From the Faculty Senate Office: Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions – university, Penn

From the Faculty Senate Office: Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Report from the Senate Tri-Chairs. Faculty Senate Chair William Braham reported on the following matters:

• A draft academic calendar for academic year 2024-2025 is available for faculty comments by SEC members. Comments should be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost for Education by April 4.
• The Excellence through Diversity Fund is accepting applications for project funding through April 29. More information can be found at https://faculty.upenn.edu/diversity/fund/.
• Scott Bok, Chair of the Penn Trustees, will meet with SEC at its April 20 meeting; questions for Mr. Bok are welcomed to the Senate Office by emailing senate@pobox.upenn.edu.
• In May 2020, SEC passed a “Climate Pledge” calling on faculty and staff to take steps in their own personal and professional lives that are climate friendly. CIRCE (the Senate Select Committee on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency) is creating a brief video and will request of deans and department chairs that it be shown at upcoming faculty meetings. The pledge and accompanying resources can be found at www.pennfacultyclimatepledge.org. 
• CIRCE has also been working with the Division of Human Resources and TIAA to help faculty understand climate-friendly options for the investments in their personal retirement accounts. On February 25, TIAA held a Responsible Investing webinar, of which a recording is now available along with accompanying resources. 

Resolution on Formalizing and Making Accessible School and Departmental Faculty Bylaws or Standing Rules. A draft resolution was presented by the Senate Committee on Faculty and the Academic Mission. Following discussion, the resolution was returned to committee for further revision.

Campus Masking Mandate. Benoit Dubé, Associate Provost and Chief Wellness Officer, and Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Former Senate Chair and Executive Director of the Center for Public Health Initiatives, were welcomed to the meeting to discuss the status of the campus masking mandate. The masking mandate was lifted in all campus areas on March 15 except in classrooms, healthcare spaces, and Penn Transit. All public health guidance has been enacted in a collaborative way with public health experts, infectious disease experts, and epidemiologists from Penn Medicine. The March 15 decision matched the city’s guidance and the CDC guidance that now considers elements other than COVID positivity rates, including average number of cases per day, number of hospitalizations, and severity of disease. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) recommended keeping classroom masking requirements in place until a period after spring break. The COVID Response Team met on March 24 to make a decision on whether to lift the classroom mask mandate on March 28. Penn’s quarantining policy for positive cases has been extended from the CDC-recommended 5 days to 10 days since campus data reveal that 2/3 of positive cases show positive antigen tests at the 5-day mark. 

The masking guidelines reflect the “new era” of the pandemic. Persons on campus are urged to wear the highest quality mask available for self-protection purposes; a shift from early in the pandemic in which masking was understood to protect others. On a question about whether faculty can require students to wear masks in their classes even if the mandate is lifted, SEC members were reminded that a high quality well-fitted mask is effective at protecting oneself from virus transmission. A concern was noted that some persons choosing to wear a mask in a non-masking environment may involuntarily convey personal health information about those masked persons.

An announcement on classroom masking requirements will be made no later than Tuesday, March 29, with new requirements to be effective immediately upon announcement. (A University-wide announcement was distributed on March 24 indicating that the classroom masking mandate would continue without a defined end date.)

Faculty Senate Seminar. Inclusion and Free Speech on Campus. At 4 p.m. ET, a Faculty Senate Seminar was held virtually and open to all standing faculty, of which an archived recording is available on the Faculty Senate website. 

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