Draft submitted by Standard 3 Committee: Charles Salas (chair), Rachael Barlow, Anne Laskowski, Andrea Patalano, Nicole Stanton, Andy Tanaka
STANDARD THREE: The institution has a system of governance that facilitates the accomplishment of its mission and purposes and supports institutional effectiveness and integrity. Through its organizational design and governance structure, the institution creates and sustains an environment that encourages teaching, learning, service, scholarship, and where appropriate, research and creative activity. It demonstrates administrative capacity by assuring provision of support adequate for the appropriate functioning of each organizational component. The institution has sufficient autonomy and control of its programs and operations consistent with its mission to be held directly accountable for meeting the Commission’s Standards for Accreditation.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Description
The Trustees website makes clear the role of the Board:
The Board of Trustees is the governing body of the University and responsible for ensuring that the University fulfills its mission, sustains its values, and appropriately balances its obligations to current and future generations. The Board establishes long-term strategic policy and direction, approves the University’s budget and major financial expenditures, program initiatives and construction projects, oversees the University’s financial affairs, stewards the University’s endowment and other capital resources, and appoints and supervises the President of the University.
Wesleyan University was established in 1831 under the Special Laws of Connecticut, with all corporate powers to be exercised by the authority of the Board of Trustees. The Charter was last amended in 2019, increasing the maximum number of trustees from 33 to 36 (or 37 if the chair’s term as a trustee has expired and she/he is serving ex officio). Nine members of the Board are elected by the alumni and members of the senior class, and serve a three-year term. The remaining trustees are elected by the Board and serve a six-year term. The expectation is that Board-elected trustees will serve a single term; occasionally, a trustee will serve a second term if there are compelling institutional reasons to do so.
The standing committees of the Board are: Audit, Campus Affairs, Finance, Governance, Investment, and University Relations. The by-laws afford members of the faculty and the student body the right and responsibility to serve as representatives to the Board, with voice but not vote at the formal Board meetings, and with voice and voting privileges on the Campus Affairs, Finance, and University Relations committees, except with respect to personnel matters.
All trustees are annually provided with a Conflict of Interest Policy and an opportunity to identify potential conflicts of interest. Board materials – including archival information on policies and past decisions, Board and committee minutes and resolutions, and general information about the role and responsibilities of trustees – are provided through a secure server to all trustees and trustees emeriti.
Appraisal
Together with the Senior Vice President and Chief Administration Officer and Treasurer, the President presents a budget for consideration and adoption, as required by the University’s by-laws, to the Board of Trustees each May. An annual endowment performance report is given to the Board and interim reports are presented at each Board meeting. In months when the Board does not meet in person, the President communicates with the Trustees through conference calls – recently replaced by zoom meetings – and conversation with individual trustees and emeriti.
Six faculty are representatives to the Board. Trustees regularly meet with students and faculty who are not themselves representatives to the Board, and there are open meetings – in which any student can attend – at least twice a year. Once or twice a year trustees have a dinner with faculty, often invited due to their expertise. An email address for the Board of Trustees can be found on the Board website so anyone can contact them.
While the Board is careful not to become overly involved in the daily tasks of management better left to the administration, it does get involved in strategic planning with the President, with input from faculty, students, and staff. Over the past two years, drafts of a new strategic framework for planning, Towards Wesleyan’s Bicentennial, were discussed at Board meetings, and a final version was adopted by the Board in November 2021. The university’s mission statement is featured at the head of the Trustees website and often cited in discussions of strategic planning.
The Board sometimes forms working groups or task forces to assist the university with difficult issues. The University Relations Committee, for example, recently had three working groups: Affordability, Campaign Success, Media Perceptions. Other Board working groups include the Facilities Working Group and the Campaign Executive Committee. Notable among past groups are the Bond Working Group, which provided key input that helped with the ultimate structure of the latest secured bond, and the Equity & Inclusion Task Force. With respect to Facilities planning, Board input was important to the design of the new Art Gallery, the preservation of Shanklin Hall as the home of the College of the Environment and the design of a Science building that is more accessible and leverages a diverse construction team.
