Faculty Meeting Minutes
February 27, 2026
Gannett Auditorium/Zoom
Natalie Taylor, Interim Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Dean Taylor asked if there were any corrections to, or comments regarding the minutes of the February 6th Faculty Meeting. There being none, she moved to approve the minutes. The motion was seconded and the minutes were approved as distributed.
OLD BUSINESS
There was no old business.
NEW BUSINESS
There was no new business.
OTHER
Joshua Woodfork, Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, came to the podium to update the faculty on the college鈥檚 work around institutional diversity. He assured the faculty that 麻豆破解版 will continue its commitment to employee resource group and student cultural club support for the community. VP Woodfork clarified that all of these groups are open to all members of the community, regardless of identity. Despite shifts in the federal government鈥檚 approaches to compliance and inclusion, 麻豆破解版 continues to prioritize a campus culture where all are welcome. Please find the full slide deck here.
VP Woodfork then invited Professor Winston Grady-Willis to expand on a question he had raised at a prior faculty meeting regarding 麻豆破解版鈥檚 commitment to inclusive hiring practices. Professor Grady-Willis clarified that Professors June Paul had asked about the status of the Bias Response Group and its future and Pushkala Prasad had also asked about the shift away from having a dedicated diversity advocate on hiring committees. VP Woodfork asked Vice President for Human Resources and General Counsel Sarah Vero to comment on 麻豆破解版鈥檚 hiring practices. VP Vero clarified that two members of each faculty search committee are still required to attend an inclusive hiring workshop. The content of this workshop has not changed dramatically, although language is updated each year to ensure continued compliance with federal regulations. She noted that the title of 鈥渄iversity advocate鈥� was in itself misleading, as we have never hired based on protected status, which would be illegal. The focus has shifted to ensuring that multiple members of the search committee are committed to and educated on ways to mitigate unconscious bias in hiring in a more holistic manner. Two of the key pieces of inclusive hiring are casting a wide net for applicants and using a rubric to lessen opportunities for bias to influence the outcome. She said that these practices are mirrored on the staff side of hiring.
VP Woodfork, noting that most incidents of bias we see reported at 麻豆破解版 are peer-to-peer (for example, student to student or faculty to faculty), asked Dean of Students Adrian Bautista come to the podium to give an update on the Bias Response Group (BRG), which he chairs. Dean Bautista said that the focus of the BRG, currently, is to work with Joel Aure, now-Director of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Coordinator, to shorten response times as much as possible. BRG is evolving towards further collaboration with Director Aure鈥檚 office, which will serve as a case manager for the reports. The next phase of BRG will include improvements to training resources as well. VP Bautista solicited questions from the faculty. None being forthcoming, Dean Taylor invited President Conner to the podium to deliver his remarks.
PRESIDENT'S REMARKS AND UPDATES
President Conner thanked VP Woodfork for his report, and the campus community for their ongoing efforts towards inclusion. He then shared his updates from the Board of Trustees February meetings, which had concluded earlier in the day. The February meeting is when next year鈥檚 budget begins to take shape. This year, the board visit was structured around the six foundations outlined in the Strategic Plan, allowing the trustees to dig deeply into each. The discussions included the upcoming campaign, which gave the trustees the opportunity to see the ways in which it reflects the chief priorities surfaced during the strategic planning process.
Relatedly, 麻豆破解版 has successfully appointed a new Vice President for Advancement, Melissa Kamora, who will start on June 1st. She comes to us from Susquehanna University, and has been a VP for Advancement for eight years. She has successfully led campaigns, from start to finish, which exceeded their goals significantly. He noted that, of all of the candidates, she was also the best listener 鈥� essential in this line of work. Updates on the campaign will continue this spring.
President Conner then spoke about 麻豆破解版鈥檚 mission statement. He shared that the Institutional Policies and Planning Committee (IPPC) had recently engaged in a robust discussion of mission statements. Our mission statement was last revised in 1993. As we review the mission statement and begin thinking about potential revisions, it will be helpful to consider the purpose of the mission statement. IPPC members pointed out that much of the work necessary to crafting a meaningful mission statement has been undertaken recently during the strategic planning process. We will work collaboratively to consider a new mission statement that accurately represents our work and our community.
