November 10, 2025

Senators Present: Ann Abraham, Loretta Aller, Bob Antenucci, Omid Bagheri, Tina Bhargava, Casey Boyd-Swan, Matt Butler, Jennifer Cunningham, Mark Dalman, Ed Dauterich, Omar De La Cruz Cabrera, David Dees, Vanessa Earp, Julie Evey, Michele Ewing, Michael Fisch, Michelle Foster, Tianyuan Guan, David Kaplan, Sean Kennedy, Terri Kent, Janice Kroeger, Velvet Landingham, Richard Mangrum, Mahli Mechenbier, Taraneh Meshkani, Oana Mocioalca, Vic Perera, Linda Piccirillo-Smith, Helen Piontkivska, Lockwood Reynolds, Lydia Rose, Susan Roxburgh, Athena Salaba, Jim Seelye, Deborah Smith, Gregory Smith, Eric Taylor, Brett Tippey, Francisco Torres, Lauren Vachon, Laurie Wagner, Theresa Walton-Fisette, Christopher Was, Kyle Winkler

Senators Not Present: Ashley Nickels, Ikram Toumi

Ex-Officio Members Present: President Todd Diacon; Executive Vice President and Provost Melody Tankersley; Amy Quillen for Senior Vice President Eboni Pringle; Senior Vice President Jeannie Reifsnyder*; Vice Presidents: Sean Broghammer, Doug Delahanty, Amoaba Gooden, Doug Kubinski, John Rathje, Charlene Reed, Randale Richmond, Peggy Shadduck, Stephen Ward; Deans: Sonia Alemagno, Christina Bloebaum, Allan Boike, Ken Burhanna, Alicia Crowe*, Versie Johnson-Mallard, Sharon Wohl for Mark Mistur, Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Diane Petrella, Elizabeth Piatt*, Scott Sheridan*, Alison Smith, Deborah Spake

*Interim

Ex-Officio Members Not Present: Vice President Valoree Vargo, Dean Amy Reynolds Observers Present: Emeritus Professor Janson, Ms. Shiza Nisar (GSS)

Observers Not Present: Ms. Hanna Sietz (USG)

Guests Present: Daniel Alenquer, Jake Ball, Michael Beam, Autum Boone, Shelby Burke, J.R. Campbell, Sue Clement, Scott Courtney, Andrew Crawford, Emmanuel Dechenaux, Steve Dennis, Kieran Dunne, Susan Emens, Valerie Feagin, Jay Frye, Kim Hahn, James Hannon, Jennifer Hebebrand, Ben Hollis, Jasmine Jefferson, John Jewell, Eric Johnson, Lynette Johnson, Chrissy Kauth, Michael Kavulic, Jennifer Kellogg, Valerie Kelly, Mourad Krifa, Dana Lawless-Andric, Jessica Leveto, Wei Li, Joanna Liedel, Aaron Maguire, Jennifer Marcinkiewicz, Miriam Matteson, Julie Mazzei, Jennifer McDonough, Emily Metzgar, Tracy Motter, Amy Nuesch, Christa Ord, Collin Palmer, James Raber, Matthew Rollyson, Lashonda Taylor, Therese Tillett, Adil Wadia, Kevin West, Sonya Williams, Melissa Zullo

1. Call to Order

Chair Kaplan called the meeting to order at 3:20 p.m. in the Governance Chambers, Kent Student Center.

2. Roll Call

Secretary Dauterich called the roll.

3. Approval of the Agenda

A motion was made and seconded to approve the agenda (Cunningham/Gregory Smith). The agenda passed unanimously.

4. Approval of the Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes of October 13, 2025

Chair Kaplan asked for a motion to approve the minutes of the October 13, 2025, Faculty Senate meeting. A motion was made and seconded (Was/Piccirillo-Smith).

The minutes were approved unanimously as written.

5. Chair’s Remarks

Chair Kaplan began by mentioning that he had recently returned from a diversity conference titled “Race, Ethnicity, and Place.” He said that attendees were afraid at the conference, and it resonated with him. He added that a climate of fear had been created around issues of diversity, and it bothered him that the importance of diversity and difference was being downplayed or even eliminated across the country. While networking with colleagues at this conference, he heard various anecdotes related to DEI; for example, some institutions in Texas were told not to teach anything related to race, and an attendee from Tennessee was reported by a student for discussing housing discrimination.

Chair Kaplan asked how some of these issues could be mitigated. He added that it gave him pause and made him think about the challenging times we are in. He said faculty may be tempted to hunker down and not teach the material they have spent their lives studying or even fear the students they teach. He urged the audience not to give in to pressure, to stay strong, and to embrace all kinds of diversity. He also suggested that faculty treat students as collaborators rather than foreign agents. He finished by reminding faculty that they must stay within the law, but they should avoid the urge to comply beyond what the law requires.