Newly elected trustees participate in an intensive, orientation program about roles and the responsibilities, and their survey responses are analyzed by the Chair of the Governance Committee to make sure they have received the guidance needed to fulfill their responsibilities. To increase the preparedness of Board leadership, a Chair-elect is now designated a year in advance.
Following each meeting of the Board (including the retreat), the Board Chair receives the results of a brief survey (conducted by the President’s office) asking each trustee for the three best things from the experience, the three worst, and any other comments/suggestions they may have. Level of engagement remains high, and there is more emphasis on creating social connections among Board members to foster comradery.
The desire of trustees to have more direct discussion with the President led to the creation of the trustee briefing. At this briefing, at the start of the first day of the Board meeting, the President (often with senior administrators) makes presentations on pressing issues and there is open discussion on “What keeps university leadership up at night.” At the executive session (trustees only) at the conclusion of the meeting, there is also open discussion on various topics with the President, and after his departure, a review of the President’s performance.
Zoom meetings were one consequence of the pandemic, and they were successful enough that it may be that one full Board meeting will end up being on Zoom each year. Certainly it is likely that committees will continue to meet outside of regular Board meetings on Zoom.
In May 2015 the Trustee Leadership Committee (TLC) was established, codifying what had been an informal group consisting of Committee chairs and officers of the Board. The TLC serves as a sounding board for the President on matters of importance and helps to craft the agenda for the Board as a whole. The President meets with the TLC before and after each Board meeting.
While the Governance Committee of the Board continues to focus on developing the pipeline for new trustees, it has in recent years been more involved in assessing the work of the Board. In April 2014, the Committee conducted an online survey of trustees to examine the five areas of Board governance: communication, leadership, commitment, function, and structure. As a result, a number of changes were made: Governance now reports out at the full board meeting (in addition to executive session) so as to increase transparency of its work, and the other committees have been encouraged to give more detailed reports than they had previously; and in this age of zoom meetings, trustees have been invited to attend standing committee meetings even if they do not serve on that committee, as observers.
The following year, the Governance Committee used survey input from trustees as part of the process in selecting the next Chair, Donna Morea, the first woman in Wesleyan’s history to serve in that capacity. In April 2017, it conducted a second survey examining the five areas of Board governance. Survey participation was strong, with all 33 of the invited trustees taking part (100%). In November 2018, the Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees conducted an online survey to collect the Trustee’s input as the first step in selecting the next Chair. Survey participation was moderate with 25 of the 32 invited Trustees taking part.
With respect to Board composition, the Governance Committee takes into account areas of competence (such as medical knowledge or expertise in higher education, for example) when considering candidates for Board membership; and diversity – be it with respect to gender, race, or geographic representation – is always a consideration. Nearly a third of the trustees self-identify as BIPOC.
Consonant with the strategic plan’s second overarching goal of enhanced recognition, the Board together with Advancement and Admission promotes a vision of the trustees as ambassadors of the University who help to get the word out about the exciting things students, faculty, and alumni are doing.
In 2021, the Board – after consultation with the Governance and Trustee Leadership Committees – asked Ron Ashkenas ’72, a consultant who has helped the university in the past, to undertake an external review of Board effectiveness. See below.
Projection
While the Ashkenas review of Board effectiveness was positive, there were recommendations made that the Board will take to heart going forward. The Governance Committee will continue to take a longer-term strategic view of board composition – with an eye on sectors other than finance and business and finding trustees from other parts of the world. The TLC will assist committee chairs with clearer goals and expectations, and trustees will identify particular areas of individual interest in advance of board service so that committee assignments can be sharpened.
