NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Minutes of a Stated Meeting of the Senate Of
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Minutes of a Stated Meeting of the Senate of New York University October 1, 2020 A stated meeting of the Senate of New York University was held on Thursday, October 1, 2020, at 9 a.m. by videoconference. The meeting was convened with President Andrew Hamilton in the chair. Tenured/Tenure Track Faculty Senators Council (“T-FSC”) Members Present: Darcey Merritt (Chair), Mark Alter (for Fabienne Doucet), Shady Amin, Chris Barker, Andrew Battista, Sylvain Cappell, Zhe Chen, Richard Cole (for Jane Friedman), Salo Coslovsky, Sonia Das, Francisco de Leon, Stephen Duncombe, Nick Economides, Alexander Geppert, Anindya Ghose, Andras Gyorgy, Ryan Hartman, Bob Hoffman, David Irving, Anja Jauernig, Angela Kamer, Robert Lapiner, Wen Ling, Allen Mincer, Marilyn Nonken, Niyati Parekh, Gwendolyn Quinn, John Ross Rizzo (for Thomas Wisniewski), Tamar Schlick, Carol Sternhell, Amy Stimpfel, Robert JC Young, and Judith Zelikoff. Full-Time Continuing Contract Faculty Senators Council (“C-FSC”) Members Present: Ethan Youngerman (Chair), Gay Abel-Bey, David Barnes, Angela De Bartolo, Cora de Leon, Michael Ferguson (for Leila Jahangiri), Bruce Gelb, John Gershman, Steven Iams (for Yuan Yanyue), Scott Illingworth, Mary Killilea, Jung "Ted" Kim, Edward Kleinert (for Sylvia Maier), Beth Latimer, Noelle Molé Liston, Ashley Maynor, Marlene McCarty, Robin Mitnick, Ken Nielsen, Maria Patterson, Shaline Rao, Vincent Renzi, Agnes Tourin, Xingyu Wang, and Heidi White. Student Senators Council (“SSC”) Members Present: Nicky Nenkov (Chair), Bennett Adams, Ayham Adawi, Mehrin Ali, Rhea Almeida, Claudia Ameijeiras, Gavin Arneson, Spencer Asch, Christina Beck, Katarina Demos (for Deets Sharma), Jake Drucker, Bill Gu, Paul Ibuzor, Samuel Ison, Rachel Jiwon Kim, Nayab Khan, Isabelle Link-Levy, Demetri Lopez, Abby McConnell, Margi Ruparelia, Mira Silveira, Cole Swartz, and Blake Whyte. Deans Council Members Present: Eileen Sullivan-Marx (Chair), Susan Antn, Charles Bertolami, Rajeev Dehejia (for Sherry Glied), Allyson Green, Susan Greenbaum, Marty Guggenheim (for Trevor Morrison), Cheryl Healton, Gene Jarrett, Jack Knott, Antonio Merlo, Julie Mostov, Erin Potter (for Rangarajan Sundaram), Nina Servizzi (for H. Austin Booth), Yao Wang (for Jelena Kovačević), and Susanne Wofford. Administrative Management Council (“AMC”) Members Present: Michael McCaw (Chair), Cassandra Bizzaro, Regina Drew, Carrie Meconis, Katie Santo, Joseph Sierra, and D Simmons Jendayi. University Administration Members Present: Lisa Coleman, Martin Dorph, Katherine Fleming, Andrew Hamilton, and Terrance Nolan. Minutes/University Senate October 1, 2020 Page 2 President Hamilton welcomed members of the Senate to the meeting, the first since March when NYU transitioned to remote classes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York. He explained that since March, the Senate Executive Committee has met regularly to ensure that the functions of the Senate continued to be carried out and to provide input as the University navigated the pandemic. President Hamilton said that with the start of the new academic year, the Executive Committee strongly believed that it was critical for the Senate to resume its meetings. He said that while the first meeting of the Senate is usually brief so that Senate committees had an opportunity to meet, today’s meeting would be more fulsome so that there could be discussion about the pandemic and the University’s response. PRELIMINARY MATTERS In Memoriam As is customary at the first meeting of the academic year, General Counsel and Secretary of the Senate Terrance Nolan read the names of members of the University community who died during academic year 2019-2020. The list of names is attached to these minutes as Exhibit A. Review and Approval of the Minutes of the February 13, 2020 Meeting Upon motion duly made and seconded, the minutes of the February 13, 2020 were approved unanimously as presented. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT President Hamilton asked the Senate if there were any questions regarding the Executive Committee report that was included in the materials distributed to the Senate in advance of the meeting. The list of 2020-2021 Senate Officers, the 2020-2021 Senate Standing Committee assignments, the 2020-2021 Senate Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Sexual Misconduct membership, and the issues charged to the Senate Standing Committees for this year are attached to these minutes as Exhibits B, C, D, and E respectively. COUNCIL REPORTS Administrative Management Council AMC Chair Michael McCaw referred the Senate to the Council’s report that was included in the Senate materials. He thanked members of the AMC for a busy summer and expressed gratitude to University partners like Senior Vice President for Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation Lisa Coleman and Executive Vice President Marty Dorph for continuing important conversations. Mr. McCaw also said that the AMC is Minutes/University Senate October 1, 2020 Page 3 engaged in a fundraising drive to help support administrators, staff, and