He then invited comments or questions. There were no comments or questions.

6. Executive Vice President and Provost’s Remarks

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley delivered her remarks [attached].

She then invited comments or questions.

Senator Cunningham read the following statement:

“I’d like to raise a concern as an At-Large Senator, member on EPC and EPC Exec, the Writing Program Coordinator, and a member of several Kent Core Redesign subcommittees. A version of the Kent Core is being moved forward that doesn’t align with the redesigned versions that faculty saw and approved in April 2024. While I understand the position that the University is in, considering the state-mandated Civics reading requirement under Senate Bill 1 that must be added to general education curricula, the Kent Core model that’s being pushed forward includes and excludes more than is necessary and is one that few faculty have seen beyond those on URCC (and, as of last week, EPC Exec). The Kent Core discussion should have gone back to subcommittees and back to faculty for discussion and consultation before a version faculty haven’t seen was voted on in URCC last month with the aim of being on the EPC agenda this month. This is not shared governance and faculty deserve to be consulted.

After attending a meeting in Columbus with the Ohio Department of Higher Education last month, I gained additional insight about Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 96 and want to make sure that faculty understand that the State is not asking that any new courses be created or added to the general education curriculum. The Civics course requirement is met by adding the required readings to existing courses and—as part of ‘Workplace Readiness’ in HB96—the State is asking that AI be added to existing courses whenever possible as long as it supports learning outcomes. Institutions are not being asked to create and add a stand-alone AI course—or any additional course—to their general education curriculum.

It seems like, within the version of the Kent Core that few faculty have seen, excluding the Civics requirement that doesn’t need to be a new course, there are two additional courses being added under the category ‘Pressing Issues,’ including a 3-credit hour ‘Emerging Technologies’ course which is new and unnecessary if that’s a stand-alone AI course.

Redesigning our Kent Core curriculum is too important of a decision for choices to be made outside of full faculty consultation. Instead of rushing to vote on major curricular changes, why not wait until we have more information from the State—we have time to meet their Board of Trustee’s deadline of December 2026. And, more importantly, why not offer full transparency and the opportunity for consultation with the faculty?

With all of that said, my question is: Are you willing to share this new Kent Core model with faculty and allow for consultation before pushing forward for a hasty vote?”

Senator Dees responded on behalf of Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley. He said he took the action following advice from Tracy Laux (former Chair of Faculty Senate) to go through the University Requirements Curriculum Committee (URCC) first and then follow the consultation process through the Educational Policies Council (EPC) and Faculty Senate. He gave a history of how the committee had come to the model that was currently under review.

Senator Dees agreed with Senator Cunningham’s idea that the current model is designed in anticipation of the passing of House Bill 96, but he stressed that we do not want to rush to put courses and requirements together that do not have the values of Kent State in the foreground. He added that the proposed model will come to the Faculty Senate as a discussion item before it goes through the normal curricular processes. He also said that after it is presented at Faculty Senate, there will be a survey put out allowing faculty two weeks to provide feedback on the model before it returns to Faculty Senate for a vote. He told the audience that if we have the same courses in the Kent Core in the section that is currently described as “Pressing Issues” ten years from now, we will have failed because the idea of “Pressing Issues” is that the category is always updating, always coming up with new ideas from students, and always integrating multiple disciplines into the real problems of our world. He added that there was no sneaky, behind-the-scenes strategy in which the committee was trying to bypass faculty input.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley thanked Senator Dees for the overview. She then thanked Senator Cunningham and said that she had met with the other provosts in the state on the previous Thursday and that no universities are creating new courses based on the provisions in HB 96 yet. She said it is still an ongoing process, and she agreed that faculty consultation is critical to the process, as are shared governance and transparency.

Senator Dees added that the EPC will vote on the model and present it to Faculty Senate for a vote in the future.

Senator Cunningham asked for clarification that it will go back to all faculty and the Faculty Senate for consultation before any votes occur.

Senator Dees agreed that that would happen.

Senator Abraham thanked Senator Dees for having many meetings around the issue and said she looked forward to updates from those meetings.

There were no further comments or questions.

7. Old Business: Action Items from the Professional Standards Committee (presented by Senator Casey Boyd-Swan):
   1. Retrenchment Policy (View)

Senator Boyd- Swan presented the policy as revised by the Professional Standards Committee (PSC) in consultation with the administration.

A motion and a second were made to untable both the retrenchment and workload policies (Boyd-Swan/Deborah Smith).

