So good afternoon. It's minute past three o'clock. I'd like to open up the general faculty meeting and I will give you the agenda first and then we have the first item of the agenda is the discussion of a proposed constitutional amendment. And of course, this requires a quorum of the faculty. For this part of the meeting, I'm going to ask Charlie bones lead to handle right after this. I'm going to give you my update to all of you, the general faculty and others interested about the state of affairs and our university. And following that, we'll have a short time for some questions. And after that, of course, is the regular senate meeting. So with this, I'm going to ask Charlie to take it from here for the first part. Thank you. Thank you, President. And the sourness for those who don't know me. My name is Charlie months to let the, this year's faculty senate president. My term goes about another month and a half and then I'm done. And then Chris Williams takes over. Where here? Briefly and I want to be quick with this. We are these. Let me share my screen if you don't mind. Okay. The Senate Executive Committee in consultation with the Rules Committee in a number of other faculty who are involved in the Senate. Realize we have an opportunity today to fix, oops, sorry, to fix a problem in the constitution of the faculty of the University of Delaware and in the faculty handbook. If you go down, this is section 1.1. And you go down to the bottom. Says in Section 9, with this specific exception of sections 8 and 9, this Constitution may be amended by two-thirds vote of members that are regular, special meeting of the faculty senate. So to amend these last two sections, we need to do that. Add a general faculty meeting. And a quorum of the general faculty is one-quarter of the general faculty. That's about 350 today. And we don't nobody remembers having a general faculty meeting at which we had a quarrel, at least on campus. So we're taking advantage of COVID, if you will, in that we're doing these meetings via Zoom and precedent. And Asana is attracting a large group of faculty to come listen, to hear what he has to say. What's y? I will be quick because I don't want to take up too much of his time. So we're going to amend this section. We want to amend this section of the Constitution. The amendment is, the resolution is here. We pass this out via e-mail to all faculty on campus. So everybody should have gotten this. The actual changes to the faculty handbook. What you're going to change Section 9. Eliminate that phrasing right there. Clarify about the two-thirds vote at the corner of the Faculty Senate and at the general faculty meeting. And we have a clause we're adding here that basically says the Senate can't eliminate the privileges that the faculty have to do business out of general faculty meeting. Okay. We had a meeting, what's called a committee of the whole two weeks ago to discuss this, approximately 60 faculty were there. We discuss the resolution and made some changes to accommodate the feeling at the time. So this is the resolution that the faculty senate executive committee wants to bring to the faculty. And we're going to ask the faculty to vote. If you, if you are so inclined. There's a link here that was in the email to the faculty. I also simplify, whoops, sorry. Thank you. Okay, I'll go backward. Okay. This is the link. And if you don't have it for some reason, I use that tiny URL service to give you a clickable link That's a lot simpler to type in. Okay? So we're asking faculty to vote if they are so inclined to favor the resolution. In summary, the reason we want to do this is we want to make the general faculty meeting relevant again, as a mechanism for faculty governance at the university. The general faculty meeting, it's generally conducted by the president of the university. President a sourness. But it's very difficult to have a vote under the current rules. So we're trying to bring back the general faculty meeting as a, a vehicle for faculty governance on campus. So that's all I have. I just want to point out that this, this URL where the shortened version, which takes you to the survey. It will be alive only during the duration of the general faculty meeting. So roughly the next hour. So you have to if you're going to vote, you have to do it now or shortly, okay? And we will tally up the votes and verify the votes later today and this week. So we won't announce anything today. Will we will announce it later whether the resolution passes or not. And I just want to also point out that after this meeting, we will have the MAY senate meeting, at which time we have actually a 150 resolutions. So we welcome all faculty and especially the senators to come to the senate meeting. And it's a different Zoom link. You have to exit this meeting and then go to the Senate Zoom link, which is also in that email. So that's all I have. So precedent in the sourness. That's it, I suppose. Do we have any questions? I don't want to take too much of President Santos's time. He's been gracious to give us give us the time to try to fix this problem. Thoroughly. Real quick. This is Chris Williams in the chat. There's a question just for clarification of what a yes vote in the Qualtrics vote means. The yes means you're voting in favor of the changes to the Constitution that we propose your voting in favor of the resolution. Or temporary assistant professors eligible to vote. Now, if you're a temporary faculty, you cannot vote. You have to be a full-time faculty. Now, CTE faculty count, tenure track faculty account, non-tenured, the system professors if they're full-time accounts. So research faculty who were on soft money do not count. These are all in the constitution. We don't get the we're not changing those rules today. The survey only has a couple of questions ask, your professor asks if you're present at the meeting in the world, but how you vote, I think it's only three bond and that would so come temporary. Factly, somebody wrote in a chair on temporary faculty can be full-time. Yes, but temporary faculty are not voting faculty as defined by the Constitution. Thank you. President Assad us. I'm finished. So thank you, Charlie. And again, good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate the faculty who have come to the meeting today. Hopefully we'll have a column as well to conduct the other business that you are here for and hear an update for me on this state of affairs at the other campus. I'm glad that so many of you have taken the time out of your busy schedules to do so. I've got several topics I want to cover and hopefully leave some