Dear SCU Faculty,  

It is an honor to work with you this academic year as a fellow member of the Faculty Senate. Welcome our new faculty colleagues! This past year has brought to the forefront shortcomings in our university. Some of these have been shouted out by colleagues and students for years. Given the many changes in leadership happening this year, we as a faculty have an opportunity to bring the best of what we do for the good of our students and the larger university. My hope for us is that we move forward as a community in a healthy way, in a productive and proactive way, and in a way that creates sustaining, positive change. 

As we acknowledge and honor the people we lost in our community as well as support those who have experienced individual losses and those who are still tired from heavy caretaking and the work of this past year+, we also have much to celebrate. As a faculty we continued to be there for our students, our committees functioned well and did excellent work that allowed for promotions and new hires, new programs, initiatives, and curricula were approved, and research and collaborations moved forward. Our faculty lent their expertise about teaching online, in safely navigating the pandemic and interpreting county, state, and federal guidelines. A special thanks is owed to Leslie Gray for working so hard as our Faculty Senate President, as well as members of the Executive Committee. For a summary of the work of the Faculty Senate from last year, you can read the End of the Year Report as well as see the Resolutions that were passed. 

As a member of the Faculty Senate (all faculty with more than a half time appointment are), please attend meetings and get involved as you are able. The Council meets the second Wednesday of every month (more information below), with an agenda that is sent out the week before. This fall all meetings will be on zoom and you are invited to attend some or all of any meeting. I hope that we can get to know one another better this year.

A final thank you to those who have said yes to serving on the Faculty Senate Council and were elected to our many important committees. I am especially grateful to Pat Cain for agreeing to serve as President-Elect for the Faculty Senate, there is a message from Pat below. And of course, none of this would happen without Ixtlac Dueñas who supports not only the Faculty Senate, but also the UCC, and the Staff Senate. Thank you Ixtlac for all you do. 

A strong university has a strong faculty. I hope that each of us can find new ways to support one another professionally and as a whole as we work together along with our colleagues on the staff and in the administration. 

I look forward to working with you,

Laura Nichols
Faculty Senate President, 2021-2022

• Presidential Search Committee

If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please email the committee at presidentialsearch@scu.edu. If you wish to nominate a candidate or introduce the committee to other parties who might identify potential candidates, please send your confidential nominations directly to WittKieffer at: SantaClaraPresident@wittkieffer.com. Thank you again for your support and participation in the search process.

• Feedback on Transition to Workday

SCU will be transitioning our current student information system (eCampus) to Workday Student, a cloud-based, mobile friendly student information system. Katie Heintz (Communication Department) is on the Change Management Team, helping to identify and address the unique needs of the SCU faculty.  Be on the look-out for an announcement in October asking you to complete a five-minute survey to assess the change readiness of the SCU community for this upcoming project. Email Katie (kheintz@scu.edu) with questions or concerns.

• Input into Faculty Senate Priorities and Agenda Items 

We invite you to share your priorities with us either through this Faculty Senate Feedback Form or by sending an email to: facultysenate@scu.edu. Thank you.

• Faculty Awards Celebration -- Tuesday, September 14th, 3:00-4:00, Mission Gardens followed by a reception with staff at 4:00 on the Ignatius Lawn. Attend in person or livestream. Let us honor the achievements of Santa Clara's teaching scholars, celebrate newly tenured and promoted colleagues, welcome new faculty, and hear from the 2020-21 Faculty Senate Professor: Laura L. Ellingson, Patrick A. Donohoe, S.J. Professor of Communication speaking on, “Undisciplined Enthusiasms: Musings of an Eclectic Academic”.

• Presidential Search Committee -- Thank you for your nominations and self-nominations to serve as faculty representatives on the Search Committee for SCU’s next President. We received 40 nominations! Aldo Billingslea (Theater and Dance) and Laura Doyle (Civil Engineering) will be members of the committee as well as Paul Soukup (Communication). 

• Results of Full Faculty Vote on Proposed Changes to the Faculty Handbook -- The Faculty Affairs Committee worked on three proposed Faculty Handbook changes that were approved by the Faculty Senate Council and then went to a full vote of the Faculty Senate in June 2021. The results of those votes are below, the first two have been approved by our co-Provosts and passed on to the Acting President and the Board of Trustees for their October meeting. The third does not require additional approvals. The Faculty Handbook will be updated after the Trustee meeting. 

