Preview of Faculty Senate, May 4

The Senate Executive Committee meets in advance of each meeting of the Faculty Senate to, among other things, plan the upcoming agenda. Based on discussion at our most recent meeting, the Faculty Officers wanted to share the following updates and expectations for future discussion. We hope that sharing this information now facilitate productive discussion in Senate.  This update is written by Amy Fountain, Secretary of the Faculty.

Please be advised, however, that these notes are informal – and in an attempt to get them to you quickly, they have not undergone review. Any errors or omissions are Amy’s, and you’re welcome to direct questions, comments or concerns to her at avf@arizona.edu.

The Senate Agenda for May 4 is available now.  

Because the Agenda is available, and because we are committed to ensuring as many venues as possible for the broad, robust, and frank exercise of shared governance, this preview is devoted to answering three questions:

How can you participate? 

• Questions are being collected and compiled in advance of the meeting to ensure that we can raise the most important issues early on.  Share your thoughts any time before the meeting with your Senate representatives, and/or contact the faculty officers, and/or use the Discourse platform (https://facultydiscourse.arizona.edu/login) established by Chair Summers to facilitate this process.
• Join us via Zoom.  The meeting is 3-5PM, on Monday, May 4.  A join link will be provided on the Agenda itself.
• All Senate meetings are recorded.  If you cannot join the meeting, you can access the recording afterwards.

How will the meeting be run?

• We will start the zoom session at 3pm, and follow the published agenda. 
• During the meeting, Senators' questions and answers will be handled using Zoom's hand-raising and question tracking features. 
• Senators' votes on scheduled action items will be done via a web survey distributed separately. 
• Note that non-Senators are not able to ask questions during the meeting, so it is important for you to communicate with us in advance if you can.

How can you be sure that your input is included?

• Please share your questions, comments, concerns and advice with your elected leaders (you can use the Find Your Senators' link, and/or review committee membership lists on this site) in any way you feel comfortable doing so.  We know that you are working hard under very difficult circumstances, and we are doing our best to be inclusive, open and available as possible. 
• The Discourse site (https://uacovid19workgroups.trydiscourse.com/) is a very good way to ensure that your input can be successfully collated with that of others, so that we have a broad and clear picture of the questions, concerns and issues that are important to you.
• You can find contact information for the Faculty Officers and Faculty Center Staff here.