Academic Support and Student Affairs

Charges

Mandate from Policy B2.0

The Committee on Academic Support and Student Affairs shall have the responsibility to monitor and review the aspects of the university that support education and teaching. Examples of areas of academic support include the following: academic services; computer services; cultural programs; and museum and library services of the university. The committee shall also be responsible for policy recommendations relating to the academic aspects of student life and to review questions and policies related to the quality of student life. Faculty members from the committee shall also serve as liaison for the Senate with appropriate administrative officers, committees, and councils of the university, and, when appropriate, shall act in conjunction with the Academic Affairs Committee in the formulation of policies and proposals to be submitted to the Faculty Senate. The committee shall consist of the following: one faculty member per college, each to be elected by their collegial faculty; three members at large elected by the Faculty Senate; four student representatives, including the president of Student Government or their delegate (ex-officio, voting); the provost or their delegate (ex-officio, voting) and the vice president for Student Affairs or their delegate (ex-officio, voting).

Charges for AY 2024

New Charge:

Investigate and propose ways to give faculty greater agency in the administration of computer privileges, to reduce faculty effort and time spent away from core job functions. Identify the types of administrative access that shall be available to faculty in all situations, and procedures for updating faculty computer access in the future.

Supporting Language: Please investigate the reduction of autonomy on RIT computers; it seems we can do nothing without administrator passwords - tasks we were previously allowed to change that are very minor. My concern is twofold: (1) workload, it hardly seems necessary to require an administrators to remotely log on to my computer to change the time zone, just an example and (2) a decline in trust and autonomy on our devices. This is a problem I experienced as an individual and is shared across COLA.

Duplicative charge

I wish for Senate to review the circumstances for the new policy on Computers and computing. In particular, why have we lost admin privileges on our own computers?

Rationale: This is a reduction in faculty autonomy; there was no consultation and the change creates more work for already short-staff.