Good evening everyone,

The Faculty Leadership Team, comprised of the Speaker of the Faculty, Chair of the Chairs’ Caucus, President of the AAUP, and Chair of the Senate Executive Committee have been monitoring the seriousness of the situation facing higher education campuses and academia throughout the country. We have been meeting and in communication regularly throughout this week to discuss issues of importance as we go through an academic semester that no one could have possibly predicted.

It is imperative that we as a faculty come together as a community to tackle the obstacles we face while we move our instruction to online formats starting on March 23rd. At the same time, we understand that there are concerns among the faculty regarding the protections and support that are in place for such a vast change in working conditions. The AAUP, in consultation with the rest of the leadership team, has received positive and collaborative agreement on the measures listed at the bottom of this email, some of which are already in progress based on actions we took as representatives of the faculty, as well as actions taken by the administration in the previous days.

We understand the ever-changing and rapid concerns that are happening daily on college campuses at this time. We want to assure you that if you have any questions, comments, or concerns that you feel need to be addressed, you may contact any one of us.

The leadership team will be meeting again on Friday, March 13, and will continue to meet next week during spring break as the move to online instruction unfolds. Again, if anyone needs to speak with us, please reach out and we will response ASAP. Wishing you all a wonderful, happy, and healthy spring break.

George Giuliani, J.D., Psy.D., Associate Professor, Speaker of the Faculty

Kathleen Wallace, Ph.D., Professor, Chair of the Chairs’ Caucus

Elisabeth Ploran, Ph.D., Associate Professor, President of AAUP

William Caniano, MA, MS, M Ed. Associate Professor, Chair of the Senate Executive Committee

Measures agreed upon with the administration on 3/12/20:

1. CTRs and peer observations are suspended for this semester and there is an agreement that the lack of scores for this semester will not negatively impact reappointments, tenure, promotion, and re-hiring of adjuncts. Individual faculty members may still request CTR materials for their own purposes, but those scores will not be recorded by the Provost office.

2. Conference presentations or other external scholarly engagements that have been accepted but are now cancelled will still count for the purposes of reappointment, tenure, and promotion based on each department’s standards.

3. Faculty members who already purchased travel arrangements for conferences or research purposes prior to the university travel ban will be reimbursed for any lost costs not refunded by travel agencies.

4. Any faculty member who faces expiration of research or startup funds at the end of this academic year and can demonstrate the inability to use those funds due to current disruptions can request a 1-year extension on those funds to the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.

5. In recognition that faculty have different levels of familiarity with technology and the use of Blackboard/Zoom, we encourage EdTech to institute some level of triage of resources to focus on those faculty who need the most assistance, as it is critical that all courses reach a minimum level of functionality by the end of Spring Break. To this end, we have requested the following measures (some of which are already in progress from administrative action prior to today’s meeting):

· The creation of an All Faculty Blackboard page with topic-specific discussion boards and examples of assignments and lectures so that EdTech support is integrated with faculty-to-faculty support.

· That EdTech proactively email (individually or in small groups) the faculty members who have not yet logged into Blackboard at all this semester to set up one-on-one help as needed.

· Help Desk hours will be extended to at least 8pm to overlap with the last scheduled class of the day to allow for immediate troubleshooting and repair of any synchronous activities.

· When needed, faculty members may request additional webcams, headphones, Wacom tablets, and other items to support their online instruction.

6. The administration will not monitor online activities of individual professors and all products/activities designed by the faculty member for online instruction continue to be considered intellectual property of the faculty member per CBA 6.28.

7. Faculty members will be in control of recording of class sessions (with the exception of official SAS accommodations). Faculty members hosting synchronous live-lectures via Zoom should either record the live-lecture or offer an equivalent pre-recorded lecture to those students unable to attend the live-stream.

8. If the university resumes in-person face-to-face classes, faculty with underlying health conditions that place them in a high risk category are encouraged to go through the official channels in HR to receive approval to continue their course in an online format for the remainder of the semester. Faculty members without documented health conditions may contact their Dean to request approval to remain online for the remainder of the semester.

9. The move to online instruction will be time limited as appropriate, with no expectation that faculty will teach online indefinitely or that this move to online instruction represents acquiescence by the faculty that larger portions of the curriculum can be reproduced in an online format.

10. If a faculty member offers their courses in a synchronous live lecture format via video-conferencing, the timing must be within their normally scheduled time-period. Faculty members may also choose to use an asynchronous, pre-recorded format that does not rely on live video-conferencing. The fulfillment of the state requirements for minimum amount of instruction will be based on covering the same content as a face-to-face course, not the amount of recorded lecture, activities, or other online components.

11. Faculty members who anticipate difficulty recording their own lectures may request that EdTech capture their lecture in their normal classroom at their normal meeting time. These arrangements should be made as soon as possible to determine the needs of the faculty as a whole and confirm the amount of resources necessary to support all requests.

George Giuliani, J.D., Psy.D., Associate Professor

Speaker of the Hofstra University Faculty
School of Education (Special Education Program)
250 Hagedorn Hall
119 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549-1190
Telephone: 516-463-5143
Fax: 516-463-6184
email: george.a.giuliani@hofstra.edu