The motion passed unanimously.

Senator Boyd-Swan explained the retrenchment policy and the changes made since the October Faculty Senate meeting in a PowerPoint [attached].

Chair Kaplan then invited comments or questions.

Senator Rose thanked the committee for their work and acknowledged the hard work of the administration. She expressed concern about how regional campuses see themselves. She said they belong to different units, and each campus is an arm or leg of Kent State University. She suggested that it does not make sense to retrench an entire campus. She said that she had raised the question at the last Faculty Senate meeting, and that her concern was not represented in the previous or the new language. She added that the regional campuses are open enrollment, which means that if a student applies to a regional campus, or department on that campus, and they do not get accepted, they are not simply rejected. They get redirected to one of the closest regional campuses, so the regional campus students are place-bound. She said that the regional campuses serve first-generation working adult caregivers, so the concern is compounded with the fact that the policy already creates an added stressor for faculty who are housed in colleges other than CATS, but who teach at regional campuses. She continued by saying there is a double jeopardy that happens with the faculty that work at a regional campus and have an academic unit that they belong to. She proposed and moved that the Faculty Senate amend the proposed policy to clarify that retrenchment may not be applied in whole to the regional campus system or as a single regional campus in isolation but must be addressed collectively through the regional system outside of the retrenchment policy with full system-wide consultation, including faculty, Faculty Senate, and community involvement. She said that eliminating a campus is not the same thing as eliminating just faculty.

Senator Boyd-Swan responded that the regional campuses are still loci of where decisions are made. She said that just as you can retrench an academic unit, or you can retrench a program, you could also retrench a regional campus. She added that as far as treating them as one system versus individual campuses is concerned, they were treated as one originally. Then at the previous meeting, it was suggested that they should be treated as individual campuses, so that change was incorporated into the current revision. She said that the PSC would be happy to consider friendly amendments in terms of things that would be considered housekeeping duties, but only those would be considered as friendly amendments.

Chair Kaplan asked whether any other senators had further input. No senators responded.

Chair Kaplan asked for a motion to approve the policy.

Senator Dees moved to approve the policy.

Senator Rose made a motion to amend the policy to remove anything that mentions regional campus faculty as a campus. She said faculty are already in academic units, so adding the regional campus designation is not necessary. She said that redlining the lines referring to regional campuses would fix the problem.

Senator Landingham seconded the motion.

Senator Deborah Smith responded that one of the confusions in the discussion was that it was about a campus being retrenched in the same way a department would be retrenched. She said that what was being discussed was the removal of faculty. Regional campus faculty have their appointment in the regional campus system. They are members of their academic units, but their appointment is not in the academic unit. Their appointment is in the campus system, which is why the RTP and hiring work differently. She added that there would need to be some mention of whether administration could retrench the faculty on a campus without closing the campus. She said that those are two separate actions, and that administration could close a campus without retrenching the faculty.

Senator Landingham asked how it would read in the policy if in section 2A, “regional campus” was redlined.

Senator Boyd-Swan said that because regional campuses are loci of position, the appointment and contract is through a regional campus system, so when RTP is done, it goes through the regional campus first and then the academic department; the process is different for regional faculty than for Kent Campus faculty. She said to remove it would mean that the university could no longer make retrenchment decisions about faculty at a specific location.

Senator Rose agreed that that was what she wanted.

Senator Walton-Fisette replied that taking it out could take out regional campus consultation.

Senator Landingham commented that the evaluation of scholarship during RTP happens at the academic unit level.

Senator Dees asked whether this was a budget issue and asked whether the regional campuses have a more centralized budget now, which makes things more difficult at the unit level.

Vice President Shadduck responded that the budgeting is done at both individual campuses and the whole system. Faculty are paid from the campus level budget.

Senator Piccirillo-Smith asked about retrenchment in a department; she wondered what the reason was for why the process could not include all members of that department including those at a regional campus.

Senator Boyd-Swan said that if you were going to retrench a department, it would happen at regional campuses as well.

Senator Bhargava asked for clarification of the motion.

Senator Rose said the motion was to go through the policy and remove any mention of regional campuses.

Senator Deborah Smith pointed out that there was a typo in section A of the revised policy and proposed changing it as a friendly amendment.

Senator Rose clarified that her motion should reflect that retrenchment may not be applied in whole to the regional campuses or to a single campus in isolation, but instead, it must be addressed collectively through the faculty, the regional system, the campus, and the faculty at the campuses. There must be full, system-wide consultation with faculty, Faculty Senate, and the community. She said that if the presenters wanted to do an easy redline, they could

simply not include “regional campuses” in the policy because they would be included with departments. She suggested that they could go through the policy and remove anything that designates regional campuses as single campuses or as a whole system.

