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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES
Present: Baesu, Gorman, James, Lewis, Pierobon, Reddi, Reimer, Robison, Shrader, Tschetter
Absent: Gruverman, Leiter, Timmerman
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Location: 203 Alexander Building
Note: These are not verbatim minutes. They are a summary of the discussions at the Executive Committee meeting as corrected by those participating.
______________________________________________________________________ 1.0 Call (Reimer)
Reimer called the meeting to order at 2:31 p.m.
2.0 Announcements
2.1 UNL/UNMC Summit
Reimer reported that she would be attending the UNL/UNMC summit on Wednesday, September 30, since Leiter had a conflict. She reported that there will be several breakout sessions during the summit with round table discussions which include UNL and UNMC members exploring ideas on opportunities for deeper collaboration, strategic alignment, and expanded research impacts that neither institution could fully realize on its own. Topics include cancer biology, precision medicine and therapeutics, infectious disease, neuroscience, addiction, mental health, metabolism, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, technology, enabled health innovation, and environmental health.
Pierobon noted that he has been involved in a number of research projects with UNMC colleagues that have been funded by NSRI and while it is a great project, there are a lot of problems with data exchange between the campuses involved in the research. He stated that these problems need to be addressed. Tschetter pointed out that there are other areas that humanities and medicine need to be considered, and Reimer stated that the arts need to be considered as well citing an example of singing being used in cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab. James noted that Extension already has some people working with UNMC colleagues.
3.0 Approval of September 22, 2026 Minutes
Reimer asked if there were any revisions to the draft minutes. Gorman and Shrader offered some minor revisions to the minutes. Reimer asked for a motion to approve the minutes. Tschetter moved and Robison seconded. Motion approved by the Executive Committee.
4.0 Unfinished Business
4.1 Executive Committee Feedback Form
Pierobon reported that he created the Microsoft feedback form suggested by the Executive Committee last week and that a QR code will be created. The Committee reviewed the form and considered where it would be best to place the link on the Faculty Senate website. The Executive Committee agreed that an announcement will be made at the Faculty Senate meeting on October 6 about the availability of the feedback form, but it will be noted that as a test pilot, only Senators will have access to the form.
5.0 New Business
5.1 Report to Faculty Senate on Restoring Trust and Building Morale
Reimer reported that the committee working on the report has met several times and good progress has been made. However, the committee would like to give a progress report at the October 6th meeting. She noted that the progress report will define six areas of deliverable, but the committee would like more time to delve deeper into each of the six areas and to gather faculty feedback. She stated that as a member of the committee, she would be happy to provide monthly updates to the Faculty Senate on the progress that is being made.
Gorman pointed out that the Executive Committee can vote on the report and transmit it to the Faculty Senate, but the Senate would need to determine whether an extension should be given for the completion of the report.
Reimer moved that the Executive Committee receive the progress report and transmit it to the Faculty Senate. Shrader seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.
5.2 Faculty Senate Meeting
Griffin noted that the October 6 Faculty Senate meeting will need to be conducted quickly and efficiently because of the presentation of the Louise Pound-George Howard Distinguished Career Awards and the James A. Lake Academic Freedom Awards, followed by a reception to honor the recipients following the meeting. She stated that there may be 60 additional guests in attendance for the presentation of the awards.
Gorman reported that the Faculty Senate can vote in the beginning of the meeting to have a hard stop time for the meeting to end. He stated that if the vote is not unanimous, it would just take a simple majority for the motion to be approved.
5.3 Meeting with Executive Leadership Team on October 13
Griffin reported that the Executive Committee will be meeting with the ELT on October 13th and there will be a presentation on the revised program indicators.
5.4 Question About Apportionments
Lewis noted that in her college tenure-track faculty members are given a third-year performance review to help colleagues on their road to promotion and tenure. She stated that recently a question came up about apportionments and whether a faculty member can officially negotiate a change in their apportionment.
Reimer and Tschetter that a faculty member can negotiate a change in their apportionment with their department chair, but there needs to be a signed agreement between the chair and the faculty member. Reimer stated that such a change, when approved, should be automatically updated in a faculty member’s evaluation file and in Firefly. Tschetter noted that she had her apportionment changed because she was doing so much service work and the person who was chair at that time knew of the change but did not share the information with the merit committee. She pointed out that a change in apportionment should be formalized and shared with any promotion and tenure or merit committee. She noted that faculty members should be able to see their current apportionment in Firefly.
Baesu suggested asking Interim Chancellor Ankerson to develop a document from the administration to encourage department chairs and deans to adjust the service apportionment for faculty members who are actively involved in service work. She pointed out that allowing faculty members to adjust their apportionment to accommodate more time for service could help encourage participation by more faculty members. Tschetter stated that they need to value service work and it needs to be valued across the campus.
5.5 Teaching Evaluations
Shrader reported that he spoke with AVC Marks and ASUN President Kurt Schneider informing them that the Senate Executive Committee was working on a resolution regarding course evaluations, and he noted that both agreed to work with the Committee about concerns with the course evaluations.
Shrader moved that the Executive Committee endorses the following resolution:
Whereas, the present handling of student course evaluations does not meet the requirement established by the Board of Regents that this process “shall protect members of the faculty from capricious and uninformed judgements” (BOR Bylaws 5.3), therefore, be it
Resolved, that the unvetted student course evaluations be removed from performance review of faculty until the process is brought into conformity with the Board of Regents Bylaws; and be it further
Resolved, that the students should not hereby be deprived of the “opportunity to report their perceptions of courses and the methods by which they are being taught” (BOR Bylaws 5.3) directly to instructors for pedagogical development.
Gorman seconded the motion. Reimer questioned how the evaluations would be vetted. Gorman pointed out that the Executive Committee would need to work with ASUN and the administration to determine how the evaluations could be vetted.
Shrader noted that the faculty want evaluations, but the current process of online evaluations is not working well because the response rate is low. James asked what the response rate was prior to the online evaluations. Gorman and Tschetter stated that the response rate was much higher because there were written evaluations which were done in class.
Gorman reported that the evaluations will still need to go to the instructor, but a review would need to be completed before the evaluations are submitted into a faculty member’s file. Shrader noted that the challenge will be to create a mechanism that is fair when evaluations that are reviewed and this is why we need input from AVC Marks and ASUN President Schneider.
Lewis moved to amend the resolution to include “instructors can use evaluations for formative assessment performance in the revision of their curriculum and instruction” at the end of the resolution. Gorman seconded the amendment. Amendment was approved.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:07 p.m. The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be on Tuesday, October 13, at 2:30 pm. The minutes are respectfully submitted by Karen Griffin, Coordinator and Ann Tschetter, Secretary.