Faculty Senate received an updated presentation from the Division of Diversity and Inclusion regarding its inclusive excellence strategic plan, while heated debate took place over an executive committee resolution.
Gigi Secuban, vice president for diversity and inclusion, presented on the diversity and inclusion, inclusive excellence strategic plan for Ohio University. The vision for the plan is for OU to be recognized as a national leader in diversity and inclusion efforts, according to her presentation slides.
Three strategic goals were outlined by Secuban, including operationalizing OU’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, providing the OU community with universal goals that can impact their work and finally, allowing administrators to build a campus culture of accountability and ensuring continuous progress.
Secuban briefly outlined the 2021 campus-wide action items relating to the inclusive excellence strategic plan. Proposed dates and responsible units for implementation were highlighted.
Secuban will present an in-depth version of the campus-wide action items at the Thursday Board of Trustees meeting.
“We will continue to share this information with the university community, as well as the leadership so they are constantly involved,” Secuban said.
Senate Chair Robin Muhammad went on to present the second reading of two executive committee resolutions that were not changed at the first reading.
A resolution privileging the academic mission when allocating university resources was heavily debated upon.
A motion was made by Bill Reader, senator from the Scripps College of Communication, to amend the current resolution with an excerpt presented at the meeting that provides wording previously presented by the promotion and tenure committee. The motion was seconded and carried. However, a second motion was presented by Reader to table the debate on the resolution until next Fall. This motion was seconded and carried.
“I made the motion to change the language. I think maybe this is worth tabling, I strongly support this resolution, but the timing may not be right. As long as the upper administration knows that this is on the table and that we may pick it up again in the fall, I think that might be wise at this point,” Reader said. “There's a lot of other things moving, maybe we don't need to rush it through this year.”
Nukhet Sandal, senator from the College of Arts and Sciences, asked Muhammad for an update on the faculty senate report regarding the Kalyango case that was submitted to the Board of Trustees last week.
“We have not heard any other response regarding that. We would anticipate that it would be discussed in closed session during the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday or Friday,” Muhammad said. “We responded to questions that were asked by the board for clarification, for more explicit findings. We provided all that we had.”
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