Senator De La Cruz Cabrera asked for clarification. He said that according to the policy as it exists in the current draft, if a regional campus is retrenched, then the procedure of starting from the most junior rank and moving through the ranks would go forward regardless of department. He said for example, if the most junior person happens to be in English, they will go first rather than somebody in another department just based on that ranking. He wanted to know whether or not he was reading the policy accurately.

Chair Kaplan responded that he was.

Senator De La Cruz Cabrera asked whether allowing the regional campuses as possible units of retrenchment would change the possible order in which faculty would be chosen for retrenchment.

Chair Kaplan agreed that it could.

Senator Reynolds asked what would happen if a campus closed, and the regional campuses are not listed in the policy.

Senator Boyd-Swan replied that every department or program on the campus would have to be retrenched university-wide.

Senator Reynolds asked whether that would necessarily bring people to the main campus.

Senator Boyd-Swan replied that it could happen, but it would not be required. They would have to have a need at the main campus and have the qualifications to be hired there.

Senator Rose said that the real issue was about preserving the values that we have. She mentioned that Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley had talked about preserving our values and our mission statement, and that being in each of the different communities is one of the major missions and values that we have as Kent State University. She continued by saying that if a whole campus was to be eliminated, there is a process that goes on that is beyond just the retrenchment of faculty. She added that there should be consultation with the community and that there should be consultation with the advisory committees in each of the different communities. She added that it would have to go through the Board of Trustees as well. She maintained that we should go through a regular retrenchment process and not have to eliminate a campus and then try to figure out what we are going to do with the people that work there. She asked the audience to think of each of the different communities that we are in as a part of who we are. She said that they should not be seen as separate in the ways that departments are. She continued by saying that being in those communities is one of the biggest values that we have as a university, so if the administration is going to retrench faculty, they should do it department by department and program by program.

Senator Dees said that regional campuses would be out of the consultation loop if this amendment passed.

Senator Rose said she would not be okay with that and added that she would have to leave it to the committees. She repeated that regional campuses could not be retrenched. She also said she would hope that retrenchment happening would involve department consultation.

Chair Kaplan clarified that she wanted the removal of the term “regional campuses” as the motion.

Senator Rose agreed that she did.

Senator Landingham made suggestions for changing each mention of regional campuses in the document.

Senator Deborah Smith said she had some confusion about Senator Landingham’s suggestion to keep regional campus language in the document where it references consultation. She said that if an academic unit is being retrenched, the appropriate body is the Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC), and that committee has regional campus representation on it, so the regional campus members of the FAC would get to vote on that. She added that then, the Faculty Committee (FC) of the regional campus would have no role to play in retrenchment because they would not have a voice at the academic unit or the college level. She warned that the only way that the FC could weigh in is if campuses were separate.

Senator Landingham said that she had sought to add a comma to prevent reduncancy and add clarity, so that we do not have to repeat these kinds of conversations.

Senator Boyd-Swan said that if they redlined regional campuses in section A, they would need to do so in Section C.

Senator Deborah Smith clarified that it would have to be removed in sections C1 and C2 as well as the main section.

Senator Landingham said that she had no issue with that if there was some acknowledgment that regional campus faculty are also members of their academic units.

There were no further comments or questions.

Chair Kaplan called the vote on the amendment to change the language about regional campuses.

The Faculty Senate voted by voice.

Chair Kaplan suggested the amendment was turned down by the voice vote. Senator Dauterich called for a raised hand vote.

The amendment passed 15-12.

Senator Boyd-Swan made a friendly amendment to make a correction to the term “practices” in section A.

Chair Kaplan called the vote on the amended proposal. The proposal passed as amended.

Senator Deborah Smith made a motion to remove language that said that “nothing herein shall be deemed or construed to limit, restrict, or otherwise affect the powers conferred upon the University Board of Trustees or university policy and/or the laws of the state of Ohio.” She argued that this would allow administration the right to ignore everything in the proposed policy.

Senator Bhargava seconded Senator Deborah Smith’s motion. There was no discussion.

Chair Kaplan called for a voice vote.

Senator Smith’s motion passed unanimously.

1. Workload Policy (View)

Senator Boyd-Swan thanked the PSC again and explained the policy and the changes made since the October Faculty Senate meeting in a PowerPoint [attached].

A motion was made to approve the policy (Abraham). Chair Kaplan then invited comments or questions.

Senator Fisch said he was confused and thought that the contracts were for 11 months rather than 12 months.

