SR 19-03 - Continuity and Compassion Amid Disruption by COVID-19: Evaluation and Promotion of Faculty

WHEREAS on March 11, 2020, the University announced plans to put strong social distancing measures into place by discontinuing face-to-face instruction and replace it with ‘virtual instruction’ starting on April 6; and

WHEREAS on March 12, the Ventura County Public Health Officer declared COVID-19 to be a local health emergency. On March 13, the pandemic led President Trump to declare a national state of emergency.1 On March 15, the governor of California directed that populations especially vulnerable to COVID-19 self-isolate at home. At the same time, to accelerate social distancing in California, primary and secondary schools were closing their campuses and moving instruction online; and

WHEREAS on March 15, the University announced an acceleration of social distancing plans, canceling classes through Spring Break, and giving faculty the week after Spring Break to retool for virtualization, starting virtualized instruction a week earlier on March 30; and 

WHEREAS on March 17, the Ventura County Public Health Officer issued the first shelter in place 2 order for the county which ordered non-essential businesses to close and all citizens to self-isolate at home. On March 31, this county order was updated 3 to align with a March 19 state-wide stay at home order from the governor4. On March 22, President Trump declared the pandemic to be a major disaster for the state of California. On March 30, the county’s Stay Well Stay Home order was extended5; and

WHEREAS this timeline shows the rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid University response to the public health emergency, and the immense pressure put on all members of the University community, it puts unique and poorly understood pressures on the institution’s research, scholarship, and creative missions; and

WHEREAS the emergency conditions surrounding the pandemic create social and psychological stress on students and instructional faculty that add to the difficulty of teachingand learning at a college-level; and

WHEREAS the rapid escalation of the world-wide health emergency has disrupted professional travel of faculty, forcing them unexpectedly to cancel attendance at professional conferences and meetings, to cancel presentations in and attendance of colloquia and seminars, and to cancel visits to sources of primary documents; and

WHEREAS limited travel and in-person interaction with disciplinary peers limits a scholar’s ability to realize the goals they have set out in their Professional Development Plan because professional activities are critical to the growth of a scholar. Canceling plans to interact with their disciplinary peers limits a scholar’s ability to disseminate their work and receive critical feedback from their peers in the disciplines; and

WHEREAS social distancing practices and current University practices mean face-to-face instruction is no longer occurring, making peer observation of teaching more difficult; and

WHEREAS the members of the Academic Senate agree that now is a time that we make every effort to treat one another, our students, and all our CI colleagues with compassion as we all work to preserve our academic and professional standards so the University is positioned to continue its work in Fall 2020.

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED: that tenure-track faculty, librarians, and counselors be permitted to add one year to their tenure and/or promotion clock, should they choose, without prejudice; and

BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that faculty be permitted to permanently exclude peer observations from the 2019-2020 academic year. Any completed peer observation from the 2019-2020 academic year may be removed from their PAF by the faculty member; and,

BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate and Faculty Affairs will add a joint letter to the Personnel Action File of all faculty that will memorialize that the 2019-2020 is an annus horriblis due to the effects of COVID-19 on the University. If any resolution or part of a resolution in this document conflicts with or contradicts guidance on other University policies or procedures, these resolutions shall prevail without invalidating any other portion of the University policy or procedure. If any part of a resolution statement in this document conflicts with existing CSU policy, executive order, or coded memoranda, or if any resolution in this document conflicts with local, state, or federal statute, or the Collective Bargaining Agreement, that part of a resolution statement will be declared invalid without harming any other resolution statement in this document.

1 Text of the White House declaration of national emergency https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefingsstatements/
letter-president-donald-j-trump-emergency-determination-stafford-act/

2 Text of the Ventura County Stay Safe Stay Home order can be found online at
https://vcportal.ventura.org/CEO/VCNC/2020-03-17_Ventura_County_Public_Health_Order.pdf.
3 Text of the Ventura County Stay At Home order https://s30623.pcdn.co/wpcontent/
uploads/2020/03/StayWellAtHomeOrder.pdf
4 Text of the California state-wide stay at home order https://www.gov.ca.gov/wpcontent/
uploads/2020/03/3.19.20-attested-EO-N-33-20-COVID-19-HEALTH-ORDER.pdf
5 Text of the revised Ventura County Stay Home Stay Well order
https://vcportal.ventura.org/covid19/docs/March_31_2020_Order.pdf