As Chair of the Faculty Senate, I am privileged to welcome you to the 2022-2023 academic year, the 70th anniversary of the Senate’s formation. The Faculty Senate is led by three tri-chairs: I am honored to serve as a tri-chair with William Braham of the School of Design (past chair) and Tulia Falleti of the department of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences (chair-elect). The tri-chairs are delighted to welcome President Liz Magill and look forward to working with her and the Administration to advance Penn’s longstanding commitment to shared governance.

The Faculty Senate was created by the Trustees of the University in 1952 at the request of the faculty. All standing faculty, across the 12 schools, are members of the Senate. However, most of the Senate’s work is conducted by the Senate Executive Committee (SEC), an elected body with 58 members that meets monthly during the academic year. SEC oversees eight standing committees as well as select committees it creates, and it coordinates with the University Council and its seven committees. Standing faculty members are invited to observe SEC meetings and may attend by requesting access information from the Senate Office or from their constituency representative. Additional information about SEC and the Faculty Senate is available from the website and the Faculty Handbook.

The President and the Provost meet biweekly with the tri-chairs to discuss current matters and identify emerging issues. The President and Provost, as well as Vice Provosts and other senior administrators, also consult with the faculty through their engagement with SEC, Senate committees, and other avenues as needed to address urgent issues.

As is customary, this annual letter from the chair of the Senate provides a brief summary of activities from the previous academic year and outlines priorities for the coming academic year. In writing, I want to recognize the participation and many contributions of the faculty who, when called upon to serve, actively participate in the work of SEC and the Senate. Achieving the goals of shared governance demands time and attention to a range of matters that help us respond to the mission of the University. With the multiple stressors associated with the COVID pandemic, committee chairs and committee members provided an especially important service in offering their expertise and time. We are deeply appreciative.

In 2021-2022, despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic, the Senate was able to build upon initiatives from previous years and pursue several new activities. Among these initiatives and activities were the following: 

• Selection of the New President. In Summer 2021, SEC selected faculty representatives, through a nomination process, to the Consultative Committee to advise the Executive Committee of the Trustees on the selection of a new President. Five faculty members represented the Senate in the consultative meetings: Vivian Gadsden (Education), Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Annenberg), Jennifer Pinto-Martin (Nursing), Eve Troutt Powell (SAS/History), and Michael Weisberg (SAS/Philosophy).
• Faculty Senate Seminar Series. Launched in summer 2020, the Faculty Senate Seminar Series continued to be an important venue for generating ideas, reviewing important issues facing faculty and the University, and disseminating information to faculty. Over the year, SEC held six seminars, all of which are archived on the Seminar Series website.  These sessions focused on issues ranging from changing practices in teaching and student engagement to faculty academic freedom and responsibility.
• Resolutions. The Senate Executive Committee endorsed three resolutions. First, the November 2021 Resolution on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency calls on University administration and the Board of Trustees to take a specific list of actions to address the climate emergency across four areas: investments, University practices and operations, expressions of climate commitment, and facilitation of individual actions by members of the campus community. Second, the April 2022 Resolution on Faculty Bylaws calls upon school and/or departmental faculties to formalize written bylaws and/or standing rules that address voting privileges, hiring procedures, committee appointment processes, and the rights and privileges of faculty by rank. Lastly, the May 2022 Resolution for Election Day makes evergreen our call to make instructional accommodations for instructors and students who may miss class to participate in forms of electoral engagement or in some other election-related activities. Penn’s Policy on Secular and Religious Holidays was amended in May 2022 to include Election Day.
• Other matters. In addition, the Senate addressed questions and concerns raised by faculty, including University efforts to ensure the safety and health of faculty during the COVID pandemic and the gender-limiting language in the Faculty Handbook. For more information, please access the 11-page SEC Actions for a recap of the highlights of each SEC meeting. 

In April 2022, we were especially pleased to welcome Penn Trustees chair Scott Bok, the first Trustees chairperson to meet formally with the Faculty Senate. Mr. Bok offered valuable insights regarding priorities of the Trustees and responded to SEC members’ questions on a range of topics, from the role of Trustees to University investments.

For 2022-2023, our priorities both reinforce and expand upon successful past efforts and initiate new ones. We will work toward implementing an integrative framework that brings under a single umbrella multiple issues that represent the voice of faculty, support faculty and students, enhance the University’s mission, and engage in meaningful dialogue with local communities.