time for a few questions at the end. So the topics will include some highlights over the past year with emphasis always protecting the health and safety of our community. We'll talk about the steps to really great campus life and our plans for the summer and fall. I will give you briefly a financial update, which is good news and close by describing the process for the Middle States accreditation and also the effort so currently for the strategic planning refresh. So we're in the final weeks. We're pretty incredible academic year a year like no other in our treasured history. Sometimes we use the word unprecedented. I think we need to invent the world better than that to describe what we have experienced to all of us over the past 14 months or so. There have been definitely a lot of challenges, personal and professional things we've experienced as an individual, as a university, as a nation, as a global community. But they've also been a lot of amazing achievements throughout the university. At the heart of those successes has been our shared commitment to protect the health and safety of our community. We've been doing COVID-19 testing since the beginning of the fall semester. So far, more than 70 thousand tests with an overall positivity rate of 1.5% or so or below that have taken place. And in the past few weeks, couple of weeks, this number is closer to 0.32%.4. So that's phenomenal. We're doing a good job and I want to thank all of you for this. Especially. I have to really applaud the work of our staff and facilities, the island lab, our Student Health Services, Residence Life and Housing, and so many more. It's been a tremendous team effort. People have gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect our community job, very well done. And the next big step, of course, is getting more of our people vaccinated. Right now. We have approximately based on what we know from voluntary surveys and responses, 3455 employees, at least that many, and 7,507 students who have reported they're fully or partially vaccinated. The other very positive piece of news is out of them. Only about 250 have set out of those more than 10 thousand sample that they would not want to be vaccinated HIV vaccine is available to them. So we're very encouraged. And of course, we're going to continue to have vaccination clinics, both on the campus or near the campus. We are working with the governor's office so that we have clinics OnStar more often from this point on, so people don't have to drive to Dover dance, which I understand is not as convenient. So whenever we have appointments, they fill up quickly and that's a very good sign. We have a second dose event today with about 1000 people signed up in the first dose event on Thursday with 800 doses available. So hurry up. This commitment to health and safety has enabled some great things. Especially among our faculty. All of you, our distinguished faculty members continue to be recognized for your scholarships and other contributions. There are just a few of the many recent accomplishments highlighted on the slide that you see on your monitor. So now, just quickly go through it from the top row, left to right. We've got Shabbat. But VD them with management, the learner school, and has been named the 2020 research in strategic management program scholar for her research on imagination and strategic choices. Sure way of Biological Sciences and Arts and Sciences has been awarded at $1.8 million in NIH support to study birth defects caused by genetic mutations. Sarah group from urban affairs and public policy of the school, has been honored with the William foot wide Distinguished Career Award, recognizing her contributions to sociological practice and public sociology. And Peter Williams, last one on top row from the art department in Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in fine arts from the Guggenheim Foundation. On the bottom row from left to right, any puppet Jackie's of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has been named to the National Academy of inventors. Jeremy Firestore of Marine Science and Policy in COE, has received the 2 million Energy Department brand. To explore the decision-making process are those who adopt the use of solar energy system and electric vehicles. Robert Gallen, cough of linguistics and cognitive science in the College of Education and Human Development has been elected to the National Academy of Education. Amanda Van Horn in communication sciences and speak speech disorders in the College of Health Sciences has been awarded a five-year $2 million grant from NIH to examine cost effective ways to help children with language disorders. And last one. On the bottom row, dark thalami from entomology and wildlife ecology. And Kaner has a new book in nature walks that's getting national media attention. He details how Oaks support the food web that support birds, insects, and thousands of other species. And at the same time help fight climate change. So this is just a sampling you and there's not why I'm so proud of what you've done. And every one of us should feel that pride in the community. Despite the COVID related limitations over the past year. Your contributions to education and research have continued to move forward. And so have been the contributions to engagement and service for our community. In particular, I want to highlight that our research enterprise has barely missed a bit, in fact, has grown. We expect to end the fiscal year with a record $76 million in sponsored research, which is about 2.7% higher than last year. You can see the categories of research there. Sum is for distraction, sample public service, some for research and the totals. So again, this a testament to the work that all of you are doing and of course to the research office that has been supporting our students during their attention to our students, success is the most important priority. Have also continued to shine this year. These are just a few of them. Starting from the top left, the COE graduate students cope or to mine. And Jackie it R Mutt lapping. What each awarded the prestigious Schlumberger a foundation cycled of the future fellowship that provides 50 thousand per year for doctoral studies. Also, top-right, honest shields from the Biden school has been recognized by the International City County Management Association with local government, Early Career Services, difficult. Bottom left. Upper-class students in learner have helped launch and leap learner ness to have new students build community. Despite the limitations of the pandemic. And bottom right. Our students have worked