October 24, 2023

FSU Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

October 24, 2023, 2:00pm (Zoom)

Executive Committee Members Present: Caroline Coscia (President); Sana Haroon (Vice President); Suha Ballout; Chris Barcelos; Lynne Benson; Dana Commesso; Monique Fuguet; Jessica Holden; Patricia Krueger-Henney; Linda Liu; Jared Poole; Brian White; Wei Zhang

Others Present: Lorenzo Nencioli (FSU Senior Staff Member); Katie D’Urso (MTA Field Rep); Joel Fish; Avak Hasratian; Jeff Melnick; David Patterson

1. Introductions: Welcome to our new tenured representatives: Suha Ballout, Patricia Krueger-Henney, and Wei Zhang!
   
    
2. Approval of Agenda: Agreement on the agenda as presented.
   
    
3. Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve the October 10 Executive Committee meeting minutes. Motion seconded. Motion passes.
   
    
4. Community Engagement and AFRs: Faculty can list community engagement work in their AFR. In a recent Labor Management meeting, the Provost asked if the Administration could pull that information from AFR. FSU asked: who is the audience, is this for internal or external use, and which university publications will include this information? We stated that we are concerned that community engagement information is voluntary and must remain so, and that no faculty will be harmed. The Administration responded that the information is voluntary and remains so, no faculty will be harmed, this information will be pulled only for internal use. FSU will request a copy of the community engagement information pulled from the AFRs. Motion: FSU agrees that community engagement information may be used in internal reporting in the university provided that we receive a copy of the information. Motion seconded. Motion passes.
   
    
5. University Website Petition: Brian reports on a recent meeting with Megan Sullivan. Discussed problems with the new university website: faculty and staff need to make numerous fixes and the faulty website jeopardizes new student and faculty recruitment. We want to restore the old website until the new one is fixed. Megan explained that there was concern regarding the old content management system (Expression Engine): her team was worried that the old system wouldn’t last into the fall, and that it was corroding and creating errors in URLs. She told FSU that we can’t go back to the old website. Discussion of how to proceed with the FSU’s university website petition, including potentially presenting it to the chancellor, and/or asking for a CLR or allotment of money to assign a faculty member to work with Marketing to create content for the website. We might ask for a second IT opinion regarding the problems with the old website. We are concerned regarding Marketing’s process for creating the new website: there was no input from faculty.
   
    
6. Ceasefire Petition: Jessica proposes that the Executive Committee sign onto this petition: The US Labor Movement Calls for Ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. Discussion of whether and how to sign the petition. Options include signing as the Faculty Staff Union Executive Committee; signing as individual members of the Executive Committee; and/or sharing the link to the petition with the membership. Motion to sign the petition as the Faculty Staff Union Executive Committee and to share the petition with members in case they decide to sign as individuals. Motion passes (8 in favor, 1 opposed, 1 abstention). Monique, Sana, and Jessica will draft a statement with a link to the petition to send to the membership.

MEETING ADJOURNS