Returning to in-person meetings after over a year, the Iowa State Faculty Senate will address the policies relating to COVID-19 and legislation impacting course curriculum.

The Faculty Senate will hear from a panel discussion regarding Covid campus policies for the fall semester. Panelists will include:

•  University Counsel attorney, Michael Norton 

• Associate Provost for Academic Programs Ann Marie VanDerZanden

• Director of the Study Abroad Center Frank Peter

• Senior Vice President and Provost Jonathan Wickert

• Lead Public Health Vet. for the Center for Food and Security/ Public Health Kristen Obbink

This body of leadership has worked to manage the emergency response for the pandemic. The faculty will provide direct questions to the panel about the response. 

Faculty Senate President Andrea Wheeler, associate professor of Architecture, recalls hearing Wickert announce classes would move to online classes for, then, only two weeks in their last in-person meeting in March, 2020. 

Wheeler said she remembers thinking how she could possibly move her studio and classes to online and hearing her colleagues in the graphic arts department wondering the same. The Senate has done its’ work online for the last 18 months, making this meeting their first return to the session since before the pandemic

“That is going to make a difference in the feeling and the character,” President of the Faculty Senate said. “There is a lot of pent-up frustration about this situation on campus and just faculty are wary about being disrupted for 18 months and we are still disrupted.”

Concerns relating to mask, disruption of scholarship, academics in an online setting and more. Completely separate from the Senate’s work, Lucken Professor Dave Peterson or political science wrote a letter including signatures from faculty to President Wendy Wintersteen on Aug. 13 calling on Iowa State and the Board of Regents to reconsider COVID mitigations for public universities.

In accordance with the Board of Regents,  Iowa State University encourages students and faculty to wear masks and get vaccinated from COVID-19 but is unable to require them. 

“So there is a lot of frustration about has the Senate been doing enough for us?” Wheeler said. 

Given this, Wheeler said she is prepared to undergo respected criticism from her colleagues but the Senate is working to find solutions to concerns. 

The Senate will also address state legislation that enacts requirements for diversity and inclusion training and inclusion efforts by public entities and agencies. It is expected an attorney from the University Counsel and Provost will provide the legal perspective on the bill.

HF 802 was signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on June 8. HF 802 bans workforce diversity training or class curriculum which includes “divisive” concepts. Critical race theory is among the list Reynolds said the bill would prohibit because it is about “labels and stereotyping.”

Wheeler said there are Senators who are angry and fearful of the legislation.

“Fearful is not a good place to be, and I don’t think fearful is what anyone should be,” Wheeler said. “So it might be the Senate has to make a resolution or puts together something that says ‘this is where we stand on House File 802’ and that could be a productive thing to come out of that.”

The Faculty Senate will meet Sept. 14 at 3:30 in the Great Hall at the Memorial Union.