Senator Deborah Smith responded that it is a twelve-month contract, but faculty are only paid for 11 months.

Senator Fisch responded [sarcastically] that this made perfect sense.

Senator Mocioalca said she had no idea what the teaching percentage requirements were. Senator Boyd-Swan explained how the percentages worked.

Senator Salaba wanted clarification about the percentage of undergraduate teaching involved. She wanted to know whether it was on top of graduate teaching.

Senator Deborah Smith said that PSC added language about programs with only graduate instruction under the sections on expectations in the policy.

Senator Tippey asked whether the percentages applied to individual faculty members of the unit.

Senator Boyd-Swan confirmed that they applied to the unit only.

Senator Walton-Fisette mentioned that in D1, regular workload was repeated twice in the same sentence, and she mentioned that there were some misnumbered sections.

There were no further comments or questions. The motion passed unanimously.

Senator Boyd-Swan made a friendly amendment to make the changes mentioned by Senator Walton-Fisette.

The friendly amendment was accepted.

Senator Mangrum stated that he was unsure that the vote for the amendment to regional campus language in the retrenchment policy had been counted correctly earlier in the meeting. He said it conflicted with his informal personal count of the votes. He said he was unsure what could be done about it.

Chair Kaplan referred the question to Senator Abraham and Senator Dauterich, who had counted the votes.

Senator Abraham said that people who voted online had been added to the count by Senator Dauterich.

Senator Dauterich agreed and added that he only had the total vote count at this time.

Senator Mocioalca said that she also had counted a different number of votes.

Chair Kaplan said that in order to do things correctly, we would need to have a vote on the final amendment to the retrenchment policy first, followed by a vote on the policy as a whole.

Senator Deborah Smith asked for a point of order. She asked whether we had a policy on revoting once we had passed on to other business.

Chair Kaplan said that the question was whether the counting of the vote on the amendment was legitimate. He asked for a motion or a second on whether or not to take the vote again.

Senator Dees motioned to take the vote again. Senator Mangrum seconded the motion.

Chair Kaplan called for a voice vote on bringing the proposal back for a vote.

The results of the voice vote were unclear, so Chair Kaplan called for a show of hands. The motion passed by a show of hands (20-18).

Senator Bhargava clarified that according to Robert’s Rules, you have to vote with the prevailing side in the original vote to make a motion to reconsider that previous vote.

Chair Kaplan explained the motion again.

Senator Deborah Smith stated that the only people that could call for a revote would be people who prevailed in the original vote.

No one in support of the prevailing original vote was interested in making a motion to reconsider the vote.

Senator Mangrum stated for the record that the 20-18 vote indicated that those same people

would vote for the amendment, so it looked like the “no” votes would prevail.

Chair Kaplan thanked him for his comment.

Senator Abraham mentioned that anything voted on at Faculty Senate must go through the administration and the Board of Trustees and then to the Chancellor. She added that any one of them could go against the vote and modify the proposal. She acknowledged the concern and the gravity of the situation and wondered how the process would work moving forward.

8. EPC Action Items
   1. AMBASSADOR CRAWFORD COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

(presented by Dean Deborah Spake): Department of Sport, Hospitality and Event Management. Establish department (fall 2026)

Chair Kaplan said that Dean Spake was available to answer questions about the proposal.

A motion was made to approve the establishment of the department (Dauterich). She then asked for comments or questions.

There were no comments or questions. The motion passed unanimously.

1. UNIVERSITY REQUIREMENTS CURRICULUM COMMITTEE (presented by Dean Mandy

Munro-Stasiuk): American Civic Literacy Requirement. Establish policy (fall 2026).

Dean Munro-Stasiuk presented a PowerPoint (click here to view).

She then asked for comments or questions.

Senator Bagheri said that the naturalization questions referenced in the presentation changed recently, and there are now 20-30 questions.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk said she was aware because she recently passed the test. Senator Boyd-Swan asked whether the courses will all be taught in person or online. Dean Munro-Stasiuk said they would be taught in both modalities.

Senator Boyd-Swan asked about how it would affect room shortages. Dean Munro-Stasiuk said that it would probably not have much effect.

Senator Deborah Smith asked whether another academic unit could work with creating a new class to fulfill the requirement or use an existing class with a new name and number.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk said either would work.

Senator Tippey asked whether the grade was Pass/Fail or students would be given a letter grade.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk said the students would receive a letter grade. A motion was made to approve the new policy (De La Cruz Cabrera).