• Selection of the Provost. In July 2022, through nominations and voting, SEC selected faculty representatives to the Consultative Committee to advise the President and Search Committee on the selection of the University Provost. The Faculty Handbook states that the Consultative Committee for a Provost search should include 12 faculty members, 6 selected by the Faculty Senate and 6 selected by the President. Names of the 6 faculty members selected by SEC were forwarded to the Office of the President in July 2022. 
• Structural Racism and Inequity. As we have done over the past two years, all standing committees will have an overarching charge to address systemic racism and other forms of inequity. Committees are asked to assess and evaluate ways to change University structures, practices, and biases at the University, school, departmental, and individual levels. Examples include eligibility for leadership roles; differential standards for faculty evaluation based on race, gender, or national origin; department-level voting privileges; biases implicit in quantitative methods for evaluating faculty; and effectiveness of campus mental health and wellness programs.
• Local Engagement. Local engagement will serve as an overarching framework that builds upon Penn’s efforts toward interdisciplinary and cross-school collaborations and commitment to the civic and social good. Our attention will be directed to both local communities and the local agencies and systems designed to support them, with particular attention to public education and Philadelphia schools, climate and its effects on community health and well-being, employment, and safety. 
• Education and Research for the Climate Emergency. This initiative continues to be a critical and leading-edge area of work in the Senate, which resulted in SEC’s passage of a Resolution on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency. We will continue our collaboration with Penn Sustainability, the Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII), and the Senate Select Committee on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency (CIRCE) to identify and implement opportunities for teaching and research that address the climate emergency, integrate climate-related issues into course content, and promote inquiry and interdisciplinary research. 
• Wellness. Reinforcing wellness for faculty, staff, and students continues to be a high priority. This includes attention to known and new variants of COVID and other viral strains and promoting health maintenance and balance that enable faculty to address personal, familial, and professional expectations and that support students and staff alike. 
• Teaching and Classroom Culture. The COVID pandemic challenged us to think differently and more innovatively about the possibilities for teaching, pedagogical practices, and classroom learning and culture. SEC will continue to highlight these important issues, including enhancing the culture of the classroom and the different forms of teaching at the University, not limited to virtual classrooms and remote learning. Our objective will be to capture the range of modes of teaching and their affordances through appropriate protocols, evaluations, and feedback.
• Faculty Engaged Scholarship. Drawing on prior discussions in SEC and among individual faculties, the Senate will continue to identify operational definitions and guidelines for “engaged scholarship” by faculty and their interpretations in departments and schools.  What counts as engaged scholarship; how is it monitored, i.e., with what standards and guidelines; and how is it recognized and rewarded in decisions of promotion and compensation?
• Faculty Recruitment, Professioal Growth, and Opportunities. SEC will work with the 12 schools around three priorities: (1) recruitment and retention of diverse faculty, in particular faculty from historically under-represented communities; (2) professional pathways for non-tenure-line faculty, and (3) mentoring and pathways to professional success for all faculty. 

Several other issues will be highlighted and pursued. For example, we are committed to issues of child and family care. We will also continue the Seminar Series as a vibrant context for discussion about the above and other important issues to the faculty, and Senate committees will be inviting faculty to engage in discussions relevant to their charges. We invite faculty to stay abreast of the work of SEC. To learn more about the agenda for SEC meetings, as well as committee charges and members, please refer to the Senate’s website. 

The past couple years have been filled with uncertainty as we coped with the COVID pandemic, requiring regular pivots, heightening our sensitivities, and calling for our attention to persistent disparities, systemic barriers, and social inequity. Having assumed the role of chair-elect as the administration and the tri-chairs planned for our first virtual semester, I witnessed and learned from the tireless efforts of former chairs, in particular, Bill Braham, with whom I still serve and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who recently completed her term as a tri-chair, as well as Patrick Walsh, the Senate’s executive assistant. 

We are fortunate to be here at Penn, with opportunities to be engaged in work that can make a difference to the intellectual life of our faculty, staff, and students and to civic life of the larger community. For more information or to learn more about the Senate, you can reach us at senate@pobox.upenn.edu or by phone at (215) 898-6943. I also invite you to contact me directly at viviang@upenn.edu.

On behalf of the tri-chairs, welcome and best wishes for an intellectually rich, healthy, and rewarding academic year.

—Vivian L. Gadsden, William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education