with the Delaware Department transportation to develop public artwork for transit hubs in the State. Students success is a foundational goal for all of us at the institution. As you know, our four-year graduation rate at 73% is placing us among the very top of the public universities in our nation. We want to do even better. We want to hit 75% within the next four years and grow nicely to 80 percent or more after that. I think that's doable. Certainly it's doable if we work on the cohorts of students who are not attaining at the average rate of 73% at this moment in time, particularly somewhere and they're presented minority in Pell eligible students are first-generation students somewhere, international students. We all need to focus on those and I know that we can do it. I'm also pleased to mention that among the many great programs that we have in place, including what we need to help students who paid for 12 credits to have some of these free credits, the six carryover free credits into the winter or the summer programs like this have certainly helped. And the retention rate, I want to emphasize that the retention rate of freshman from first-year students from the fall into the spring semester has exceeded our expectation even for the COVID era, it's 96.5%. So congratulations, that is truly, really wonderful and we'll put very well for the graduation rates. I should also emphasize that we're very proud of our student athletes. We've been doing phenomenally well this here that our athletics or come back in a big time. Some of you might have watched the playoff game for the quarter finals will be Jacksonville State this weekend we're playing now the semi-final game in football after, I don't know how many years. I think it's at least 15. That will make it to this level. Of course, where the champions of the regular season. And this is not just the only team that has done well. Our women's basketball team one, the regular season championship. And finished in the Final Four in the Women's National invitation tournament. Our field hockey team took the CA championship, and our Delaware men's lacrosse are in the semifinals playing cops right this Thursday. So we're very, very excited. And again, great work on behalf of the coaches, but also many, many of you who have supported our student athletes. So they're great students all around. 290 student athletes made the CA commissures academic honor roll with a GPA of three or above. So this is outstanding and thank you for your efforts. So there's a lot to celebrate and we will do that in a very feeding way. How in a few weeks with the commencements, commencement ceremonies are going to be multiple sections this year because of the pandemic time. So as you know already, we are planning to hold them at the stadium the end of May, just before the Memorial Day weekend. Events will look different. For sure. Doctoral hooting will be held on Thursday evening. And then we will have for commencement ceremonies for the class of 2021 on Friday and Saturday, while in the morning, one in the evening to allow for enough time for security and hygiene and all that, the health protocols. The ceremonies are going to be divided by college. Some of the colleges will be combined together or so, so that we have approximately uneven load of students in each one. We're shooting to occupy the stadium at 23 percent capacity. So that's about 4300 people. That gives us up to 1500 students. And to guess typically lead to parents or friends of each one of those students. That's, that's the plan. And I hope that some of you will join us for whichever of the ceremonies you find most appealing to you, perhaps based on your colleges time. I want to announce that for the class of 2020, we're excited to have Ty Jones as our featured speaker. Dire and his bachelor's in communication from our university, and his MFA from the professional theater training program. And he's now the Producing Artistic Director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Will also be announcing very soon. The honor for the class of 2021. And the current plan is that we're going to have one for each of the sediments. I also want to highlight something that all of us as a university community have accomplished together. And I'm very proud accomplishment there as well. We've managed to to succeed, to succeed in mitigating are very significant, are unprecedented financial challenges. And in fact, we've turned around the picture this year. So if you recall, in my most recent update that we posted on the web. We projected an operating deficit of $80 million. That was in February timeframe. Since that time, there's new information which basically take our deficit, that projected deficit by year-end to $13 million. You can clearly see some of the categories include some new impacts. For example, we're carrying $23.8 million as what we think they are. Liability will be for the free credits that seems were carried to the summer semester. This is based on remaining students. We can use that privilege and of course, what happened in the winter and assuming we'll have enough portrait classes available to them in the sum, the savings have come primarily from the other than personnel savings in expenses. So clearly we're not traveling yet much. We've reduced spending on supplies even more. The austerity measures have worked. And so all of those together save $60 million. We are collecting in the process of collecting really $15.7 million from the Biden administration from the latest edition of the Higher Education Relief Act. So in total, $82.2 million since pandemic started, it has flown into a university of which 60 is for the university. And 22 million approximately will be administered to our students in eight and grants. Some of that money flowing into the student pockets directly. The undergraduate tuition revenue has been enhanced because as I said, we have 236 students over a prediction. Thanks to the 96.5% retention rate of the first-year class from fall to spring. So obviously we've done something right with our instruction to motivate the students to continue. And about a $3 million savings in some of our expenses related to point. So all of that has helped us reduce the losses, as I said, to $13 million, which we will take from our endowment in addition to the 50, $55 million that we regularly take from the endowment. It's a fantastic turned around. Again, I want to thank dip from my heart, the community, because the measure would have never worked if people didn't embrace them. But at the same time as you'll see in a bit, we're not completely out of the woods yet, but