ADMINISTRATION
Description
The President is ultimately responsible for all aspects of the University: including oversight of staff, policies governing student conduct, and affirmative action laws; accepting or denying recommendations of student and faculty committees; presiding over meetings of the Academic Council; submitting a budget for Board approval; and recommending to the Board tenure and promotion of faculty. Cabinet is the senior administrative body and advises the President on operations, strategic planning and governance; its membership and responsibilities can be found on the University website’s President’s Page.
Cabinet members develop goals – aligned with strategic planning principles – for areas of the University for which they are responsible and share them in materials presented to the Board. The President reports on progress. Goal setting for all administrative staff members is required and part of the University’s annual performance review process.
As of Fall 2021, there are about 750 staff members. Organization charts can be found on the University website, including here. Administrative and HR policies are available in recently revised Staff Handbooks and Supervisor Guides available to managers in Wesportal. All employees receive an annual reminder of the university’s Code of Conduct and associated expectations and requirements.
Appraisal
Concerted efforts have been made to increase transparency and collaboration. Where the President used to conduct only two all-staff meetings – for the purpose of discussing ongoing issues and plans for the future – he now conducts four (around Board meetings), and during the pandemic there have been even more. Because of the frequency of these meetings, his formal meetings with senior administrative staff were judged redundant and dropped.
The President and Cabinet attend regularly scheduled faculty meetings, and the President and Provost meet monthly with the Faculty Executive Committee and engage with the campus community through various forums and committees, including the Compensation and Benefits Committee, Budget Priorities Committee, Budget Working Group, and Facilities Planning Committee. The President also meets monthly with the leadership of the Wesleyan Student Association (WSA), briefs the student representatives to the Board prior to each Board Meeting, and afterwards attends the next WSA meeting. Faculty, students, and staff consult directly with members of Cabinet through standing committees, such as the Educational Policy and Student Life Committees, and on ad hoc committees or task forces convened to examine particular campus issues, such as academic advising and DE&I.
The 12 member Cabinet now includes the Chief Investment Officer and the University’s General Counsel & Secretary, added because they are responsible for areas of the University with immediate implications for every facet of University operations. The President wanted the endowment team to be fully informed about how their stewardship of our financial foundation affects everything we do, and he wanted the Cabinet to realize the legal issues and the risk management that should be part of their standard practice. During the pandemic, the chair of the Pandemic Planning Committee was asked to join Cabinet meetings. Cabinet meets less frequently than in the past as there is more collaboration on operational issues across Cabinet areas. Specific collaboration areas are developed over the course of the Cabinet retreat and inform work over the course of the year; in 2020/21, the area was Equity & Inclusion. And there are a number of collaborative efforts among administrative departments: Academic Affairs is working with Student Affairs on academic advising; Advancement is working with Admissions on better connecting data to track a student’s journey; Advancement is working with Communications on the next campaign; etc.
In addition to regular meetings with Cabinet, the President meets with just the two Senior Vice-Presidents (Provost and CAO/Treasurer), helping to ensure alignment between the academic and administrative arms of the institution. The Senior Vice-President structure was implemented in FY ’17/18, the rationale being that the CAO/Treasurer and Provost have the broadest responsibilities after the president. The Provost should be able to step in should the president be away or be unable to fulfill his functions, and nothing can really happen at the university without the funds for which the Treasurer is responsible.
An effort has been made to promote increased decision-making autonomy at the level of the SVPs and Cabinet and to increase collaboration across the administrative divisions. Collaboration is also encouraged at other levels of the administration through temporary cross functional project teams. The Pandemic Planning Committee, financial aid working group, task forces around international admissions and various building (Gallery, Science, PAC) committees are examples. Cross-functional teams proved effective in meeting challenges posed by the pandemic. At the same time, there is more work to be done to ensure the administration meets often and effectively enough with students; it is not always clear how well information communicated to the WSA gets passed on to other students.