Senator Tippey said the requirement was causing him a lot of angst and that it was a burden on his conscience because with its passage, we have a state mandate that students are now required to pay for a course that they did not select. He added that every one of our Kent State courses is selected by the students, whether it is in the Kent Core or the major. Students select them by selecting the major, and now we are telling them that the tuition dollars they pay must go to this course that the state has determined is good for them. He asked whether or not he was reading the issue correctly.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk replied that this is why they put it in the Kent Core. It would be embedded in the humanities or social science requirements of the core. She said that the more classes we offer to fill the requirement, the more choices students would have.

Senator Tippey thanked her. He replied that it might prevent students from taking a philosophy class from the Kent Core that does not currently meet the requirement. He said that since the course is a graded course, he hoped that our records would remain guarded by FERPA, but he worried that we might feel the need to go back at some point and say that a C in the course was not good enough. He said that he was feeling the need to do what he could to stop this from happening.

He added that he knew the course was a state requirement, but he felt an ethical responsibility as a senator to vote in line with his conscience.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk acknowledged his concerns and added that the two classes identified are already being taken by many students under a different name and number. She said that they are high-quality classes, which already cover most of the material demanded by the state.

Senator Tippey thanked the faculty who put the courses together.

Senator Roxburgh asked what would happen if the students did not pass the exam but still had a passing grade otherwise.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk confirmed that they would fail the course.

Senator Torres asked how the requirement promoted the intellectual diversity demanded by the state law. He pointed out that most of the required readings were written by white authors. He asked whether there was a possibility of changing the learning outcomes to include something about diverse thought on these topics or something that uses Bloom's Taxonomy to structure critical reflection about these ideas. He pointed out that many faculty fear that criticizing the documents required by the state would come too close to promoting DEI. He argued that if a course is too conservative, it also breaks intellectual diversity and thus could be reported. He asked how the courses and their learning outcomes could be reshaped to prevent this from happening.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk said he had a good point, but the learning outcomes were designed to meet those needs, and the faculty are excited to add other learning outcomes to the course. She said she would also bring this back to the committee to see whether they have a better way to look at the outcomes.

Senator Picirillo-Smith asked for clarification about the final exam and whether they would actually fail the class if it was only worth 5% of the grade.

Dean Munro-Stasiuk confirmed that they would fail.

Senator Dees said that the committee was also thinking about the application of the “diverse perspectives” idea in classroom situations when they developed the courses. He praised the faculty who developed the courses and those who intended to develop other courses that would fulfill the requirement.

There were no further comments or questions. The motion passed unanimously.

• UNIVERSITY REQUIREMENTS CURRICULUM COMMITTEE (presented by Co-Chairs

Jennifer McCullough and Alison Smith): Diversity Course Requirement. Either (1) inactivate requirement OR (2) inactivate requirement and establish a perspectives requirement (fall 2026)

Dean Smith explained the item and the history of the diversity requirement. She then asked for comments or questions.

Senator Bhargava asked why revising the original requirement was not an option

Dean Smith said this was their third cycle of review from before, during, and after SB1, and they learned during the reviews that the entire vocabulary of the requirement was out of compliance with the law. She said they needed to follow the law and find a way forward.

Senator Vachon asked for a citation of the part of SB1 that forbade the order.

Dean Smith said legal counsel and upper administration interpreted the language that way.

Senator Piccirillo-Smith asked whether this was only the administration’s interpretation of SB1.

Chair Kaplan asked whether anyone in administration could answer Senator Piccirillo-Smith’s question.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley said that it does not have to be removed, but she thought that the way it is worded in all of the university’s publications is something that the state could bring into question. She said she had talked to provosts at other universities whose institutions had the same requirement, and they were taking similar votes on how or whether to eliminate the requirement.

She added that the discussion with them also revealed a concern for the large number of requirements that undergraduates have in order to graduate. She said that these made it difficult for undergraduates to navigate in their programs. She added that we need to reach the learning outcomes we desire while still being mindful of where we are politically.

Senator Torres thanked her for the response and said that SB 1 gave him great concern about the letter of the law versus the intent of the law. He said he knew the legislature wanted to promote more conservative ideas, but that is not what the law as written requires. He mentioned that in SB1 on pages 12 and 13 of the document, it mentions that universities will not endorse or oppose any opinion on controversial beliefs or policy, except on matters that directly impact the institution's funding or mission of discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge. He argued that the diversity requirement helps us with our mission of discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge. He said that our university mission states that we seek inclusive communities. He continued by saying that our values, our diversity of thought, our beliefs and cultures, and our vision is a vision for a better world. He asked how we could fulfill our mission without the diversity requirement, and he asked how we could not defend the requirement when we are looking at that part of the law.