faculty and asked people to consider donating if able. Tenured/Tenure Track Faculty Senators Council T-FSC Chair Darcey Merritt reported that the T-FSC met regularly throughout the summer and collaborated with the C-FSC, including with respect to safety initiatives and anti-racism efforts. She also said the T-FSC’s committees were all hard at work. Finally, Dr. Merritt offered thanks to President Hamilton and University administration for its efforts in reopening NYU in the fall. Student Senators Council SSC Chair Nicky Nenkov reported that the SSC met regularly throughout the summer, including working with University administration to assess NYU’s fall reopening. They added that the SSC has also been working with the Deans Council and assessing SSC’s publicity and social media activities. Finally, they said that the SSC would be electing a Vice Chair and will let the Senate know when a Vice Chair is in place. UPDATES Public Health President Hamilton introduced Carlo Ciotoli, Associate Vice President, NYU Student Health and Executive Director, Student Health Center. Dr. Ciotoli thanked the University community for their efforts in helping the University to safely reopen. He said that the University put in place a number of measures designed to protect the health and safety of the University community, including (1) the requirement to wear face coverings and social distance, (2) implementation of a Daily Screener that individuals entering NYU buildings are required to complete; and (3) COVID-19 testing, including gateway testing and ongoing testing. Dr. Ciotoli said that the University has administered over 57,000 tests, with a positivity rate of about 0.5%, which is lower than the positivity rate for New York City. Dr. Ciotoli explained that New York State issued supplemental guidance for higher education institutions stating that campus locations that experienced the lesser of 5% or 100 positive COVID-19 cases would be required to transition to fully remote learning for a period of at least two weeks; in response, NYU identified nine different campus locations that would be monitored. He said that the University receives daily reports about positive COVID cases for each location. Dr. Ciotoli emphasized that the University addresses positive cases in the moment and does not wait until New York State thresholds are reached. For instance, he said that the University’s recent efforts in isolating positive COVID-19 cases in Rubin Hall potentially mitigated a larger outbreak. Dr. Ciotoli said that the University is closely monitoring COVID-19 trends, including the recent spikes in cases in certain New York City neighborhoods. Minutes/University Senate October 1, 2020 Page 4 President Hamilton thanked Dr. Ciotoli and his team for their hard work, including helping to put in place important public health measures, managing cases and anxieties, and helping to manage the required quarantining of students who returned to campus from states on New York State’s quarantine list. Academics President Hamilton introduced Provost Katherine Fleming to talk about the effects of the pandemic on the academic life of the University, noting that the Provost’s Office and the schools have worked very hard on planning for the summer and the fall. Dr. Fleming said that while these are challenging times, the educational collaboration between teachers and students has never been so great as it is now. Dr. Fleming said that she wanted to address four topics: modality, advisement, the summer, and lessons learned. With respect to modality, Dr. Fleming said that classes for the fall are being offered in-person, remotely, or in a hybrid format (with both in- person and remote components). She said that the academic team is focused on strategies for ameliorating challenges. With respect to advising, given the importance of interaction between faculty and students, Dr. Fleming reported that faculty have added virtual office hours and outdoor meetings. Dr. Fleming said that work has already started on the 2021 summer semester and how to make the semester as substantial as possible. Finally, Dr. Fleming said that the University is examining the lessons learned from this experience so that those lessons can be integrated into academic life going forward. The Senate engaged in discussion, including about the percentage of in- person classes being offered and the evaluation of remote classes. Housing and Student Affairs President Hamilton introduced Linda G. Mills, Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice Provost for Global Programs and University Life. Dr. Mills noted that the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic began with the students who could not arrive in China last Spring because of the coronavirus outbreak there. COVID cases soon rose in several European countries, particularly Italy, eventually spreading to all the areas where the University has have global academic centers. Dr. Mills explained that as the University planned for the Fall semester, we wanted to be flexible and engage as many students as possible, understanding that thousands of NYU students might not be able to travel to their home campuses but could live and study at another one of NYU's global locations.