The decision-making process around administrative and financial decisions typically includes numerous consultations with faculty, staff, and students. Transparency in the decision-making process is a priority as is the timely communication of administrative decisions. Committees engaged in financial consultation typically receive the same level of information that is shared with the Cabinet and the Board. During the pandemic, the pace of information sharing via faculty and staff fora was increased as was the frequency and detail of campus-wide communications about operations and finances. The pandemic caused some turbulence in these two areas. With respect to finance, salaries were temporarily frozen but not reduced (though a few senior administrators took voluntary reductions), and while consideration was given to cutting retirement benefits and furloughing staff, in the end neither of these took place. The Budget Priorities Committee, the Compensation and Benefits Committee and the Faculty Executive Committee were all involved in these deliberations.
Project Refresh was a short-lived attempt prior to the pandemic to gather staff/faculty feedback about university operations and inspire changes. While the university was mainly looking for suggestions for things that could be discontinued, the suggestions received focused on things units thought should still be done but no longer by them.
Projection
In rising to the challenges posed by the pandemic, there has been remarkable cooperation among the various constituencies here, suggesting stability in current forms of internal governance.
FACULTY
Description
The faculty includes all ~400 full- and part-time teaching staff (but not those staff who teach in addition to their primary duties). Faculty are collectively responsible for faculty governance, which chiefly involves matters pertaining to educational policy and practice on one hand and faculty tenure and promotion procedures and decisions on the other. There are about ~75 elected governance positions filled by faculty each year (this does not include the many appointed roles); many (but not all) are two year positions so that there is continuity across years. Over the past five years, 163 different faculty have participated in faculty governance in these elected roles. The structure and procedures of faculty governance are articulated in the by-laws of the faculty and the Faculty Handbook, available in the University platform WesPortal.
The faculty governance structure is very similar to what was reported in 2012 self-study report. Faculty carry out their governance duties primarily through two legislative bodies: the Faculty (as a Whole), and the Academic Council. The Faculty conducts its business primarily through formal faculty meetings, open to all faculty (all of whom have voting privileges), and held at least three times a semester. Meetings, which are also attended by representatives of the administration and the Wesleyan Student Association, are run by the Faculty Chair, who sets the agenda and is supported by the Vice Chair and Academic Secretary. Online forums are often initiated prior to a meeting for additional discussion of key legislative items. Agendas, minutes, and supporting documents are available in the university platform WesPortal.
There are four standing committees of the Faculty: the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), the Faculty Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (FCRR), the Committee on Honors, and the Compensation and Benefits Committee (CBC). The chair of each committee reports on its work at least once per year at a faculty meeting. Perhaps most directly related to the content, quality, and effectiveness of the curriculum is the work of EPC which is comprised of six elected faculty members (two from each division), two undergraduate student representatives, and one graduate student representative. EPC, which meets weekly during the academic year, is responsible for overseeing the curriculum and approving curricular changes (e.g., ranging from proposals for new majors to changes in the academic calendar). The Provost and/or Associate Provost for Curriculum and Strategic Initiatives meets with the EPC Chair weekly, and attends EPC meetings to facilitate communication and the sharing of institutional data.
The Academic Council, which is open to all tenured faculty and to three elected tenure-track assistant professors, addresses matters relating to faculty tenure, promotion, and evaluation. Meetings, which are held at least once per semester, are chaired by the University President. There are two standing committees of the Academic Council: the Advisory Committee and the Review and Appeals Board (RAB). The Advisory Committee which consists of nine faculty (three from each division) and is chaired by the Provost, meets weekly during the academic year. Advisory evaluates tenure and promotion recommendations brought by departments, and makes recommendations on these cases to the University President. It can also remand cases back to departments if it determines that its guidelines for constructing cases have not been met. RAB, which consists of 30 faculty (10 from each division), reviews recommendations made by Advisory, and hears appeals of negative decisions. It has the power to remand cases back to Advisory for further consideration or, under certain conditions specified in the Faculty Handbook, to reverse Advisory’s recommendations.
A Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) consists of the Chair and Vice Chair of the Faculty, the chairs of the four standing committees of the Faculty, the Vice Chair of Advisory, the Chair of RAB, faculty representatives to the Finance and Campus Affairs Committees of the Board of Trustees, the Academic Secretary, three academic deans, three elected representatives of the untenured faculty, and most recent past Chair of the Faculty. The FEC, which meets roughly two weeks prior to each faculty meeting and regularly with the President and Provost, serves as the Faculty Chair’s “cabinet” and represents the faculty as a whole in working with the administration. Action items for faculty vote in the form of motions are brought to the faculty meeting by standing committees or the FEC. The Chair of the Faculty also attends the University President’s Cabinet meetings for purposes of communication and transparency. Beyond this governance structure, the three academic deans are selected by the provost to represent each academic division, and departments select their own chairs. The responsibilities of chairs, working with their respective dean and other relevant bodies, include managing the department’s curriculum, constructing tenure cases, and running faculty searches.
Appraisal
The effectiveness of faculty governance is evidenced in part by significant legislation. Some notable items of legislation since the last self-study report are the piloting and adoption of a new class schedule (with midday common times), new student course evaluation forms (with an extended quantitative component), summer and January class sessions, a Center for Prison Education program, a self-paced language learning program, and the setting of a syllabus policy (requiring syllabi) for non-tutorial classes. New academic programs of study include a Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree program, a College of Educational Studies, a College of East Asian Studies, conversion of African American Studies from a program to department, an MA in Curatorial Practice in Performance, a certificate in Muslim Studies, and minors in Applied Data Science and Integrated Design Engineering and Applied Science (and others).
Small standing committees that existed at the time of the last report (e.g., Merit, Academic Review, and Library) are now under different purview or replaced with ad hoc committees. Ad hoc committees are commissioned as needed to look at a particular issue in depth and to make recommendations. Recently, a Committee on the Peer Evaluation of Teaching and a Committee on Promotion Policies for Continuing Faculty made recommendations (e.g., about whether/how to include peer review of teaching into the tenure and promotion process) that are now being considered by the faculty. This year, newly formed ad hoc committees are addressing issues in academic advising (e.g., strategies for improving pre-major advising) and equity in service. FEC has also played an increasingly active role in proposing new legislation. Notably, in 2020, FEC brought a proposal to the faculty to create a university mentoring program for newly hired faculty that was adopted, and a pilot program began the same year.
Changes made in governance structure since the last report include the attendance at FEC of chairs of the standing committees of Academic Council and also the most recent past Chair of the Faculty. As noted in the 2012 interim report, it is also relatively recent that the Chair of the Faculty attends Cabinet meetings. Another somewhat recent change is that, because the Professor of the Practice (PoP) position has now been regularized, individuals in this position are included in some facets of faculty governance. Notably, an elected PoP representative has been added to the Compensation and Benefits Committee. All of these changes, which have been made to increase transparency and communication, have been positive ones. In particular, the increase in substantive meetings between faculty committees and the president has contributed to a cycle of communication between faculty and administration that has defused potential misunderstandings and given faculty more opportunities for meaningful input into administrative decisions.
At the time of the 2012 report, there was interest in increasing faculty participation in governance. Attendance at faculty meetings was less than 50%, voting in faculty elections was at about 35% and some faculty found themselves being repeatedly elected to committees. A number of measures were taken to increase the number of faculty participating in service. These measures were recommendations of the Committee on Faculty Service Contributions, an ad hoc committee for the study of equitable faculty participation in governance. One change made was to reduce the duration of a term on the Advisory Committee from three to two years. This resulted in slightly greater reliance on the Academic Secretary and Provost for continuity across years but, on balance, has been a positive change. Another change was the creation of a leadership award for faculty (similar to awards given for teaching and research) to recognize and promote significant leadership contributions. A proposal of the ad hoc committee not fully considered yet is the filling of positions by random selection (rather than election) to ensure broad participation. This proposal will be considered more fully in the coming year.