I'm much more optimistic than ever before. And again, I thank you. Bright base are coming ahead and we know that we're going to be on the other side of the pandemic stronger than ever and when position to thrive. So continuing on, I want to also thank many of you have been donors and everybody really who has contributed through philanthropy to the financial health of our institution, especially during these difficult times. We're projecting right now that we've raised over $76 million as of April 30th for this fiscal year. A new philanthropic funds. Of course the year's not over. So we think that we will definitely, and the year north of 80 million, maybe 85 million dollars. So there's still a lot to be done. They excited about someone programs in particular. We have the eye. You'd be giving Day coming up this Thursday. There are more than a 100 projects led by alumni, faculty, staff, and students that you can support. And the days actually May, May 5th, which is Wednesday. And some of the examples you see on the screen, some of the examples of the programs. Top right, we have the ag-gag day for 2022. Center left. The detachment and undergraduate award the Antarctic Conservation Center to write the Lab School Library enhancement. Basically to focus on nature and mindfulness. And bottom left, the African violet scholarship supporting Delta Sigma Theta sorority, the first lecture already at the University of Delaware. Last but not least, you can certainly recognize bottom right time or SATA and the Center for Economic Education and entrepreneurship celebrating 50 years preparing K through 12 for economic and financial literacy. So these are very good news. And again, we thank you for your support of the blue hand strong funds and all the community actions. There are so many success stories would take me long to enumerate all of them. So if your name has not been mentioned that I'm thinking about, you believe me, and the more names and more opportunities to see examples of highlights for the year. We all digital presence report, which we have recently issued and we can certainly see the website there to visit it. I'm sure you'll feel the pride looking at the accomplishments like what we're doing for wastewater samples. To explore the prevalence of Corvette, or what we're doing in the Center for plastic novation with Tomas apps slash and a poorly their forelegs. Top right you see the complete redesign at what are their own at 38 $1 million project that we're so proud of that. And of course, we have moved into the ammo in zonal biopharmaceutical innovation center. And we're spinning off companies like the electrolytes. So a lot of great things are happening. But now let me pivot to how we're going to return to even more normal campus life AND operation starting with this summer. So as we look ahead for the summer, we're planning for more core sections to be offered in person at both the undergraduate as well as a graduate levels. Study abroad. Unfortunately still on hold for the summer. There are still a lot of restrictions and limitations. Only international travel right now, the prevalence of dividers, the lack of vaccine in several regions and so on. And in fact, some have incredibly spikes in COVID cases such as India and South America. So we feel it's too risky to allow travel the summer for our students. However, we, as I said, we we think things will improve and I'll mentioned our plans for the fall in a little bit. So hang in for study abroad for a few more moments. Now, I wanted to say, I'll start with the resonance forms for the fall as we move into the fall. And I would say that first-year students and sophomores would get first priority so that they can enjoy the residential experience of campus life that it missed so much. The Wellbeing Center at Warner Hall will be opening soon. That's a project we had the foresight to start before the pandemic. And we all know that the need for counseling and other services has only grown during the past year. So the summer, we will be moving into the facility, will be ready to welcome our students in the fall at the time that it needed so much. And we're excited that we will have this available to them this year. For athletics and composite creation. We expect to see more competitions, more clubs, sports and facility access throughout the year. These are all so important elements for university life and building community spirit and with myths are taking those activities over the past year. Throughout their accomplish. We'll see more facilities reopening as more students, faculty and staff return. And of course I'll include that libraries. Right now. Most of our buildings are accessible, but about 60 remain closed. The process of reopening a building takes time. So I do want to ask for your patience. We have to deal with the HVAC issues with plumbing systems that had been dormant for more than a year. So as we will gradually be bringing more and more of our community to accomplish, We'd been prioritizing the work of reopening our facilities at a top priority spaces that Sarah, but a lot of our students and researchers, those are used by those spaces that are used by fewer people or set of administrative purposes will be lower on the list. We get there, I promise, but no, we can't get to them right away. As far as the research activities said goal, as you can see in this slide, we continue with the phased approach that they're Vice President for Research on. Reardon has launched making steady progress. And we've been hoping to go from phase three where we've been for a long time. Phase four soon, which obviously will move us from the 67 percent occupancy that we have today to closer to 85 and 100 percent eventually, we hope sometime this fall. So for those of you who have already been vaccinated, and I encourage everyone to get vaccinated. It's liberating, believe me, research related travel can begin to resume. And our undergraduate research program would be largely in person the summer as well. So we're very excited about getting undergraduates pack in the lab. Of course, all of these plants, I've said that a million times. We'll assume that the COVID case load continue to decline. And if we do see a problem, we're always ready to do, react and clumped down as needed. Of course, we see vaccinations as a key element in achieving a more normal campus life. Nationwide. We're seeing the positive effect of the vaccine. The number of cases or down by 65%. So when vaccinations became available in late 2020, and very few people could get it then. But clearly as we moved into the spring more and more finding the vaccine, I