Committee reports 2/22/17
Community Outreach2-21-17
1)Oakland Planning & Development Corporation (OPDC) asked for feedback about next steps in the Oakland Community Land Trust which aims to buy up land in the Oakland area and offer longer term affordable (i.e. subsidized) leases of the homes to either older residents who want to "age in place" or new buyers who will buy on a "owner occupancy only" agreement. Concerns over displacement of students was brought up- current efforts to build more student housing was offered as the solution already in place. It is unclear what role the university would/should play in the process- it was suggested that there could be a more coordinated effort across university schools, departments, etc. to assist new faculty and staff with housing choices; in the future the OPDC program would be a part of the offerings.
2)Pitt Day in Harrisburg: the council is considering going for the day in lieu of a meeting.
Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy – 2/3/17
Discussion about the chancellors response to the Muslim band executive order and how we would offer state support during the next senate meeting
Mental Health Task Force1-24-2017
Updates:
-Medical Arts Building is the expansion site for the counseling center. Renovations are near completion. 4 new staff members will be housed here. There have been 6 new hires including psychologists (2), PhD psychologist (2) a group counselor (Kelli Lampe) and an outreach coordinator. Recruitment is still in progress for 2 additional positions.
-Panther to Panther: this is a proposed group of "peer wellness coaches" that will support students who are seeking support that does not require a licensed practitioner. This group is in the development stages and are currently researching other university programs to develop the best model for implementation. **Please follow up with Letitia Graves, for further information and/or interest in participating in this program.
-Advisory Board: A proposed student advisor group to function as a liaison to the Mental Health Task Force. Currently researching other programs.
JED/Clinton Campus Program Self-Assessment: the meeting was primarily focused on reviewing the assessment and ensuring its accuracy and completeness for submission.
2-7-2017
Updates were given on the following:
-Syllabus Project-this would allow for information on the counseling center to added to the syllabus so that students would know how to access the CC if and when needed. A meeting has been set up with the Provost to review this proceed with appropriate approvals. Headed by SGA.
-JED Assessment: (self-report of the universities counseling and wellness programs) now completed and will be submitted online.
-Med Arts Building: new location that will house new hires (psychologist/psychiatrist) moving is anticipated on or around 2/13/2017 as there were some issues with wiring that needed to be addressed. Students will continue to report initially to the CC, and will be directed to Med Arts Building for following (if appropriate) with assigned CC staff.
New Business
-Dennis Gillan presentation opportunity: speaker on suicide awareness/prevention. Was being reviewed by SGA on his history and services offered. In addition to his speech, will share campus specific resources to attendees. Honorarium is $1500.00 and SGA is looking for partners to share in the cost of this.
-AFSP Interactive Screening Program opportunity: American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has shared a call for application to implement AFSP's signature prevention program, Interactive Screening Program (ISP). If awarded, AFSP will cover the program fees of $10,000 for each institution for a three year program term to establish the program as part of a comprehensive suicide prevention and mental health promotion strategy on each campus. After review there were some question raised by the task force. Ed Michaels, chair will seek additional information and bring it back for further discussion in the next meeting.
New Ideas/Initiatives:
-Panther Care (student group) is offering a mental health first aid training through Tina Zimmerman from Allegheny health. Training will hold space for approximately 30 interested persons. Trainings will be offered over 2 days in 4hr time blocks.
Research
Meeting agenda:
1. Announcements
2. Office of Research updates.
3. Experiences in innovation discussion with Prof. T. Deardo
4. Committee items for the spring term
5. Update on Senior Vice-Chancellor search.
6. New business
University Council on Graduate Studies- 02/21/2017
1- The committee approved the creation of a new program in the School of Medicine. The Program of Microbiology and Immunology will combine two previous programs in the School of Medicine.
2- In August of 2017, the University of Pittsburgh library system will require all students to create and submit an ORCiD number with their ETD (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation) submission.
3- The committee proposed a new system of how students in joint programs are charged. Rather than being charged tuition from a single school per semester (as it has been), students will now be charged tuition proportional to the number of credits taken from each school.
SCUC- 02/17/2017
CSSD report: Office 365 migration should be complete by the end of February. Following up on question from last meeting, if your email account needs to be disabled due to a threat, the login page will have a message to the effect: account has been disabled, call help desk. CSSD looking into a faster emergency message system. Regarding slow email delivery due to scanning attachments, CSSD is testing a delayed attachment delivery, in which the email will arrive while the attachment is still being scanned. Once safe, the attachment is available to the reader. For Ricoh scanners, departments may submit help ticket to get scanner on "white list" so email from scanner can be sent without delay. Multifactor authentication will be implemented for faculty and staff by March 5. Information is on the technology site For emails on sponsored accounts, may need to submit a help ticket if multiple users of account. See FAQs on the above link's page.