Measures were also taken to increase participation in faculty elections and attendance at faculty meetings. Changes in voting procedures initiated several years ago—including a posted voting calendar each spring, repeated reminders to vote, direct links in emails to online ballots, and immediate reporting of the percentage who voted following each vote—appear to have successfully led to increases in participation in elections, resulting in over 50% of faculty (a 20% increase from five years ago) voting in elections this year (see graph below). Also, by vote of the faculty, monthly meetings were moved several years ago from late afternoon to noon time to reduce conflicts with parenting responsibilities. And, more recently due to covid, meetings were temporarily returned to late afternoon but held remotely, and then returned to noon but still remotely. Remote meetings led to some increase in meeting attendance. Attendance in 2020-21 ranged from 20-45%, whereas attendance was more consistently around 25% prior to that time. We are currently discussing ways to keep desirable elements of covid-related changes, such as perhaps moving to a hybrid online and in-person meeting format.
Additional changes include that a Moodle page was created to facilitate faculty discussion outside of meetings. It is still used and has had some value but has not been a significant source of faculty participation. Discussions are ongoing about other platforms for increasing engagement outside of large meetings. Work is also ongoing to make faculty governance, the nature of various leadership roles, and policies regarding service more transparent to faculty (e.g., through revised faculty-oriented web pages, faculty workshops).
Projection
We anticipate continued efforts will be made going forward to increase broad participation of faculty in governance, such as through hybrid meetings and by identifying mechanisms to further increase the number of different faculty in elected positions (an issue being considered by the ad hoc Committee on University Service). We also expect work to continue towards increasing the transparency of the faculty governance structure and towards promoting opportunities for faculty leadership (e.g., through the work of the Center for Faculty Career Development and its website resources). Finally, while the consultation of faculty by the President and Provost has been meaningful and extensive, there are other administrative areas more distant from faculty yet dealing with matters of faculty concern – such as admissions and communications – where closer connections to faculty would be beneficial, and we anticipate that these connections will grow.
STUDENTS
Description
The Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) represents undergraduates and advocates for their interests. The WSA is composed of 36 members across four class years, among them a President, Vice President, Chief-of-Staff, and five other committee chairs who compose the Leadership Board. Leadership Board members act as the WSA leadership and serve as student representatives to the Wesleyan Board of Trustees. The WSA holds elections every semester, in which students vote for their representatives, and the President and Vice President are elected directly from the student body with a year-long term. The WSA Constitution and by-laws govern the general structure of the assembly and its elections.
Apart from the Leadership Board, there are five other permanent standing committees: Community Committee, Student Life Committee, Academic Affairs Committee, Student Budget Committee, and Equity and Inclusion Committee. Each representative, excepting the President Vice President and Chief-of-Staff, serves on one of these five standing committees. The standing committees have sub-committees, which include WSA representatives, non-representatives, staff, faculty, and administrators in their composition, varying for each committee.
Funds collected from students through the Student Activities Fee enable the WSA to support student events and programs. The Student Budget Committee allocates these funds to student groups on a weekly basis. In addition, the WSA manages a $500,000+ endowment, the first student government endowment in the nation, which is meant to allow the WSA to eventually lower the Student Activities Fee.
The full General Assembly of the WSA meets every Sunday evening to discuss campus issues, activities, and policies. These meetings are open to the public, and often guests from the community are invited to present. The WSA President and Vice President meet monthly with the University President, and the University President visits the General Assembly at least once a semester to update students on the state of the school and to field questions from community members.
Graduate students are represented by the Graduate Student Association (GSA), which considers issues related to international students, housing, benefits and health services, the visibility of graduate students in the community, allocation of student activities funds, green initiatives, and graduate judicial issues. Additionally, the GSA has a representative to the EPC, who can attend faculty meetings. There is currently no relationship between the GSA and WSA.