know from our governor to that next week we'll pivot point. What are the supply of vaccine in data, what he's going to fight exceed demand. So we should be able to vaccinate everybody who wants to be vaccinated. Again, I encourage all of you to do it because the benefit of getting a vaccine far out weigh, at least in the opinion of many medical experts, the risk that the perhaps might be involved in, certainly the risk of getting COVID-19. So along with face coverings, physical distancing and other measures, we are thinking that we're finally breaking the hold that the pandemic has had on our lives for more than a year. We all want to get back to normal activities. And the vaccine is the best show up we have at achieving back. We do know already from the surveys that 60 to 70% of faculty responding, stop responding, have taken the vaccine at least one dose. The number for students is lagging behind the 20, 30%. We know that 660 thousand students around the country have so far been affected by COVID 19. That's a large number. And so there are particular challenges a group in ending the pandemic. While the risk of serious illness or death is low for students, they can easily spread dividers because they live in socialize and close quarters. That's what do we want them to do? So for now, we continue to strongly encourage all our students, our fight against theft to get the vaccine. I have to tell you that there were seriously thinking about making it mandatory for our students. As a growing number of both private and public institutions have done. And I want to cite them. The public fraud to Rutgers University, University of Maryland. That our state this seriously thinking and talking about this University of Michigan and many, many more. In totaling 9000 institutions have now. Call for a mandatory vaccination of students. But there are a lot of things to consider if we go that route. A lot of our students and faculty have been vaccinated, as I said before, by traveling far, sometimes we want to make it convenient and that's why we're intensifying the efforts and the coordination with the governor's so we can have a Kleenex own style and hope to get to as many students as we can before they leave for the summer so they can be ready by August 15th when they come back. Of course, having all our students vaccinated except for religious and healthy exceptions would allow mode of us do return to face-to-face class, which I think is what we all want, author fight within our students and stuff. So the current state of affairs is we have to comply with the mixed environment of people having vaccine. And so I'm not having vaccine and some CDC guidelines that are evolving, some special distancing requirements of six feet that have not necessarily been lifted yet. So given the current stage we have today, we know we can count on 73% over undergraduate course sections being offered in the normal modality, face-to-face or blended instruction. We also know that the large amphitheater type of classes for over to hire students cannot be held face-to-face or hybrid. So for those went wonky to ensure that students with him at least some face-to-face exposure, perhaps in smaller recitation sections. And we hope that this percentage is in general will come up as potentially had a mandatory vaccination policy. And the CDC guidelines are modified for the graduate four sections, 60 percent. At this moment in time or face-to-face blended, and that number is also likely to come up. So again, most of our students, we know that a large majority of them absolutely love the face-to-face experience. And I know you've missed all of you something in spite of the heroic efforts to convert to the online modalities this past year. You missed something from those interactions. So I encourage you to do the work, the provost office to help make it happen. I I asked again and encourage you to get vaccinated for your own safety and of course, to continue to be flexible. Now, I want to come back as I promised to the study abroad plans. And I'm going to talk about the study abroad plans for the fall, melt, the summer, the fall now and next winter. I'm started by saying that we're optimistic that in the fall they're going to enable the Study Abroad of the previous class that was supposed to go this past fall in that couldn't go. We're going to make some modifications to their destinations for the 2020 cohort, we're not going to enable traveling to New Zealand, but we are targeting the three European destinations. My redraw benefits for the fall of 2021 and that's the Fall 2020 cohort. Then MAB, they fall 2021 cohort would have to be shifted and actually had their traditional for study abroad in spring of 2022. But actually the weather will be very, very nice in many load European destinations. We have 99 students for Madrid, 64 for wrong, 58 for Athens, and 60 do for New Zealand, where optimistic that New Zealand would be possible by that. Now of course, we're telling students to register for regular classes here at UT just in case something has to change. So that's, that's the plan. Now let me shift to a source of optimism or for the next academic year, which is the new class of new hands that we're going to welcome in the fall. As you know, may want was the Saturday. That's a traditional date that students respond on Office of Admission. This here we've had a record the number of application, 73,800. All groups or app, the law weightage went up 2%. Out-of-state students were up somewhere between 30 and 35 percent. We also admitted that equity number of students, about 23,600 receive an offer of admission. So clearly the enabled access to our great university for a great deal. A great many students around admits feature 10% more for Delaware audience and 13 percent more for the Honors College students. We got great news as of Monday morning. We have so far 4,350 deposits versus a target of 4400 students. Among those who have deposited, we have a huge surge among black students, 30 percent App, and 23 percent among Latino students. So our outreach is clearly working. I'm very excited about the diversity, equity, and inclusion among this class. But I also want to mention that a couple of things. One, as yield is critically important. Those people have deposited there, not here yet. We need to have all hands on deck throughout the next few months. I urge the faculty to offer it, to do whatever you can to excite people, to pay attention to the departments in the majors that they're basically are signing up for. So please coordinate what increasing some campus tours. We are doing some outreach and the