President Diacon said people can always find things in support of or against SB 1, and he added that the choice in front of everyone is reasonable. He talked about what happened if the university was found to be out of compliance with the law and worried about the size of the penalty and how long it would last. He said that the university would have to find other ways to reduce spending by seven million dollars per year if they lost state money, and he added that they would rather not do that.

Senator Roxburgh asked whether the perspectives approach that was suggested as an alternative to the diversity requirement would not be regarded in the same way by the state.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley said they would have no way of knowing that at this moment. She said that if we look at the courses we have right now with our diversity requirement, it would be hard to argue that we are in line with what the state demands. She added that a lot of our courses should be fostering lots of good questions.

She continued by saying that SB 1 is certainly an issue here, but we need to think about our students as well. Our undergraduates are loaded with requirements. She said that there is no reason that any of the diversity courses could not be covered in another section of the Kent Core. She added that in addition to the current requirements in the Kent Core, the state will probably have more requirements to add. She stressed that students are being overwhelmed with different requirements, and she argued that we need to streamline our undergraduate degrees to make them more accessible in the ways we believe are important. She said that she does not want students to face additional requirements that would lower the number of upper-division hours they take or increase the 120 hours required to get a degree.

Senator Roxburgh asked whether that was an argument against the perspectives requirement.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley just said those were just her considerations, and she reiterated that too many requirements are hard on students.

Senator Torres said his question was actually pertaining to perspectives because he understood the difficulty surrounding the word diversity, particularly with regard to the intent of the law and how that is interpreted. He said he could support both a change in the wording and a change regarding requiring both domestic and global diversity.

Chair Kaplan said that there is the issue with the use of the word “diversity,” but there is also a concern with overloading students with requirements. He asked Dean Smith what she and the URCC had been concerned about when they discussed the possibility of not endorsing the “perspectives” approach.

Dean Smith responded that when they looked at the perspectives approach, they saw it as an opportunity to make the learning outcomes broader by going after interesting questions that the students are facing now about going out into the world, going out into the workforce, and working with people with very different ideas. She added that at the same time, they discovered that the domestic diversity courses’ learning objectives (as they were originally called) and the global diversity courses’ objectives were actually hugely overlapping, and they were basically going after the same kind of information. This was why, in the perspectives option, that they eliminated that distinction and reduced the number to one course that the student would choose. She mentioned that EPC had voted simply to eliminate the requirement, partially in response to the huge number of requirements that students have in order to graduate.

Senator Deborah Smith said that with respect to the range of requirements, in most cases, students could double dip on the perspectives requirement because they are fulfilling their other requirements in the Kent Core at the same time. She said the requirement would not really add to the number of courses; instead, it would just require students to make sure they checked the right boxes. She then said that we had heard from Dean Smith, President Diacon, and Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley about the legal situation, but she pointed out that none of them are lawyers. She asked Vice President Kubinski if he, as legal counsel, would be willing to look at the requirement.

Vice President Kubinski said he would be happy to look at it. Chair Kaplan agreed that this would be helpful.

Senators Dees said he had been present in 1997 when the requirement began. He added that we are a different university than we were then, and diversity is now woven into what we do in many courses and programs. He said that we are now sophisticated in how we look at diversity in the curriculum and how we encourage our students to think about it. He asked that we move away from thinking of courses as inoculations (i.e., you take a course and you magically understand diversity). He said that the requirement needs to spiral through the system. He said the perspectives option could work as an introduction, but learning outcomes would have to be developed first.

Senator Picirillo-Smith said she believed it was antithetical to the mission of the university to do away with the requirement. She added that while she had great respect for Senator Dees, and she agreed that the university is in a better place than it was 30 years ago, she did not think that we had reached a point where students do not need to have this requirement. She said that her students in her Black Experience course came to her unsolicited this semester and told her that all students should have to take the class because they have not gotten the same information in other spaces. She suggested other courses offered for the requirement probably had similar moments. She also objected to the idea that we needed to eliminate the requirement because of all the other requirements that students had to fulfill.

Senator Dees agreed with her. He said we should follow up withmajors on how they worked with perspectives after they finished the Kent Core.

There was a motion and a second to refer the proposals back to committee (Dauterich/Smith).

Senator Roxburgh asked why it would go back to the URCC.

Chair Kaplan said that URCC came to EPC with a divided vote and that more information might help them develop the perspectives option. He asked Dean Smith whether that was accurate.

Dean Smith said they could work on the development, but she wondered whether there was a timeline for getting something done to comply with SB 1.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley said there was no immediate requirement from SB 1.

