Faculty Meeting

Faculty meeting
Body

The regular meeting for the faculty of the Department of Statistics was held in a hybrid format via Zoom and in Padelford Hall, room C-301 at 12:30pm, September 30, 2024. Abel Rodriguez, Department Chair, presided at the meeting. Kristine Chan was recording secretary. 

The meeting started with all participants sharing updates on personal news and achievements over the summer to allow the faculty, staff and graduate student representatives to get acquainted/reacquainted. 

Announcements 

  • Faculty Searches: We will be conducting several faculty searches for this academic year. One will be for an Assistant Teaching Professor and will be led by the appointments committee: Adrian Dobra (Chair), Emanuela Furfaro, Yen-Chi Chen, and Zaid Harchaoui.  Also, there is likely to be a Lecturer Part-Time (Competitive Recruited/Mult-Year) search, which will be happening in Winter quarter 2024. Because the person hired will be teaching STAT/CSSS/SOC 221, which is a shared course, the search committee will be formed by the Chairs/Directors of the three units involved. Finally, there may be a search for an Acting Assistant Professor position during Winter quarter, but this will be confirmed at a later date. 

  • Website Updates: The menu structure of the department website has been slightly revised, and a policies and procedures page has been added. Pages detailing our department history and honors/awards for faculty will be coming soon.  Further changes to the website will happen during this academic year. The chair would like to identify two or three faculty volunteers to participate in brainstorming sessions. 

  • Department Chair Search: The College of Arts & Sciences will be conducting a Chair review/search for our department as our current Chair’s 5-year term will be up by June 2025.  Further details will be coming directly from the campus. 

  • Scholarship Updates: Changes to the procedure used to award the Bernbuam Family Endowed scholarship are coming. Also, the Brent and Jill Endowed scholarship will be disbursed to two Statistics majors – one for being the best applicant and one for having the best grades and academic achievements.  

  • Provost Mandate on Blue Books & Scantrons: The Provost has mandated that the department provide scantron sheets and blue books to reduce the financial burden on students and to promote equity across the curriculum.  

  • New Promotion & Tenure Procedure: The section of the faculty code dealing with promotion and tenure procedures was revised by the Academic Senate last year with the stated goal of increasing transparency.  The Chair offered to discuss the details with anyone who would be interested. 

  • Staff Responsibilities: The Director of Finance and Operations mentioned that the administrative staff in the main office will be undergoing a change of responsibilities. She asked for the faculty’s patience while they transition. 

  • Coming in January 2025: Expect overtime minimum wage limit to increase.  This will have an impact of faculty who employ postdocs. 

  • Joint Statistics & Biostatistics Dinner: Will take place on Friday, October 4, 2024, at 6:00pm-8:00pm at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture (NHS Hall). 

  • Campus Climate: The Chair reminded faculty to be aware of the climate for this upcoming quarter as there will be political activities happening with the U.S. presidential election coming up and potential protests with ongoing issues (i.e. Israel/Palestine, etc.).   

New Business 

  • Faculty Minute Approval Process: The Chair reminded faculty that the faculty meeting minutes will be handled all electronically to allow room for more important discussions to happen in faculty meetings. The process will be that the faculty will be given a week to review the minutes, followed by a 48-hour poll to vote and approve the minutes before it is posted on the website. 

  • Renewal of Departmental Policies: The documents of the faculty merit policy, electronic voting policy, and faculty retention consultation policy were shared with the faculty. The policies were later re-voted on electronically via Microsoft Forms and were approved by the eligible voting faculty for another year.   

  • New Policy for Delegated of Authority for Short-Term Appointments: A document explaining the need for changing the department’s delegated authority policy and proposing an alternative was shared with the faculty before the meeting. This proposal was discussed during the meeting and the final policy was later voted on electronically via Microsoft Forms and was approved by the eligible voting faculty for a year (renewable in years to come).   

  • Faculty Professional Development Allowance: The Chair shared a proposal for faculty affiliated to receive an annual professional development allowance with our department. The purpose of the allowances is to support professional development, community outreach, and research dissemination. The allowances would be funded by a combination of overhead from grants and contracts, revenue from the self-supporting Statistics MS and Data Science MS programs, and summer quarter revenue. 

Adjournment 

There being no other items to discuss, the meeting was later adjourned at 2:00pm.