ACADEMIC SENATE

QUARTERLY UPDATE

Undergraduate Council:

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Successfully extended P/NP deadline for Winter and Spring Quarter to Week 9 

  • Received Academic Senate and Faculty Executive Committee support in recommending Department leniency and universal P/NP

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Continue to advocate for universal P/NP so all departments in the College of Letters and Science are required to accept P/NP for major and minor requirements

  • Advocating for expansion of Academic Senate seats from CAB in order to push administration to better combat anti-racism

Faculty Executive Committee:

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Successfully extended P/NP deadline for Winter and Spring Quarter to Week 9 

  • Received Academic Senate and Faculty Executive Committee support in recommending Department leniency and universal P/NP

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Continue to push for the same initiatives 

  • Push through Justice Minor that several students in AAC are working on creating

Legislative Assembly

• Quarter Updates: 

  •  Voted on school legislation 

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Continue to ensure LGA is working in tandem with every committee’s goals

Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Reviewing admission policy changes mandated by the CA State Auditor

  • Considering the implementation of an ethnic studies A-G and IGETC requirement 

  • Discussing standardized testing criteria for 2022

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Meet with CUARS Senate analyst and Director of Undergraduate Admissions to understand and evaluate the 2021 freshmen and transfer application review process. 

Committee on Planning and Budgeting 

• Quarter Updates: 

  • New budget model changes and curtailment program for start of 2021

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Meet with CPB admin to ensure that undergraduate students are not negatively impacted by the new budget model and work in accordance with the graduate student representatives to ensure the same equity for them

Committee on Diversity Equity and Inclusion

• Quarter Updates

  • Incoming Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Anna Spain Bradley announced the creation of an Office of Civil Rights. 

  • The issue of uncompensated EDI work (of both faculty and students) is being discussed. Committee expressed great interest in finding ways to compensate activists and EDI advocates at UCLA. More updates are coming.

  • Presented on EDI topics of interest to address student needs, particularly BIPOC student body.

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Continue to advocate for EDI topics we left off on, which were to propose and perhaps see the addition of seats on Academic Senate specifically for student leaders from the Congressional Advisory Board.

  • Advocate for implementation of EDI workshops/training during New Student Orientation.

Intercollegiate Athletics Committee

• Quarter Updates:  

  • Addressed issues within the UCLA student Athlete community related to experiences with academics and conflicting athletic commitments

  • Discussed the implementation of anti-racism programs within the athletic department

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  •  Discussed more ideas to combat racial and ethnic discrimination within the athletic community

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Committee on Teaching

• Quarter Updates: 

  • The Committee discussed urging professors to be flexible, kind, and empathetic in a way that allows students to actually demonstrate their learning and attainment given their diverse needs and challenges.

  • Discussed how we can help faculty improve online instruction, remote learning, and course evaluations. 

  • Encouraged instructors to orient their instruction through a more anti-racist and social justice lens. 

  • Discussed the possibility of online degrees; many members on the Committee do not believe that online degrees sufficiently uphold UCLA’s level of quality education. 

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • We will be meeting in January to read through professor nominations for the Distinguished Teaching Award and discuss who will be granted the award.

  • We will be reading through the feedback from the remote learning course evaluations and, from this feedback, we will craft suggestions that professors can implement in order to make online learning more accessible and accommodating for students. 

Committee on Academic Freedom

• Quarter Updates: 

  • The committee discussed the use of problematic language and themes in class for educational purposes, and many of the committee members decided that such language was appropriate -- despite pushback from the student advocates in the room.

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • We want to work with the graduate student in the room, who is also a strong advocate for student needs, as well as galvanize support from the Policy Analyst, who served in the Academic Senate when he was in college.

  • We want to ensure a strong re-focus on student advocacy for the upcoming quarter, and meet as a group to create such a framework. We were unfortunate this quarter in not having many voices advocating for student needs, but hope to reshift the focus in meetings to come.

Committee on Planning and Budgeting

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Discussed resources for undergraduate students, specifically in regard to writing.

  • The chair of the committee had a meeting with the deans of colleges and academic senate leadership regarding the needs of international students.

  • Successfully advocated and appointed an undergraduate student rep to the CPB Budget Model Working group (focusing on potential institutional cuts).

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • A series of lessioning sessions that includes USAC officers and UCLA admin.