  1. Voting Rights of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Serving on Tenure-Track Search Committees (Faculty Handbook 3.2.2.1) -- APPROVED BY A VOTE OF 214-43-7 (Y-N-A).

  2. Composition of the Senior Lecturer Promotion Committee (Faculty Handbook 3.4A.2.3) -- APPROVED BY A VOTE OF 204-41-9 (Y-N-A).  As part of this proposal, relevant changes to the Supplement to Appendix A were also APPROVED BY A VOTE OF 203-39-12 (Y-N-A).

  3. Size of School Rank & Tenure Committees (Supplement to Appendix A) -- APPROVED BY A VOTE OF 208-19-5 (Y-N-A).

FSC REPRESENTATIVES FOR 2021-22

We would like to thank FSC Representatives for all their work and service this past academic year!

Department Chairs: if you haven’t already, please notify Laura Nichols, LNichols@scu.edu if your currently appointed FSC Representative will not be continuing their term for the 2021-22AY. If your department needs to elect/select a new FSC Representative for next year (see Faculty Handbook Appendix A Supplement, Section IX.B.1-2), please do so as soon as possible and forward this information to Laura Nichols LNichols@scu.edu AND Ixtlac Dueñas at iduenas@scu.edu.

Representatives to the Faculty Senate Council normally serve two-year terms from July 1 to June 30, but the representatives may serve as long as their constituency so chooses. FSC Representatives are responsible for familiarizing their departments with work of the Faculty Senate Council, and to bring the Council such issues as referred to them by their constituents.

A schedule of FSC meetings for 2021-22 is included here. FSC meetings will occur via Zoom for Fall 2021. As room availability begins to open up, we will reevaluate if the FSC should hold hybrid meetings for winter and spring quarters.

Dear SCU Faculty,

I am Pat Cain, your new Faculty Senate President-elect. I am a professor in the law school. I look forward to working with you this year on strengthening our shared governance procedures and in rebuilding the overall trust in the institution.

One of the responsibilities of the President-elect is to oversee elections, which run smoothly under the competent direction of our senior administrative assistant, Ixtlac Dueñas.

Your responsibility as a voter is to keep an eye open for emails from Ixtlac regarding upcoming elections. There are typically two phases in the election process: (1) Ixtlac sends out a sample ballot with a list of candidates eligible for the election. If you will not be able to serve OR if you want to opt-in, it is important to let her know at this phase. (2) She will send a second email with the official ballot, candidates, and instructions for voting via e-Campus including the voting deadline. PLEASE VOTE!!

Once the election closes, I will inform those elected and the website will be updated after their confirmation. THANK YOU for your active participation in our elections and your willingness to serve and continue to improve our faculty governance system.

A tentative list of elections and proposed dates can be found below.

Sincerely,

Pat Cain
Faculty Senate President-elect, 2021-22

Upcoming Elections 

• At-Large Faculty Senate Council Representatives Election -- Fall 2021

Faculty Senate Committee Membership Lists for 2021-22

• University & College/School Rank and Tenure
• Committee for Promotion to Senior Lecturer 
• Faculty Judicial Board
• Grievance Committee 

Election Results 

• Summary for 2020-21 elections

Find important resources on the Faculty Senate Webpage and the University Coordinating Committee websites.

Our main Faculty Policy committee is the Faculty Affairs Committee. Remember to regularly visit the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) Camino Site to review documents, minutes, and current agendas. Anyone with an SCU email can visit this site as a class "observer":  https://camino.instructure.com/courses/64168. Other archived FAC materials will continue to be maintained on the University Governance website.

Faculty Senate Council meetings typically occur on the 2nd Wednesday of the month and our next meeting is scheduled for October 13, 2021. A full list of meeting dates for AY2021-22 may be viewed here. Reminders will be sent out soon. 

All faculty members below the level of dean are welcome to attend FSC meetings in accordance with our by-laws. While administrators at the level of dean or above are not Faculty Senate members, they may attend when officially invited and during the time they are on the agenda.