Committee Reports 11 March 2026

March 16, 2026 Committee Reports

Board of Trustees Representative – Colleen Marzilli

  • March BOT Meeting on March 16, 2026 in Augusta

Program Creation and Reorganization Review Committee (PCRRC) – Glenda Pereira (Chair) & MJ Sedlock (Co-Chair)

  • At this time, there are no additional proposals under review by the Committee
  • The Committee Co-Chair has proposed a revision to the Bylaws (committee description) and the Policy Manual. The Constitution and Bylaws Committee is reviewing, with more to come on this soon.

Environment Committee (EC) – Tim Waring (Chair)

  • In collaboration with the Provost’s office, we will soon launch the of faculty. We have opted for the simplest version of the survey, rather than adding customized supplemental questions. 
  • This is a good example of shared governance: The Senate proposed a 3 year repeating survey in 2014, and the administration approved. The ball was dropped sometime in the last decade. The environment committee discovered it was on the books, and asked the administration to pick it up. The Provost’s office is paying for the costs (~$4200), and has been very efficient to work with. The survey is planned to run from March 15 – April 15.
  • We did not have time to include supplemental questions on faculty perceptions of the campus environment, covering items such as finances, institutional leadership, trust in organizational change, etc, in the HERI survey itself, but hope to arrange a survey on those issues in the future. 

Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) – Jen Perry (Chair)

  • Motion forthcoming to establish optional syllabus language concerning recording in the classroom and the impact of Title II on instructional materials
  • Working on survey to understand current instructor practices for class meetings during Thanksgiving week

Cultural Environment Subcommittee (CESC) – Michael Grillo (Chair) and Sara Flanagan (Co-Chair) 

We are at stasis, still awaiting a discussion with Alumni Hall on a motion to reject the Federal Compact and anything like it propagated by the White House and what remains of  the Department of Education.

Committee on Committees (COC) – Lauren Jacobs (Chair) – brief verbal report required

Search Committees: We have been asked to provide a faculty nominee to serve on two searches: VPFA/CBO and Dean of Students. Henri Akono was approached directly by the committee organizer about serving on the VPFA/CBO committee, and he agreed. There is also space for one more faculty member for that committee, but it is not required. 

  • The Need: A faculty member to serve on the Dean of Students search committee. Any rank, any position, ideally someone who is familiar with the Student Life.
  • Optional: A second faculty member to serve on VPFA/CBO search committee.
  • Timeline: As soon as possible. 

Faculty Senate Officers: We have two nominees for President, two nominees for Vice President, and we are working on securing nominations for Secretary. 

  • The Need: Ideally, at least two nominees for each position.
  • Timeline: As soon as possible, but up until the next meeting on April 15th when we will vote.

Finance and Institutional Planning Committee (FIPC) – Henri Akono (Chair)

  • FIPC has met with the administration on February 20th, and March 6th. The discussions focused on the FY26 & FY27 budgets, how the IDC policy is shaping up, spring 2026 enrollments and strategies, and the impact of changing graduate assistantship rates on faculty grant planning and budgeting.
    • Budgetary: At this point, the FY26 gap increased from $6 expected in fall 2025 to 9$ due to missing spring 2026 enrollment targets. The FY27 budget is in the works, and the expected $18 million deficit will also be resolved. The details are not available yet for the FY27 budget, but will be around the first reading, i.e., at some point mid march. Ultimately, based on a combination of attrition (about $4.5 million), gift fund replacement of some E&G, additional state appropriations (about $2 million), IDC policy of recovering unspent balances (about $0.85 million), presidential funds initiatives, both budgets will be balanced. 
    • Research and grad school fiscal: The VPR will be working on developing a written policy about IDC, that will be revised frequently to give guidance to faculty about how much money they should expect to receive in IDC. With respect to paying the $700 bonus for graduate students, The Dean of Grad School provided feedback that this is something the System will be doing. 
    • SRE process: There was a brief discussion about the research portfolio review, but more discussions on the budgetary implications for the RPR are expected to occur depending on faculty or senators’ questions.
  • FIPC regular meeting is scheduled for Thursday 3/12, and a couple of motions are in the works.

General Education Stewardship Committee (GESC) – Derek Michaud (Co-Chair)

  • GESC is working on an FAQ to help faculty and advisors guide students through the general education transition process. It will be posted to our website and distributed by email as soon as it is complete. 
  • GESC will bring a motion to the Academic Affairs Committee by the end of this month to clean up various administrative issues that have arisen in the transition process. The plan is to have this available for a full Senate vote in April. 

Library Advisory Committee (LAC) – Jonathan Barron (Chair)

The Library Committee met with Dean Singh and the Head of Collection Services Elizabeth Berney on Feb 24, 2026. In this meeting, we learned more about the cuts to several databases as part of the overall reductions made throughout all units of the university. We also learned about the ways in which the library will mitigate such cuts. For instance, journals associated with subscriptions that have been cut, such as the Taylor and Francis database, can still most likely be accessed through Article Galaxy Scholar, a new service. We also learned more about the transition from Web of Science to Scopus. Given the specialized nature of what we learned, the committee recommended that the Dean and/or Fogler Library Staff provide this information in a brief presentation to the Faculty Senate. They enthusiastically agreed. The scheduling of such a presentation is now in the works.

Research and Scholarship Committee (RSC) – Benjamin L. King (Chair) & Jay Wason III (Co-Chair)

We Met on Feb 18th @ 3PM with the interim CBO and VP for Research Finance to discuss the indirect cost return pullback. The meeting helped us understand their rationale (though not necessarily that the committee agreed with it). We also discussed the draft resolution related to grad worker contract implementation and decided to move that forward.

Faculty Information Technology Committee (FIT) – Sudarshan Chawathe (Chair) & Colleen Marzilli (Co-Chair)

For a vote:

Two motions (SM 2605 & SM 2606) are presented for a vote. Additionally FIT is drafting a motion on Technology Access for Emeritus Faculty and the Website