  • Continue to advocate for academic accommodation for international students.

  • We will run a survey directd to International students.

  • Ensure student input is used when finalizing the new budget model.

Committee on Faculty Welfare

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Curtailment plan recommendation: most faculty disagreed with the first proposed  plan. Academic senate has sent recommendation letters regarding this curtailment plan.

  • Vickie Mays the Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Black Life, attended a Faculty Welfare meeting to discuss issues regarding minority/underrepresented faculty and ways we can collect data

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Continue to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 on faculty to advocate for their needs during this time.

• Continue to discuss on how we can help meet the needs of minority and underrepresented faculty

• Continue to discuss and hopefully find a resolution to issues of faculty housing and child care

Council on Research

• Quarter Updates: 

  • Grants and processes are being finalized.

  • Brainstorming ideas to further equity within research while cross-collaborating with other committees.

  • COR currently sending their recommendations on the Scientific Review Committee's proposed mandate.

  • Collaborating with the library to see if space and resources can be allocated to help ease the high demand of high demand materials.

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Work with COR on a corresponding survey/study on the racial and ethnic makeup of undergrad students in research positions across multiple disciplines.

  • Discuss and advocate for the need of open space research labs.

  • Discuss the possibility of the addition of new undergrad research positions, with a focus of implementing remote lab positions opportunities during and post-covid.

Committee on Continuing and Community Education

• Quarter Updates: Discussed UNEX’s move towards online schooling and changed revenue expectations. 

• Plans for Next Quarter: Introduce plans for COVID related seminars such as heart health, and advocate for increased veteran student resources. 

General Education and Governance Committee

• Quarter Updates:

  • Overview of Review Process

    • There should be a strong writing component- series of papers leading up to a term paper.

    • What does participation mean? Instructors explaining specific methods of evaluating participation on their syllabuses.

      • Confer that having 20-30% weighted participation points without specifics is problematic.

• • Collegium of the University teaching fellows (CUTF) Review:

    • Grad students get an opportunity to create a class they’ll want to teach and submit it to GEGC for approval

      • Some problems they found with this was the syllabi which didn’t reflect the GE objectives

    • GEGC conducts workshops to guide them on how to formulate better applications: syllabus, objectives

• Plans for Next Quarter:

  • Course Review

    • The Ad-Hoc review committee will start working in Winter

    • Begin Recertification Process 

    • The committee hopes to recertify 20-30 courses this year and various departments have been responsive to this.

  • Passion Project:

    • Lysol and I have made progress in our discussions about classes for the diversity requirement and were able to conduct a survey which we sent out to the MOs for feedback. We are awaiting responses between now and week 1 Winter quarter to help us decide our next steps. So essentially, we are conducting preliminary findings.

MEET OUR STAFF

Each position has been filled for the 2020-2021 school year by our esteemed Academic Senators. 

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Breeze Velzquez, 

UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL MEMBERS

1. Breeze Velazquez,

2. Samantha Schwartz,

3. Kate McInery,

4. Emily Emard, emilyemard@g.ucla.edu

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LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

1. Sophia Acosta,
2. Hailey Valles,
3. Kayla Regalado,

COMMITTEE ON PLANNING AND BUDGET REPRESENTATIVES

1. Amanda Gracian,
2. Caroline Piedra,

COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS & RELATIONS WITH SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVES

1. Maxine Dimalanta,
2. Michelle Fausto,

COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM

1. Ashley Ceballos,  
2. Alyssa Fong,

COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY AND SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS REPRESENTATIVE

1. Herman Luis-Chavez,

COMMITTEE ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION REPRESENTATIVES

1. Rimsha Saeed,
2. Lysol Patino,

COMMITTEE ON CONTINUING & COMMUNITY EDUCATION

1. Patrick Ma,

COMMITTEE ON INTERCOLLEGIATE REPRESENTATIVE

1. Igbinoghodua Isibor,

COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH

1. Luis Angel Yepez,

COMMITTEE ON TEACHING REPRESENTATIVES

1. Angelina Quint,

FACULTY EXEC COMMITTEE

1. Heidy Melchor,
2. Breeze Velazquez,

COMMITTEE ON FACULTY WELFARE

1. Pablo Luis-Herrera,

COMMITTEE ON GE GOVERNANCE

1. Wudia Kamara,