Faculty Senate

Solon Simmons looks for win-win opportunities in his role as Faculty Senate president

Melanie Balog — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:17:28 +0000

Solon Simmons looks for win-win opportunities in his role as Faculty Senate president Melanie Balog Wed, 09/04/2024 - 12:17

Solon Simmons, professor of conflict and analysis in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, enters his first year as the ��AV Faculty Senate president. At George Mason since 2006, Simmons has been a member of the senate for eight years. He also has served, among other roles, as interim dean for the Carter School and the university’s vice president for global strategy during the pivotal start-up years of Mason Korea.

The George caught up with Simmons to discuss the senate’s recent achievements, issues the group will be tackling this year, and how his academic expertise might serve him as Faculty Senate president.

Simmons

What do you consider some of the Faculty Senate’s major achievements in recent years, and what issues do you envision being focal points for the senate in 2024-25?

One thing that becomes immediately clear when you look at the history of the Faculty Senate here at Mason is the strong legacy of independent leaders who have served there. In just the past decade, we have seen significant growth in collaboration between faculty and administrative leaders. What stands out to me are the roles that senate leaders played in co-chairing the last presidential search, chairing the recent provost search, and in establishing new norms for the acceptance of financial support [of the university]. Faculty representatives have served on every major initiative in the university from promoting the rights of term faculty, to supporting Mason’s COVID-19 response, to developing the conversation about how to have difficult conversations across lines of difference.

This coming year will bring many challenges, but my hope is that we focus on our people, using evidence to center employee engagement and placing proper value on the contributions of both faculty and staff and helping to modernize and update our concept of what a university is for. We are here to pursue both excellence in knowledge and access to wisdom, and all of us—staff, student workers, tenured faculty, term faculty, and administrative/professional faculty—have an important role to play. The faculty job is changing, but in an era of automatic thinking and information overload, it is more important than ever.

How do think your expertise in peace and conflict resolution will serve you both within the Faculty Senate and as the faculty representative on the Board of Visitors?

I direct what’s called the Narrative Transformation Lab. Our baseline assumptions are that emotions matter as much as arguments do and that facts are only intelligible when situated in relation to values. From what I have seen of our new board members, they are very principled people who want the best for the university as articulated from their own point of view. Assuming that everyone brings the best intentions to the case makes it easier to look for those win-win opportunities that are almost always available if you search for them, and no one should forget that win-win is a peace and conflict resolution concept if not THE concept that defines the field.

From a global perspective, American universities have a real advantage over most other countries. Our decentralized structure allows and even forces each of our institutions to serve as global laboratories for the organization of knowledge, producing an intellectual ecology in which we have developed and sustained most of the best universities in the world. Look at the data. Whether it’s Nobel Prizes or global university rankings, the world still looks to the U.S., and increasingly the U.S. looks to Mason. The board members know what a great value proposition Mason is and they have no intention to compromise that. Our job is to make sure intentions match the available opportunities and to keep faculty centered in that conversation.

How significant of an issue is AI for Mason faculty? What sort of discussion is the Faculty Senate having about the implications of AI?

I’m really excited about AI, especially that part that works with language and writing. I like the metaphor of the old Texas Instruments calculator that people often use about the 1970s. We used to think of using a calculator as “cheating” just like we think of writing with the aid of a language model today. I use AI almost every day now, and I find it makes me that much smarter. It feels like what it was like in the ‘90s to start using Google and the other search engines that we had back then. You can just do so much more. Over the summer, the leadership team had a great presentation from a colleague at the University of Michigan who made a point that stuck with me: all good uses of AI require a human-in-the-loop. Maybe someday machines will tap into some form of universal consciousness and discover how to do without us, but so far, it looks like only the human being has the wisdom, contextual awareness, and moral judgment that is necessary to apply knowledge to meaningful problem solving.

If AI is not something to be afraid of but something to use, nevertheless, it really is time to wake up. What we mean by knowledge is changing and our modes of assessment will have to change along with that. It seems to me that AI places emphasis on lived experience and the present moment that will challenge all of us to grow in ways that will be both painful and exhilarating.

Since the pandemic, Faculty Senate meetings have taken place entirely on Zoom. Will that continue? Do you find that meeting virtually leads to greater engagement from senators and from faculty around the university?

There is nothing like face-to-face interaction, but we will continue to use Zoom for the actual Faculty Senate meetings. I think it’s just part of the new normal of higher education. Not only can a senator access the meeting from any one of our many campuses and locations (including Mason Korea), but this format allows for a much larger array of visitors to attend as well. I think the format expands the value of the senate to the university community and makes it easier and more efficient for us to manage our deliberations.

You’re coming up on two decades at the university. What are the major differences between the George Mason you came to in 2006 and the George Mason of today?

