Iowa State’s Faculty Senate will meet to discuss university policy and program changes on Tuesday, including updates to the faculty handbook’s discrimination and harassment section.

Tuesday’s meeting will be the senate’s first of the semester, and will cover unfinished business from the spring semester alongside new business. 

Old business from the spring 2018 semester regarding changes to the faculty handbook will be discussed near the conclusion of the meeting, with proposed changes aiming to make the handbook consistent with wider university policy by rephrasing some sections and eliminating others entirely and replacing them with references to Iowa State’s policy library.

These changes came about due to discrepancies in the description of discrimination and harassment between the university library and faculty handbook.

Representatives will also discuss new business regarding the joint request from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) to change CALS’ agricultural biochemistry major to biochemistry. According to the submitted proposal, this change is meant to align the major with the biochemistry major offered by LAS and would not alter the program’s curriculum. The proposal also includes guidelines for the division of funding during a three year trial period to compensate for any enrollment differences that occur as a result of the change.

Wendy Wintersteen will speak soon after the beginning of the meeting, followed by the election of a new chair to the Resource Policies and Allocations Council. Other topics covered will include the implementation of faculty terminology and title changes approved by the senate in May and a presentation from Jose Rosa, faculty fellow to the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Council.

The session will be called to order in the Memorial Union’s Sun Room at 3:30 p.m. and will run for approximately one and a half hours. The entirety of the senate meeting will be open to the public.