April 17, 2020

We thank University President Dr. Joseph Nyre for updating us and answering our questions today.

I record the dates of our executive committee meetings and calls here for the record, but will summarize
the latest information below, because it has developed rapidly over the course of the month. Since the
last senate meeting, Drs. Nathaniel Knight, Mary Balkun, Judith Lothian, Kurt Rotthoff, Marta Deyrup,
and I met via Teams with Interim Provost Dr. Karen Boroff and Senior Associate Provost Dr. Joan Guetti
on March 16. Drs. Knight, Balkun, and I spoke with Dr. Guetti on March 25. Drs. Balkun, Lothian, Knight
and I spoke with Dr. Guetti and Associate Provost Erik Lillquist on March 27. And Dr. Balkun and I spoke
with Dr. Guetti on April 8. On April 8, the EC met also with chairs of the senate committees to set today’s
agenda.

I spoke with Dr. Boroff March 20 and 26 and on April 3 and 9, and probably more times in between.

I spoke with Dr. Nyre on April 2 and April 13.

On March 31, I participated in the Deans Council meeting via Teams, and these past weeks I have joined
several calls with the Deans.

This morning, Drs. Knight, Balkun, Rotthoff, Deyrup, and Lothian and I met with Drs. Nyre and Boroff.

On April 2, I represented the faculty at the Board of Regents Academic Affairs Committee meeting. I
apprised them of the success of our transition to remote teaching, noting challenges of time zones and
access, but generally acknowledging that the transition was going remarkably well. Members of the
committee with children at Seton Hall agreed and extended their thanks to you all. I noted that “online
courses” could not have the same level of success as remote courses, which to varying degrees
reproduce at least some of the face time, community, and personal attention that make Seton Hall
special. I expressed faculty need for an optional one-year delay on the tenure track to accommodate
faculty with children at home, sickness or sick family members, unemployed spouses, lack of access to
laboratories, archives, libraries, and of course the additional time demands of online teaching. I also
emphasized that we are well aware of the potentially severe financial impact of coronavirus on fall
tuition and housing revenue, and our willingness to help, but that any faculty reductions must be made
in line with the strategic plan and with sustained academic quality and retention in mind, rather than
indiscriminately across the board for short-term savings.

The Board of Regents passed a resolution declaring an urgent, dramatic situation that requires 6-, 9-, 12-
and 18-month plans to be prepared by the administration with substantive input of the faculty, which
Dr. Nyre included in the resolution without having to be asked.

On April 9, I spoke with incoming Provost Dr. Katia Passerini for over two hours. We discussed:

1. The option to delay the tenure clock one year for faculty on the tenure track
2. Improving the efficacy and efficiency of Program Review and of improving the Program
Creation/Suspension Process in Colleges in a way that considers our academic mission and
quality comprehensively and respects fiscal sustainability without expecting all programs to be
profitable.
3. Providing students with faculty advisors from their Colleges starting freshmen year and
continuing for their career. The academic prerogatives of advising.
 4. Revised Faculty Guide Articles 1-7, which want to implement in September.
5. The history of the “Concerned 44” protest and the need for the new Provost to meet with
students, including those involved.
6. The need to meet early and regularly with chairpersons and program directors, and to meet
regularly with departments and programs, to cultivate and sustain awareness of faculty ideas,
expertise, needs, and strengths.
7. The need to restore the authority and priority of Academic Affairs, an academic vision, and
academic quality over enrollment chasing.
8. Various under-resourced programs, such as the physical sciences and the humanities, including
Core and Honors, Grants and Research, and Study Abroad.
9. Ways to cultivate a collaborative culture within Academic Affairs and between Academic Affairs
and the various service centers, including Student Services and the Career Center.

It was a promising conversation, filled with innovative ideas and with earnest concern for academic
quality, a liberal arts identity, and a collaborative, transparent culture.

The potential financial impacts of coronavirus are substantial. The University is projecting a 15 MM loss
this year, including 9.1 MM in housing and parking refunds. We are looking into how we are allowed to
spend the 6 MM from the CARES Act; speculation increases daily and guidance is still being developed
that suggests universities CAN NOT use this money for refunds. Therefore, it is unlikely the stimulus
funds will decrease the losses resulting from room, board, and parking refunds. We are budgeting for
four different financial scenarios, from a best-case 10% drop in tuition and board revenue that would
amount to a 41 MM decline in the budget to a worst-case scenario of a 40% drop (with no face-to-face
instruction or residency for the year), which would amount to a 110-150 MM decline in the budget.

We are too big for a “small business loan,” because we have over 500 employees, but the next stimulus
bill *might* include a 2% loan program for which Universities are aggressively lobbying. Such a program
would require us to keep up to 90% of the employees we had as of February on payroll and offer us a
very favorable rate to cover the costs of operation.

The University is evaluating short-term furlough plans against layoff plans for non-faculty employees
who cannot work from home or will not be essential in the coming months. Aided by counsel, the
Finance Committee of the Board of Regents will soon review these options. Most furlough options cover
health and benefits; and, given unemployment and other aspects of the CARES stimulus package,
including mortgage relief plans, some furloughed colleagues would not suffer substantial changes to
their monthly cash flow. In some cases, they might make more. Ideally we would bring them back in
September, but that depends on resuming on-campus operations. These furloughs would save us a
substantial amount of money. Federal guidance, projections, and plans change frequently and have legal
consequences for the University and personal consequences for our colleagues. We should all exercise
discretion, restraint, and care as we reference these matters, which are not yet set in stone, and work to
decrease rather than accidentally add to, the stress levels of our employees and their families.

