College of Liberal Arts NTTF Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes
January 31, 2024

Agenda:

Item Type of Action Decision Required
A. Approval of minutes from 1/17/2023 meeting Vote Yes
B. Ellie Light: Dean’s Office update Info-Sharing No
C. Tom Conway: CoNTTF updates Info-Sharing No
D. Department Equity Checklist – discuss draft by Emily and Keri Discuss and set open meeting Discussion Yes
E. Wrap-up and adjourn N/A N/A

 

Members present: Eli Alberts, Niroj Bhattarai, Keri Canada (Non-Faculty Teaching Rep), Thomas Conway, Sadie Kinney-McGrath (end of meeting), Megan Lanz, Ellie Light, Layla Malander, Gina Robinson, Emily Wilson, Amanda Wright. Annie Krieg


Meeting notes:

Meeting Began – 10:01 AM

A. Approval of Minutes from 1/17/2023 Meeting

Motion: Gina
Second: Megan
Minutes approved unanimously.

B. Dean’s Office Updates – Ellie Light

  • They are working on talking points for the University budget committee to make sure they understand the funding of NTTF salaries. Working with Ryan on this. The interim dean understands the budget because she is an economist, so this is a positive. More on this later but contact Ellie with questions.
  • Ellie has concerns about the messaging she is hearing regarding budget cuts. She has concerns about how it will affect NTTF. They have asked the departments to propose budget cuts of 2%, 4% and 6%. These cuts would be permanent. Each department will need to do things differently. NTTF will be affected, and Ellie will be watching this to keep us informed. Eli asked why these cuts will be permanent. Ellis said there is a 20 mil deficit at CSU. We will know more after the Board of Governor’s meeting (May/June). We may have to cut sections. This is a university wide situation/cut. Ellie asked us to reach out to her if we hear rumors.

C. CoNTTF Updates – Tom Conway

  • This spring the priority is contract language. In the fall, CoNTFF presented language for a five year contract to the faculty council. They seemed to be on board with it. It did not go forward with the Board of Governors though. It is not on the spring agenda yet either. Since section E.6 was passed by the Colorado legislature, CSU general counsel are trying to figure out if the language is compulsory or not. They won’t want to add the language if it is not compulsory. What is the role of the Board of Governors because they usually don’t weigh in on faculty council matters? Emily asked if we could call the legislature to ask if compulsory. Ellie will ask Roze about it. Amanda asked if any departments have implemented the five year contracts on their own. Ellie said it would need to be changed in the faculty manual for departments to be able to do this. Gina said she would review the language of the new law.

D. Department Equity – Emily Wilson

  • They complied all of the brainstorming notes and the notes from the Kezar video. Then they used the doc to see what action items would be helpful – divided into University level, College level, Unit level. Then they looked to see what we could do as a committee. This is what they came up with:
    1. Promotion- create a bank of promotion documents.
    2. Promotion mentor – We can provide a promotion mentor for NTTF faculty.
    3. Tech- We will need laptops.
    4. Onboarding of new faculty- Mentoring by an NTTF to walk them through the first semester
    5. Onboarding manual
    6. CLA Newsletter – twice a year for NTTF explaining what action item we are working on and status.
    7. Online faculty need a path for promotion.

Ellie- We have a lot to think about. We have the foundation of what we want to see and now we need to get the departments/chairs to see this as a goal for themselves.

Annie – We need to work on working in the form of statements/question/reflections so it looks like the department chairs’ idea.

Ellie – We have the right to present our equity doc to the Council of chairs but we need to persuade them to accept our proposals.

Annie – We need to continue to discuss. In two weeks we have an open meeting with all CCA faculty. Newsletter will be sent out also.

Amanda – Let’s not put our list in the newsletter. Let’s talk more. We need to be thoughtful about it when we present it to the Counsil of chairs. We could have an open discussion on equity issues at the next meeting.

Allie – Can we do the poster activity that we did a few meetings ago, virtually? – Annie says yes.

Amanda – Usually there is not much turnout at the open meeting so let’s encourage people to come.

E. Wrap-Up Meeting & Adjourn – 10:56 AM 

Minutes respectfully submitted by Gina Robinson