number of colleges directly from faculty and others to prospective students will want to yield them. Traditionally, our mouth is five to 6% from the numbers that you see here. But the two things I want to mention here is traditional means nothing. Because this is COVID, time. Number 2 is 1. There will be some out there will also be some additions. We are essentially extending the deadline to May to June one from May 1. That's one thing. So there'll be more deposits coming in. We still have not heard from. Bipolar international students. While we don't think the yield would be as high as for domestic students. For those, we do think, well you didn't some, because the conditions are changing in a number of countries. So again, we're optimistic cautiously that will make an enrollment targets. And then I want to shift that for a moment to the growing enrollment of our Graduate College. This is phenomena News. We clearly see a growth in applications over 5000. Think for the first time, up 19 percent from 2020. Domestic under represented minority graduate students are up 38% at our International up 6%. Looking at the admitted and accepted, a domestic URM are up 14 percent. So we we've managed to get quite a few of those we have been applying. And overall, our yam has been riffing. I really want to thank new Rashi for his leadership and knowledge. Deans and the chairs and program directors who are working so hard as 69% overall yield this wonderful at the master's level, which includes more bang students. Sure they're not paying students. We have an 80 percent yield and for doctoral students, 58%. These are great numbers. And again, I want to ask you to intensify the efforts. You won't believe your eyes with the results. A lot of things lead to these great improvements. I think the launch of our graduate college altogether working as a community. The fact that that programs are actually improving and people don't realize that. And the last thing is we're offering a great it to the students up. We, as you know, have rationalized that tuition structure this year are posted rates in 8800 credit hours, 8900 to resize for base tuition are very, very high. In practice, we're discounting 50 percent and more sometimes. So what we've done is we've rolled back the base tuition rate to 950 per credit. That's an advert base rate. But then we don't, we don't offer discounts from that. And in fact, some, some of our programs can charge somewhat higher rates based on the extreme demand. So we, I think we have the right price point in the market. At this point. Now I want to shift your attention for a minute and give you a very high level view of the projections for the fiscal 22 budget. What I will say bye first as an exercise and budget predictions during pandemic time is always a challenge, like we learned that Will it day by day, month by month. However, we haven't projections and we have our targets and we base our projections are targets for enrollment to start with. Another big factor is whether or not you can levy a tuition increase for the year. Assuming that the numbers that I've shown you for the first-year class that be close to 44 kind of freshmen. And that we would be able to levy a 2% tuition increase. Which we absolutely need given the fact that we we want to give everybody everybody. I repeat that contractually mandated raises for this year on the fight them, then of course our stuff, a very similar program. So in order to be able to do that, if we can count on yielding a freshman, growing a graduate class by 5% in terms of net tuition revenue, having full residence halls and, and living a 2% increase in tuition, we will have a shot at the balanced budget. Anything that, that of course doesn't come in at those projections, we'll create a deficit for us. So we have scenario between a positive $3 million to a deficit of $30 million for next year. But I thought that I would share with you the extremely positive news. A, we've turned the corner and be optimistic about the future and where training very well in terms of enrollment. And I think in so many ways this going to be very, very good news. Or the colleges and departments where if I can't believe, we certainly have a target with the provost to maintain the current faculty levels. That's our starting assumption, which means that there will be some limited hiring too. Replace attrition. Ideally would like not to go back on the net new faculty that we've added the last few years, we've grown by about a 130, So we want to stay there. And certainly as I said, we want to attend to our teaching needs as a first priority and some other opportunities. The provost will issue of a comprehensive policies so you can understand how we're approaching this. But again, overall, I'm certain that better days are on the horizon. I'm pleased with our condition compared to many of our beers with minus it. Well, and we're turning the corner. I do hope that we will also come back strong with some of our capital projects. We hope to increase our deferred maintenance budget from non-violent 18 million per year starting next year and an inch it up even more in the future. And you'd start seeing some activity on buildings. Of course, we're still paying some of the bills this year. But hope hopefully with the thrust, the approval will continue to move. With the plans for McKinley or imagined Mackinlay and interdisciplinary science building their starting with the demolition of the building, existing them this year. So great news on the horizon. So now what I would like to, to mention is just a brief two brief notes and hope to leave a few minutes for Q and a. The first one is related to our re-accreditation process by the Middle States Commission for Higher Education. So as you know, between February and December of 19, beside the process and we gathered and analyzed evidence of how we've done in the previous seven years. It's time for self-reflection and a self-study. I certainly want to command the current and previous co-chairs. Have include Linux, geeky, John Glasgow, Debbie has Norris, and Mark rigor. We have gather community input and develop recommendations between January and September 2020. Been a lot of participation of a lot of working groups. The chairs, certainly, I appreciate their efforts and all the members of those working groups. Between now fall 2020 and winter 2020, one would expect naturally or visit to happen at that time and went a finished product. But then we work some more or not draft, re-assess and adjust, especially in the light of the lessons learned from the pandemic. And in spring 2021 right now, as we continue