Appraisal
The WSA regularly conducts student surveys and creates an annual demographic report to guide its work in supporting the student body. This spring, assessment will focus on the process of electing members and the onboarding and orientation of those elected.
Since the last self-study, student satisfaction rates with student government have ranged between 42% and 72%. There was a noticeable dip that began with Class of 2014 (59%) and grew worse with the Class of 2015 (42%). But since then, satisfaction rates have steadily improved. For the last three graduating classes for which we have data, satisfaction rates have been in the high 60s, close to where they were a decade ago. (Survey data in 2017 indicated relative dissatisfaction with student government among international students, though it was never clear why.)
In 2017, the WSA restructured itself to center issues of Equity and Inclusion in its work. To achieve those ends, the WSA became bicameral: the Senate, as described above, and a House, which intentionally brings in members of the community for issue-based work and special projects. With lower barriers to entry, the House aimed to make the work of the WSA more accessible for more members of the campus community. Furthermore, the WSA created a stipend for Senators who receive financial aid, to make service more accessible and to create an Assembly that more accurately reflects Wesleyan’s diverse student body. In 2019, the WSA removed the House, as it had not succeeded in being a successful means for outreach to the community. In 2020, the WSA created the Equity and Inclusion Committee to better focus those efforts across the assembly’s work.
The WSA has also made efforts to encourage more participation in elections, especially among members of historically marginalized communities. Per regular surveys of WSA Senators, the WSA has, over the past few years, had equal or greater representation of target student populations. Further, the past two years have seen massive growth in the number of first-year students seeking election to the WSA in their fall semester. Focus has now shifted to the retention of senators beyond their first term.
The WSA has played a significant role in the University’s response during the pandemic (Spring 2020-present). Members of the WSA have worked closely with Student Affairs and Academic Affairs on such issues as: developing pandemic-related safety protocols and a related code of conduct; advocating for the student experience with regard to grading modalities, withdraw policies, syllabus requirements and other curricular issues; and partnering on issues around wellness and mental health. The partnership developed early in the pandemic continues and has resulted in new connections between the WSA and other areas of the institution with members of the WSA meeting regularly with the Vice President for Student Affairs, the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Director of the Pandemic Planning Committee and Dean of Students. That new relationship has supported work in other areas, most notably Equity and Inclusion.
Some recent accomplishments of the WSA include creating the Textbook Exchange Program, providing student input across a host of policies regarding COVID-19, introducing a syllabus policy, advocating for increased mental health support on campus, and advocating for students from marginalized communities. A 2021 powerpoint presentation to the faculty by the WSA about its work can be found in the workroom here.
Projection
Current issues include Covid-19 policies, developing and maintaining student organizations, achieving financial stability, and ensuring equitable policies across all campus offices. The WSA will be addressing these through its participation in committees focused on Covid-19 policies, maintaining the University Organizing center and developing programming for student group leadership transitions, and through relationship-building with administrators in order to best communicate student input. For financial stability, the WSA currently possesses a reserve of around $250,000 in leftover funds from the 2020-21 academic year, which will serve as carryover money to delay raising the Student Activities Fee until necessary.
It is anticipated that the WSA will continue its recent trajectory towards greater accessibility and financial strength. The WSA is well equipped to handle financial instability given its endowment and its fixed operating budget, which is not dependent on or sourced from the endowment. One major financial issue will be the policy governing the WSA endowment, which currently privileges the long-term over the near-term, and whether such a stance should be re-examined.
On the policy front, the WSA will also likely be grappling with issues of financial aid, judicial policy, academic departments, alumni relations, and technology, all of which seem to be on the brink of re-evaluation at the University level. In the near future, the WSA will take up the theme of “cultivating community” and work to facilitate and improve collaborations and partnerships among diverse community members in all areas of campus life.