I will admit that the first I heard of ��AV was its famous Cinderella Final Four run in 2006, the year I arrived. Back then it was described almost like a commuter college with peaks or pillars of excellence. Now the university feels like a major player. In 2006, we were known for a variety of innovative and special programs like the old multidisciplinary Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (now the Carter School) that I joined. Now, we are good at almost everything we do, and getting better each year. I like President Washington’s line that this is the most competitive university environment in the country, and still we excel and grow. This is a great place to work and a great place to be a professor. My goal is to make the job even better.

Editor's note: Earlier versions of this story gave Simmons' rank as associate professor. We regret the error.

Topics

Faculty Senate

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Faculty and Staff News

Melissa Broeckelman-Post elected Faculty Senate Chair

Colleen Rich — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 21:07:21 +0000

Melissa Broeckelman-Post elected Faculty Senate Chair Colleen Rich Wed, 04/28/2021 - 17:07

Melissa Broeckelman-Post. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

The ��AV Faculty Senate on Wednesday elected Associate Professor of Communication Melissa Broeckelman-Post as chair for 2021-22. She ran unopposed.

Broeckelman-Post, at Mason since 2013, is the Basic Course Director in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and a senior scholar in the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.

A member of the Faculty Senate since 2014 and chair of the senate’s nominations committee since 2018, Broeckelman-Post served on the Mason Core committee for eight years, including four as co-chair. She has served on the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force’s Curriculum and Pedagogy Committee, the ADVANCE Advisory Committee, the Faculty Interests Working Group for Online University Expansion, and nearly a dozen other university committees, task forces, and working groups.

“All of those responsibilities required that I develop deep institutional knowledge and collaborate with others from across all parts of campus,” said Broeckelman-Post, currently Faculty Senate chair pro tempore. “In the work across all of those committees, I have seen faculty governance at work.

“I believe deeply in the importance of shared governance, I care deeply about the mission of our university, and I believe I can lead us in continuing to grow as a strong faculty working in collaboration with each other and the administration.”

Broeckelman-Post succeeds Shannon Davis, who is stepping down after serving two one-year terms as Faculty Senate chair. Next month Davis will begin a new post as associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at Mason’s Korea campus.

Broeckelman-Post earned her undergraduate degree in English and master’s in speech rhetoric and communication, both at Kansas State University. She earned her PhD in communication studies at Ohio University in 2009.

She was an assistant professor at California State University, Los Angeles, from 2009 to 2013 before joining the Mason faculty in 2013. Broeckelman-Post is the co-author of 33 peer-reviewed journal articles and three national communication textbooks.

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Faculty Senate

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Faculty Link: A time for transition and renewal

Colleen Rich — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 17:37:58 +0000

Faculty Link: A time for transition and renewal Colleen Rich Wed, 04/28/2021 - 13:37

Spring is always such a bittersweet time in the academy. We see renewal all around us, the trees bud and leaves spring forth, flowers bloom (and if you’re like me, your pollen sensors engage, too), and the sun and rain both seem more vibrant and present than before.

We also see our students graduating, leaving us (as they are supposed to do), having grown as people and intellectuals and poised to make a more powerful mark on the world around us. This is our job here at Mason, to prepare for this bittersweet moment, where we say both “Goodbye” and “Congratulations” to students who have helped us as faculty become even more engaged in our fields through our collaborations in the classroom.

For me, this is an even deeper feeling this year. I leave my role as Faculty Senate Chair after two terms, as I begin serving Mason in a new way as associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at Mason Korea on May 24. I am proud of the work the Senate has accomplished over the past two years, on issues including incorporating new members into the Senate, supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing key advice on all facets of the Safe Return to Campus plan, updating the Faculty Handbook to incorporate critical protections for faculty, and being part of the team to bring a new president to the university. I believe that shared governance at Mason is stronger as a result of our collective efforts.

The university is transitioning away from mostly virtual engagement to mostly in-person engagement in Fall 2021. So too will this column transition. Beginning this fall, columns from the Faculty Senate Chair will be housed on the Faculty Senate webpage. There are more scheduled meetings of the Senate, so there should be even more opportunities for the General Faculty to engage with the chair and the Executive Committee during the Friday Coffee Chats. These forms of communication will continue to strengthen the relationship between the Senate and the General Faculty, as it should given that the Senate is the voice of the General Faculty with the central administration.

And so, I say goodbye for now and congratulations to all who are graduating, have students graduating, or have simply made it through one of the most difficult years in recent history. My very best to you all. Be safe, and be well.

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Faculty Link

Faculty Senate

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.

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Faculty Senate

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.

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Faculty Senate

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.

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Faculty Link

Faculty Senate

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.