have appointments in INTO Mason and the Honors College, as well as others. They comprise a substantial number of faculty who lack a voice in the Senate and thus a direct voice in making recommendations to the administration on university governance.

To make this change, we must approve amendments to the Charter of the Faculty Senate. The charter, which supersedes the bylaws, specifies the membership of the Faculty Senate and how the members are allocated from each collegiate unit.

Should the amendments pass, members of the General Faculty who are not affiliated with one of the colleges or schools would be pooled together as an independent academic unit. This pooled unit and all collegiate units will have at least one elected Senator to represent them.

Other proposed changes to the charter are clarifications to existing policies and/or the removal of archaic language.

But the key amendment is the inclusion of a voting member to the Senate to represent those members of the General Faculty who are currently unrepresented.

The only way in which these members of the General Faculty can be given a voting member is for a quorum of the General Faculty to vote in the affirmative for the change. Since the quorum to conduct a vote is 10% of the General Faculty, it is imperative that we have sufficient faculty present and voting.

I urge you to attend the General Faculty meeting and to vote to extend a senator to the currently unrepresented members of our General Faculty. And then I urge you to stay at the General Faculty meeting for updates from, and an opportunity for dialogue with, the president, provost, and senior vice president on key initiatives. To attend the General Faculty meeting, click the Zoom link at 3 p.m. Wednesday March 17. I look forward to seeing you there.

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Faculty Link: Governance, participation, and engagement

Colleen Rich — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 15:39:52 +0000

Faculty Link: Governance, participation, and engagement Colleen Rich Thu, 02/25/2021 - 10:39

In my last column, I wrote about the role of the Faculty Senate as the elected body representing the General Faculty.

I want to first take a step back and share what I think many of us are feeling: I miss having faculty meetings and Faculty Senate meetings face-to-face. I miss being able to read the feel of the room, to join in excited discussion, or hear the change in someone's voice that is accompanied by body position change that signals frustration or concern.

This means I am hyper-aware of the need for inclusion in participation among my colleagues when we have our governance meetings. Not everyone can see a change in body language when you have more than100 people on a Zoom call; ensuring that people have a chance to participate prevents the silencing of diverse ideas during discussion.

However, this also requires a level of trust that the meeting space will be treated as a place where civil discourse is privileged and community norms regarding meeting protocols are given primacy. I'm sure my colleagues across campus who study technology-mediated communication could provide ample resources on this, but I know my own personal experience has suggested that it is easier to have a misunderstanding when having a conversation via Zoom than it is sitting in a room next to someone.

The dialogue and debate that occurs during Senate meetings—and indeed in any faculty governance setting (such as college/school and department/program-level meetings)—requires that the participants are ready to engage in full and honest debate, having prepared themselves as best possible for the discussion at hand, trusting that their colleagues have done the same. This process also requires trusting that our colleagues will hear us when we respectfully disagree.

As an elected body, it is our responsibility to listen to and represent the General Faculty during our Faculty Senate meetings. As the agendas are published a week in advance, it is incumbent upon senators to seek input from those in their college or school on the topics that will be coming before the body for discussion and vote.

We can agree that the senate agendas have become quite long. However, I would argue that is a good thing, because the agendas now reflect the ongoing work of the faculty as we enact shared governance. Committees report at each regularly scheduled meeting, providing an opportunity for reciprocal dialogue between committees and the senate regarding committee work. This dialogue helps inform the work that committees do on behalf of the General Faculty.

Healthy debate is a cornerstone of the democratic process and the governance process. That debate requires preparation for the conversations at hand, and our willingness to ask hard questions and hear unwelcome answers. And it also requires that we trust our colleagues to be engaged in the process in good faith. As we move into a time where the university is discussing transformations of who we are at our intellectual core as well as in our physical environment, it is incumbent upon us as faculty to bring our diverse theoretical, methodological, and epistemological approaches to each conversation while honoring the process through which we have committed to engage.

I look forward to the dialogues that will occur around the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force recommendations presented this week, as well as the next steps suggested by the Master Planning Steering Committee. I look forward to launch of the Mason Innovation Commission, which will be tasked with thinking about who we can become as a university. I look forward the community engagement with the materials produced by each of these groups, as we collectively work to shape where ��AV is going next through civil discourse, good faith engagement, and trust that our colleagues who have represented the faculty in these efforts have done so authentically.

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Faculty Link: Ensuring faculty representation through expanded opportunities for interaction

Colleen Rich — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 16:43:41 +0000

Faculty Link: Ensuring faculty representation through expanded opportunities for interaction Colleen Rich Thu, 01/28/2021 - 11:43

The new year is upon us. In the United States, a new set of elected officials are going to work on behalf of Americans. Being so close to the nation's capital, I often think about what it means to serve as an elected representative, albeit the faculty at this institution.

The Faculty Senate represents the General Faculty as defined by the Faculty Handbook. While individual senators are representative of their college or school, they are asked to serve the full General Faculty through the lens of their unit.

What this means is that all members of the General Faculty have the opportunity to have their voice heard through someone sitting on the Senate. The job of the Faculty Senate is to not focus on any one college or school, but instead to do our best to ensure that faculty members’ experiences are represented to the administration.

Representing the faculty requires that the Faculty Senate know the concerns opinions and experiences of the General Faculty. In some colleges and schools, it is easy for the senators to hear from their constituents because they are a small unit and are co-located. In other cases, where the college or school is large or spread across multiple buildings or campuses, the senators—pre-COVID-19—had a more difficult time regularly connecting with the General Faculty in their college or school. In addition, the Faculty Senate as a body does not have a regular mechanism through which to hear from the faculty.