Educational Policies- 01/23/2017
For this meeting, we invited speakers from the Innovation Design for Education and Assessment (IDEA) Lab. They told us about the Open Learning Initiative (OLI), which started at CMU and provides free instructional tools and even whole courses. Course instructors at Pitt are starting to use interactive lessons from the OLI in their classes.
Vice Provost Sbragia reported that there is a forthcoming graduate student "opinion" poll that will be emailed out to all grad students. They already performed this with undergrad students and will be using poll data to perform a social science based analysis of student satisfaction.
For many months, the Educational Policies committee has talked about the effectiveness of OMET surveys in evaluating teachers. Several faculty members formed an ad hoc committee and came to a resolution about this issue, which will be voted on soon at the Faculty Assembly. The resolution recommends that the Provost move away from using student surveys (including OMET surveys) as a method for evaluating teaching effectiveness and student learning for the purposes of annual review, raises, promotion, and tenure. This is more of a faculty issue than a student issue, but students should be made aware that these decisions are being made.
Chancellor's Distinguished Teachers Award- 02/01/2017
Discussed finalists for the teacher award and suggested candidates for Chancellors review.
EIADAC- 12/08/2016
EIADAC Meeting Minutes
December 8, 2016
Meeting began at 12:00 PM
In attendance: Kacey Marra, Cindy Danford, Amber Pabon, Genevieve Cook, Latha Satish, Kenny Donaldson, Samantha Jankowitz, Christine Jackson, Sharon Nelson-Le Gall, Natasha Tokowicz, Robin Kear, Pam Connelly, Ellen Ansell, Meg Mayer-Costa, Christopher Mahoney, Kara Bernstein
Guests: Kimberly Barlow, University Times and Cheryl Johnson, Human Resources
1)Approved minutes from October 2016 meeting
2)Kacey Marra provided an update of the December Faculty Assembly meeting and Cindy Danford provided an update of the November Faculty Assembly meeting
3)Updates from working groups
a.Gender Equity: Meg Mayer-Costa stated that they are exploring leave policies across all disciplines and at other Universities; Cheryl Johnson indicated that she would like EIADAC to be thought partners with HR as they are currently analyzing other university staff leave policies
b.International Populations (IP): Cindy Danford said that the mission of this group is to identify gaps in IP needs; they have sent the survey out to 2900 students with an 11% response rate so far. It was noted that tennis courts was mentioned as a need. Natasha Tokowicz suggested to add testimonials to the fact page.
c.Race and Ethnicity: Amber Pabon reported that the group met on 11/28/16 and discussed how they might collaborate on one central issue, yet also focus on individual interests. Discussion followed centered on intersectionality, and members indicated that these areas overlap with the other working groups, and the effects of the election.
d.Year of Diversity Sustainability: Kacey Marra indicated that the Year of Diversity committee had met on December 6, 2016, and updated the committee on the large number of events occurring. The deadline of proposals was stated as January 15, 2017, and the committee discussed an end of year poster event. Christie Jackson was going to work on the proposal.
4)New business
a.Robin Kear discussed the idea of Pitt becoming a sanctuary campus and requested that EIADAC look further into this matter. The following websites provide relevant information:
University related information:
•Pitt faculty petitions for sanctuary campus, Pitt News, 12/8/16. The actual petition.
•Pitt joins sanctuary campus movement, Pitt News, 11/17/16.
•Chancellor Pat Gallagher signed the Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and our Undocumented Immigrant Students within the last month.
City related information:
•Pittsburgh considers becoming a sanctuary city in resistance to Trump's deportation promises, PublicSource, 11/29/16.
•City Council Discusses Formalizing Pittsburgh As A Sanctuary City, KDKA News, 11/30/16.
Other University responses:
•University of Pennsylvania is a sanctuary campus, The Inquirer, 11/30/16.
•A map of the status of many universities and the push for sanctuary campuses.
The meeting concluded with plans on continuing to pursue all of the above issues.
Meeting adjourned at 1:02 P.M.
PACWC- 01/26/17
We are moving forward with adjusting our program to select women for our Spotlight on Leadership. These adjustments include creating an online discussion board to better remain in contact with committee members, deciding on the Pitt population we will be addressing, and defining qualities we want to emphasize for our future candidates.