to gather some community input to finalize the report, we have an open comment period through May 15. And I want to draw your attention to the town halls that we have this week on Wednesday, May 5th, and Thursday, May sixth. And last but not least, the timeline for the actual visit. The chair of the visiting committee is is going to pass it. Visit the virtual visit in the month of June, mid June, then late October, early November. We're finalizing the date for the visual virtual visit of the accomplished visitation team with of course, the chair and all of the members, typically seven or eight members. So that's the plan. The last thing that I will mention is an efforts to look ahead and refresh our strategic plan. In the light of the lessons learned during the pandemic. As you, I'm sure recall. We have those five pillars that we created together starting in 2016. And what we're doing is basically we're working with the starting basis being our current working plan. But we absolutely want to touch up and revisit the efforts that are happening under its peeler. The goals, the actions, the metrics, especially in the, in the right of the lessons learned during the pandemic. So we're intensifying our efforts in ensuring student success in the post-pandemic era. That's a very, very important area. We focus on building a social justice foundation to support a diverse, inclusive, and intercultural accomplish. We're imagining how to expand interdisciplinary and global opportunities. We're redefining creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship in the broadest possible sense. And last but not least, we're re-imagining our intellectual and physical capital for a sustainable and boundless campus. And I will end by saying, we're going to have a number of photos from the five working groups next week. So right after we get done with the forums for Middle States, the week starting with May tenth. And I believe maybe one of the forums actually this, this week, towards the end of the week, the working groups are going to reach out and basically engage the community on what they have been thinking and studying and whether the preliminary goals and engage you for your input in common. The framework questions that we're emphasizing is, what is the competitive advantage of the University of Delaware today? What is differentiating from our peers or competitors sheet, if you will, what's unique about the UD experience, both academic and non-academic experience. Of course, with a clear understanding of where we are today, everybody wants the proof, That's the goal of everybody's life, and so does the university. So what do we aspire to be in five years, 10 years, 20 years? So what contributions do you want to be known for in our society? And what are the metrics of success for each of our strategic pillars, both generally and in terms of impact on the world. And what are some of the envision quick wins because we do want those proof points along the way to validate our progress. Some of the pertinent question says, of course, especially given what has happened to our economy, is how do we do to ensure and affordable education? And I'm very, very pleased that the integer value, the University of Delaware offers an amazing proposition. I think the Money Magazine with gland 27 ranks this year. So we're doing very, very well. And we're doing extremely well for a university that meets more than 50 percent of the students that apply. But we need to keep thinking about how we can leave our students to significantly reduce the time to completion, graduation, but payment of whatever degree or credential they aspire to head with the least cost. The other thing that we need to be thinking about is what would be the future of work in workforce? How can we lead their students to be prepared? How can we align best our programs to ensure that their students have the skills to be successful in the workforce of tomorrow. We also need to be thinking about what does the Sustainable Campus of the Future look at? What is the optimal balance of our physical plant and a virtual spaces. How are we going to maximize the value of use or for physical capital around the year? Again, think about the fact that that I accomplished during the pandemic has become boundless. We've become a networked and Cloud-based. So let's see what it means this for the future. Where basically we can leverage all our physical assets, all our beautiful campus, our expansion start and the cyberspace and see what we can do. I'm sure some wonders. And last but not least, how can we develop a more predictable and sustainable revenues stream so that we're ready for the next big emergency whenever it comes. So with this, I'm going to end my presentation. Certainly will make the slides available to you. But as I said at the beginning, I want to give you a few minutes to ask some questions. I recognize Charlie, I lost about 10 minutes at the beginning with the voting and all the other. So. Hey, go five minutes over, but I'd love to entertain a few questions if you have some. Present a sinus. Yes, Charlie. Yeah. I just want to thank you for your leadership during the past year. It's not been easy handling the financial problem and the COVID issues and everything else. And you've been forthright with the, with the university community and I think that goes to your credit. Thank you so much. I want to give a low credit to my amazing leadership team. Everybody has one of their weight, but, but everybody who is enrolled with us, the faculty, the staff, the students, you really measures would not have worked. Don't underestimate what we accomplished as accomplish this year. Go to the websites of other institutions that are going to be suffering for many, many years. Essentially, I've managed to pass on to the next year, a balanced budget. You know, look at the publics and just the area where did they reorganize or that approach encompass that are hit with 20 and 30 percent cuts for next year. We're in very good shape to thrive. I'm very optimistic and I think deeply from my heart, the 520. What does that mean? The general faculty meeting and of course, our staff and students for working with us, as I said before, are well-positioned. Charlie, I think people may be anxious to go to the Senate meeting. Yeah. Can I well, okay. John Morgan has his hand raised. He was, I guess a question. Yes, John and then John, Jesus, I see two lines. Yep. Thank you, President dishonest. And I must say that along with probably thousands of other people on campus, we are really that the university is now in enormously better financial shape. It