President Diacon said it is not a legal question; it is up to the Chancellor. We cannot challenge the Chancellor in court. He added that the governor’s veto of one section of SB 1 took the authority over the decision out of the hands of the legislature and gave it to the Chancellor. He said it would be very difficult to argue with the Chancellor that the requirement did not violate the spirit of SB 1.

Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley agreed with President Diacon. Senator Boyd-Swan urged that the two votes be separated.

Senator Bhargava agreed and suggested that they be separate motions when brought back. She also said that we need to see more about the perspectives requirement. She added that the reviews of ELR and WIC courses were more controversial, so Faculty Senate might be looking at eliminating those in the future.

Senator Torres said that he appreciated the financial risk that the university would take by leaving the requirement as it is. He added that he agreed with Executive Vice President and Provost Tankersley when she said we should think about our students, but he argued that our most marginalized students have been losing everything at Kent. They have lost centers and degree programs to SB 1. Faculty will no longer be able to engage them with conversations that are unrelated to their courses, and so they cannot actually engage them with their lives because they could get in trouble by doing so. He asked whether students are benefiting from laws like this, or from hearing those histories that have already been the norm in schools in their K-12 education. He added that one of the beauties of higher education for him as a Puerto Rican was that his first time reading Puerto Rican texts and learning from a Puerto Rican instructor was in higher education. Beyond that, he had only had white instructors. He said that he had wonderful teachers who were white, who were on his side, and who understood his struggle as a low-income Puerto Rican student, but he worried that the more that we say that we are willing to give up parts of what makes this university beautiful and the more we take take away the mechanisms that allow that diversity to flourish because of the intent of SB 1, the more our most marginalized students are going to feel displaced by the university or state generally. He said he did not think that was the intention of the state or the administration, and he knew that we should not defy the law, but he asked how much we are willing to put stake into something that at least protects part of who we are and what we've been this whole time, especially for our most marginalized.

Senator Vachon said she shared those concerns. She argued that she had had many frightened faculty coming up to her and saying they had to remove items from their syllabi because they were too afraid to teach their subjects. She added that many faculty are telling her that they have removed materials discussing LGBTQ+ issues from their courses out of fear, and that this contradicts the idea that diversity can be woven into the curriculum without the requirement. She said that she would not want to be an administrator who had to deal with this situation, but she would have to follow her conscience when she voted as a senator.

Chair Kaplan called a vote for the motion to send it back to committee. The motion passed unanimously.

• Response to ORC 3345.454 Policies on Tenure and Retrenchment and Elimination of Undergraduate Degree Programs (aka Senate Bill 1). Deactivation of 19 degree programs (fall 2026).

The following programs were proposed for inactivation according to Ohio State Law:

(1) Horticulture (B.A.H.); (2) Horticulture Technology (A.A.S.); (3) Radiologic Technology (A.T.S.); (4) Respiratory Care (B.S.); (5) Africana Studies (B.A.); (6) Chemistry (B.A.); (7)

Earth Science (B.A.); (8) Classics (B.A.); (9) French (B.A.); (10) Mathematics (B.A.); (11) Physics (B.A.); (12) Community Health Education (B.S.); (13) School Health Education (B.S.E.); (14) Earth Science (B.S.E.); (15) Life Science (B.S.E.); (16) Life Science/Chemistry (B.S.E.); (17) Physical Science (B.S.E.); (18) Dance (B.F.A.); (19) Dance Studies (B.A.).

Chair Kaplan asked that the inactivations be voted on as a slate.

A motion was made and seconded to approve the inactivations as a slate (Bhargava/Evey).

The motion passed.

He then asked for a motion to approve.

Senator Dauterich moved to approve the inactivations. Chair Kaplan asked for comments or questions.

Senator Tippey asked for clarification about whether the courses were being discontinued because they broached subjects that were uncomfortable to talk about.

Chair Kaplan said that they were not.

Senator Dauterich explained that the inactivations were occurring to any undergraduate degree program that did not receive an average of at least five graduates over a three-year period.

There were no further comments or questions. The motion passed.

9. New Business

There was no new business.

10. Additional Items

Senator Evey asked whether everyone could get a clean copy of the retrenchment policy. Senator Boyd-Swan agreed to send it out.

11. Announcements/ Statements for the Record

Chair Kaplan invited announcements or statements for the record from the floor.

Senator Wagner said that she wished to restate a comment made by another senator earlier. She said that the online community had been overlooked multiple times during the meeting, both with regard to raised hands for questions as well as voting. She was disappointed that some colleagues in the room would choose to allow votes to happen without being concerned about the actual tally of the votes. She reiterated that there was disappointment among those attending online about their ability to participate effectively during the meeting.