On Dec. 7, the Academic Staff Senate met to discuss the academic calendar for the 2022-23 school year and other end-of-semester topics.
The meeting began with Interim Associate Vice Chancellor Melissa Gormley introducing revisions to the 2022-23 academic calendar. One issue that was brought up in a previous meeting was that the fall semester of 2022 would go until Dec. 23, 2022.
“We made the suggestion,” said Gormley, “that we would start Sept. 6, then split finals week from Dec.15 to Dec. 16, then Dec. 19 to Dec. 21.”
She went on to say that “this is just a draft, we took alternative ideas from the last meeting and put them into the draft.”
Senate Chair Tyler Tollefson praised the idea, stating, “From my standpoint, I like the idea of giving more time to travel, and it might be the first time people can travel post-COVID-19.”
Gormley added that if this draft was approved, the Academic Senate would have to work closely with academic programs on campus to ensure there is less havoc around finals week and during Thanksgiving break.
Moving on to the Human Resources (HR) report, Jessica Wright announced that a new online tool for evaluations would be used in 2021.
“It is an automated system,” said Wright, “setting goals for staff at the beginning of the year, followed by a mid-year checkup and ending with an evaluation of those goals at the end of the year.”
There will be more information and training for the new system in the future.
The final major announcement of the meeting was the approval of two applicants to the Professional Development Committee. Both were strong applicants, and the committee found them worthy of being funded. The Senate approved of their funding.
The senate’s final meeting for the fall 2020 semester is on Dec. 21.