seemed to be six months ago. I would like to sound a note of caution. Especially because of these new variants of coronavirus, which are thought to be much more transmissible, possibly, much more fatal, and quite possibly more likely to evade the current Mac seeds. So I would urge that we be very cautious in taking on large financial commitments in the next year or so until we can be completely certain. Coronavirus is something of the past That's not going to recur in the near future. Jon, thank you for your very prudent advice. That's exactly how I feel. Here. We are discussing this with my team all the time. I constantly say we're not out of the woods yet. I I do see the potential for a small deficit for next year, obviously. And then we have the unknowns. I do want to say that you're very correct. We're not planning or not, they're taking any very expensive projects, including hiring and firing very expensive, started the packages in the next year, but there's certainly finally we can afford to hire should be hiding. So we don't lose ground in terms of copy though, because obviously, that's another area where we've not taken projects in the previous year. There's Drake that we're continue the construction of Drake. That is a state funded project that the modelling and I think we badly needed. And as I said, our eyes, our own McKinley. The next big project, it could be somewhere in the range of a hundred and twenty, two hundred and fifty million dollars. It's a big project. What we're going to do again in the spirit of Gruden see as arise. And our commitment is to rebuild that science side on the science corridors on the main campus is crucial to the vitality of our biology, physics, many interdisciplinary programs. At the same time. What we'll do next year is just demolish, remove the current instruction and we will make the final decision is to building the year after. So again, we'd like to see COVID become a bit more of the control parameter. And I see John, Jesus. I thank you so much. I'm going to be very brief. I've stolen my question from a comment that someone move on this call is on Twitter and I'm going to go ahead and steal or content. She said that the women's cockpits did a big survey that shows that faculty are impacted by having their kids doing remote learning. And it hasn't really been addressed in this column. I mean, not only are there huge impacts or this year which will have long-term consequences on the faculty who are parents. But, but what is going to happen the summer and the fall, we would like to return to in-person learning, but maybe many of our colleagues will not be able to do so depending on what the situation is. So I think it'll be good for the administration to address this. Thank you. Note the comment. Obviously, we can't cover everything. This is an area where it myself, It's Robin Morgan, our provost, and number of the other administrators we're discussing right now, return to work policies and how we're going to notify people as to when their activities coming back so they can make the right arrangements and how we're going to do it. It's I have to tell you having lived through both stages, shutting down the compost and then reopening the campus. Reopening is a lot more difficult. Then shutting down, shutting down you just need the political will to make a decision. But the reopening and doing it safely and when everybody's anxious to go back and others cannot go back and so on. I mean, it's it's much more challenging. So I appreciate your comment. Jenna. So I'll step in adding that when it's second. Thank you. John and everybody. I just where I want to really commend MacKenzie and will people he's worked with. This is just it's top of mind, the advanced group. But there are many grids, some campus who've been looking at this in there, of course, a lot of studies coming out across the academic world. Tremendous inequities. There are very strong ones between men and women, but there also are many men who have had, have not suffered greatly. People have elderly parents that they had to take care of or other, but they had caregiver responsibilities. They had on sometimes their own personal health issues. And certainly childcare is a problem that we got a letter today from someone who has had here, they have two children at different ages and different schools. So different types of hybrid learning. And by the time we graduate at the end of May, I think I'm remembering correctly. This family, this is a female faculty. She had seven days in 14 months. There was not that she had a work day. That was a normal work day without the edge Watson taking care of somebody may want seven days. So that means it's been in the evening, it's been a weekend. It's been squished between you all kinds of other things and that story has been repeated. We think it will take years to recover and we're seeing hundreds and thousands, particularly of women leave the academic workforce and leave though the real workforce to this is a huge problem for our country and I won't say we are trying to sit, you know, we had to stop the clot, but we're also going to be doing some studies. They're asking you to do some revisions of P and T documents into to really try to better judge people based on the particular circumstance that they had. Were they were they performing excellent? Consider them what they had in sensor. This is something we worked very well. The inequities are deep and wide and broad. And they're not just stone any one population, but they do tend to, tend to focus on the under-represented minorities. I just had to add that in Dennis kids were brave and obviously, we're also worried about our students are inequities. We can talk about graduate students and I won't go into the, but you can imagine it's very, very hard in graduate students because they're often struggling with just minimal financial resources to sorry, Do massages. And that's fine. It was very forward. So Charlie, I just can I close? I want to thank everybody who voted in our vote. We have another couple of minutes to get your vote in if you want to. And just to remind everybody that after this meeting we're going to have the senate meeting five minutes after week we close, we're going to have a senate meeting. And you have to exit this Zoom call and go to this Zoom call, which is a different link. So you have to exit this file, go to set it. So I would just want to thank everybody and thank you for letting us have the vote. Thank you-all. Appreciate it.
General Faculty Meeting May 3rd 2021
From Joseph Dombroski May 11, 2021
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