The governing bodies in the colleges and schools have their own individual mechanisms for hearing from the General Faculty in their units. For example, in my home unit, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the chair of our faculty assembly created a Teams group for our senators. This provides us with a space to meet as senators and discuss senate issues. It also means we have an email address through which any faculty member in the college can contact us.

Beginning this semester, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee will hold a virtual coffee chat each Friday after a regularly scheduled Faculty Senate meeting. This coffee chat will be open to all General Faculty members. This time will allow any General Faculty member, including senators, to meet with members of the Senate Executive Committee and let us hear from you. As there are more than 1,400 full-time faculty members, plus many part-time faculty currently employed at Mason, it is difficult for the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to know all of the issues that are important to the faculty. This coffee chat time will provide an opportunity for General Faculty members to connect with current Faculty Senate leadership.

I also strongly encourage all General Faculty members to reach out to the senators who represent them from their college or school with questions or concerns. This will help senators know the issues that are important and can begin working to address them through the appropriate governance mechanisms.

I know that I miss walking across campus and running into people and having spontaneous conversations under the trees. I look forward to the time when we can do that again en masse. Until then, let's use the virtual space that we have in front of us to connect with each other in ways that are focused on the benefit of the public good that is the general faculty of ��AV. I wish each of you the best as we begin this new semester.

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Faculty Link: Marking the past but looking forward

Colleen Rich — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 19:12:45 +0000

Faculty Link: Marking the past but looking forward Colleen Rich Thu, 12/10/2020 - 14:12

I used to like the adage “Hindsight is 20-20” as a reminder of the value of reflecting on the past. Now, I’m not so sure I’ll be using that phrase ever again.

The year 2020 will be forever marked in my mind both as a comparison referent for the idyllic past and the (hopefully) more predictable future. As an institution, ��AV will be able to mark that 2020 was a year of change, a year of challenge and a year of hope built in our community.

I had the honor of ushering in 2020 as co-chair of the Presidential Search Committee. When the Board of Visitors announced that Dr. Gregory Washington would become the eighth president of the university, the feeling of hope that blanketed the campus was palpable. Dr. Washington’s story is the Mason story, giving students someone in the office they knew could understand their lives. The search process had been conducted in a way that reflected the respect that the Board of Visitors had for the university, the Faculty Handbook, and the candidates. The welcome event on Feb. 27 represented change for the university as the community came together to celebrate our future.

And then came March. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in some of the greatest challenges the university has faced, moving all instruction online overnight, requiring faculty, staff and students to completely rethink our approach to our work. We completed the semester safely, our students graduated, and we began the challenging task of figuring out how to navigate the uncertain financial and public health circumstances around us that resulted. The “Tiger Team” presented options for reopening the university in the fall; Faculty Senate held an open forum that documented the deep concerns of faculty for the education of Mason students, but also our own health and safety as well as that of our families.

On May 25, the world watched as George Floyd was killed. Black Lives Matter as a social movement had continued to mark the passing of the Black and Brown lives ended through police violence, but the world was at a different place in May. Mason students, faculty and staff were in a different place. Mason was a different place.

Fast forward through the summer, when Dr. Washington joined the campus community and challenged us to address the key issues of the time: structural racism, the pandemic and the post-pandemic world. Mason faculty had been an integral part of the Safe Return to Campus Plan, participating in all facets of the preparation and implementation of the fall reopening. Mason faculty had already risen to the challenge by joining Stearns Center learning communities to prepare to teach classes online: 298 faculty joined 14 cohorts to prepare for summer classes and 342 faculty joined 13 cohorts to prepare for fall. This fall, Mason faculty taught 9,279 courses, 5,573 of them fully online, 3,335 face-to-face, and 371 in a hybrid format. And 70 more faculty have joined five cohorts to prepare to teach online in the spring.

Mason faculty joined staff and students on the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force, turning our disciplinary and research training inward to create a plan for building the community we believe reflects our values of inclusion. Anti-racism, diversity, inclusion and equity will not be buzz words at Mason but will be the foundations of our intellectual community. And foundations are built through collaborative engagement, difficult decision making, spirited discussions and ultimately the emergence of a shared vision of the future. These foundational activities are those in which Mason faculty are ready to engage.

As we look forward to 2021, Mason faculty will continue to welcome students into our intellectual community, providing courses and degree programs that push them to be more than they thought they could be; we will continue to welcome new faculty to be part of the community as well. Mason faculty will continue to engage in all levels of governance at the university, providing informed, spirited engagement on the key issues that face us as a university community. The Faculty Senate will continue to engage actively with the administration on these issues on behalf of the faculty.

But for now, I hope that each of you is able to take a moment to stop and reflect on how 2020 has changed you, taught you something about yourself you didn’t know. Be kind to yourself, because as part of our community, I am looking forward to your partnership in the spring.

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Faculty Link: Take the opportunity to engage in democracy wherever you can

Colleen Rich — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 09:00:17 +0000

Faculty Link: Take the opportunity to engage in democracy wherever you can Colleen Rich Fri, 10/30/2020 - 05:00

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Faculty Link: Notes from the Faculty Senate Chair

Colleen Rich — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 09:00:30 +0000

Faculty Link: Notes from the Faculty Senate Chair Colleen Rich Fri, 10/16/2020 - 05:00

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Safe Return to Campus