A pay freeze is in effect. Options in play for this year might include carrying on with tenure and
promotion but with delays to the associated pay raises. Of course, “need” will still come into play, so I
advise all tenure-track faculty to be teaching full, large classes.
Any financial adjustments beyond this pay freeze will go before the budget committee and through the
regular channels of faculty governance. No pay or benefit cuts will take place behind our backs.

In May, when potential enrollments and the pandemic timeline are somewhat clearer, we will establish
a group to plan for being the best we can be this fall. This group, including deans and faculty, will discuss
remote advising, remote teaching standards, pricing, and other logistics in the event that we cannot
resume face-to-face instruction and residency this fall. Possibilities are now endless: residency might be
precluded but in-person instruction allowed in large lectures with enrollments substantially under room
capacity, in which case we might be entering agreements with other universities to ensure the
continuity of instruction for each other’s local students.

In May, we’ll also constitute a committee including deans and faculty to propose any substantive
division and college reorganizations that might both serve the strategic plan and offer cost savings.

The Calendar Committee met to review adjustments to the fall calendar, which to a large part depends
on the mandates and guidelines established by the State of NJ and the CDC. It will meet next week to
continue this discussion.

Summer has been extended to August 31 to accommodate a third summer session, because summer
typically accounts for 15-20 MM of revenue but we had only enough students to generate 11 MM as of
April 9. Courses are being allowed to run outside of the traditional timelines for summer sessions,
however, in order to accommodate additional faculty training and adjustments to offer courses
remotely. The most recent news is that asynchronous courses will require Quality Matters approval (for
which faculty get $3000), and additional resources are being marshalled to provide that expeditiously.
Synchronous courses require a hybrid or “light” Quality Matters review, which will be facilitated by
workshops from TLTC (participation is remunerated with $500). Deans have been given greater control
over summer, because the revenue is allocated to the Colleges in RCM.

As your chair, I commend you for what has been a remarkably smooth transition to remote teaching,
considering the ongoing upheaval of our world. I want us to be calm and confident. Our new leadership
thinks strategically for the long term and has consistently, proactively included faculty in decision-
making. The cabinet has been compassionate and creative. We have substantial credit lines and
reputation, and we live in a populous state that is traditionally a huge exporter of students who now
might prefer to stay near home, at least for a year. Hopefully we are more fearful than necessary and
the pandemic resolves more rapidly than not.

That said, we need to take this situation very seriously, as if our livelihoods depend on it, because the
threats to this University are substantial, potentially existential. Much wealthier schools are making
drastic preparations. Right now, then, we need to redouble our responsibility and to embrace remote
teaching and advising. We need to be more proactive advisors and mentors and recruiters, investing the
time to reach out to our students individually, by video, to demonstrate care in their education and
lives. We need to devote substantial time this summer to becoming even more adept with teaching
technology, so that we are sure we offer an experience that closely rivals in-person experience enough
to warrant our regular tuition. Prepare your syllabi this summer for the event that we have to teach
remotely for all or part of the semester—not surprisingly or accidentally, but intentionally. I encourage
departments to meet and discuss best remote teaching practices for their discipline/s; for colleagues to
share ideas and review each other’s syllabi and websites. The quality of our remote teaching will have to
be high to keep students invested in Seton Hall, paying our tuition, so I urge you not to rely on e-mail
and discussion boards, but to incorporate regular video contact, group work, group projects, all the
social interaction and personal attention that you can, to foster community remotely. You can find
resources at the TLTC Keep Teaching website.

Outstanding Resolutions:

• Proposed amendments to Faculty Guide 5.1.d (revisions re: full professors only voting for
promotion to full): Outstanding (pending revision of the FG)
• Patent policy: Outstanding (tabled)
• Writing Major in English: Outstanding (tabled)

• Family Leave Policy: Unlikely to achieve anything until implementation of strategic plan
• Program Review of Theology: Outstanding.
• Emeritus Policy counterproposal: with the EC; we are going to suggest some changes to the
Provost.

• Recording policy: once again with legal, but allegedly close.

• Faculty Guide Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7: under review with the Interim Provost. We
expect Articles 1-5, if not 1-7, will be ready for review next month so that we can have two
readings of the revisions by June and implement them for Fall 2020. Only the adjustments
made since our approval of the revisions will be subject to discussion.
• Senior Faculty Associate pay raise formula resolution: returned to us with a request for
more information; C&W is on it.
• EC Resolution on Departmental R&T Guidelines: Approved. Remember to work on yours.
• FGC Interpretation of COAR failure to vote on College Reorganization as per 11.4: rejected
on a procedural formality. We are working on a response, which we will bring to the body.

We have a packed agenda today with three EC motions, two APC motions, and a First Reading of Faculty
Guide Article 10.

1. EC Resolution in Memory of Professor Robert E. Shapiro

2. EC Resolution Recommending an Optional One-Year Extension of the Tenure Clock in Response
to the Coronavirus
3. EC Resolution Recommending Program Changes be Informed by the Strategic Plan and a
Cohesive Academic Vision and Resources rather than P/L of Individual Programs\
4. APC Approval of 3+3 BA Religion + JD
5. APC Approval Certificate in Global Affairs
6. First Reading: Revised Article 10 of the Faculty Guide

Thank you for your hard work during a semester that was already intense, with searches and strategic
plans, even before we added a pandemic. We will answer any questions we can.

Respectfully submitted,

Jonathan Farina, Chair