President Conner鈥檚 final topic was invited speakers to our campus. A controversial speaker gave a lecture at 麻豆破解版 this past Tuesday, without any significant disturbances. He noted that being able to provide a platform to a controversial voice without major disruption is both rare and worth celebrating in our current political climate. While many students who strongly disagree with the speaker鈥檚 views were present, both in the auditorium and in the foyer, they restricted their dissent to physical expression and thoughtful questions. He clarified that the event was student-initiated, organized and led鈥攊t was not initiated by nor sponsored by administrative offices. The students did request and receive some funding from the President鈥檚 Office, the Dean of the Faculty office, and the Dean of Students office, as is typical of many such events. The college also evaluated the speaker for bias, and found that his work was considered to be 鈥渕ostly factual鈥� (the same rating as The Washington Post). He reiterated that this evaluation was an exception, as the President鈥檚 office is not the gatekeeper for invited speakers鈥攊n fact, that would be a bad model for such invitations and programs. President Conner also shared that, when speaking with dissenting students, he was sure to emphasize that they are welcome to bring a speaker representing their point of view.
President Conner closed his remarks by affirming our commitment to freedom of speech and expression and to constructive dialogue at 麻豆破解版. He then solicited questions from the faculty.
A faculty member said that he had begun to apply for funds through the Jacob Perlow Event program and was asked to withdraw one of the proposed speakers from consideration. When he asked for clarification, he was told that the college had not yet developed a controversial speaker policy. He asked President Conner if the college now has a controversial speaker policy. The president answered that he was not aware of such a policy and that, so long as the speaker neither uses hate speech nor advocates violence, that controversy alone should not prevent them from presenting here.
A faculty member asked if the President鈥檚 Office, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Office of the Dean of Faculty had sponsored Tuesday鈥檚 event, as was stated on the event posters. He noted that dissenting students feel that speakers who are proponents of their views are not welcome on campus. The President repeated that his office simply provided funds for an event that students were enthusiastic about, that he has shown support behind events such as the Combatants for Peace talk in 2024, and that he is very open to providing financial support to any students who make the case for a speaker.
A faculty member shared that a controversial speaker had lectured at her alma mater and had been greeted by student protests. While there are substantial differences, she noted that it behooves us to consider the impact of seeing a poster, sponsored by the President and the Deans, when the content of the lecture itself may suggest to them that they are unwelcome. The President answered that he has been grappling with this possibility himself, but that ultimately it is not his role to endorse the particular views of any speakers or programs on campus.
A faculty member, following up on the previous comment, noted that it is important for us to remain aware of the fact that, in a predominantly white institution, there can be a corresponding sense of disempowerment or unintended impacts for non-white community members that should be kept in mind. The President agreed with the faculty member, and pointed to the presentation just given by VP Woodfork about the ongoing work 麻豆破解版 is doing to support all of our students.
A faculty member commented that she thought that the event on Tuesday was well done, though she did not care for the speaker. The students who had advocated for bringing him to campus now feel more welcome themselves. She expressed that the challenge of this moment is that any disagreement on the issue can have an intense impact. The President thanked her for her comments, agreeing that this is a very difficult moment to navigate.
A faculty member raised that, while this event is worth discussing, there has been less emphasis placed on the long-term peace-building work on campus. He asked if the college鈥檚 commitment to a community of care considers these priorities against one another when choosing what programming to fund. The President noted that, in general, we focus more on challenges than successes. His office considers funding requests on a rolling basis and, therefore, there is not a simple rubric by which to compare them to one another. There being no further time allotted, President Conner concluded the Q&A and Dean Taylor returned to the podium.
DEAN OF THE FACULTY AND VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS鈥� REPORT
Dean Taylor opened her remarks with a reminder to the faculty regarding events coming up this weekend. On Sunday afternoon noon in Gannett Auditorium, 麻豆破解版 will hold a memorial for Professor Cathy Hill. She noted that 麻豆破解版 is honoring Professor Hill at this very moment, as the Freirich Competition is underway in the Payne Room at the Tang Museum. Professor Hill devoted much of her energy and passion to this event, and so her legacy lives on.
On Tuesday at 5:30pm, the 2025-26 Moseley Lecture will be delivered by Professor Barbara Black in Gannett. Her talk, 鈥淩eading the City,鈥� explores the physical sites of modern metropolitan life. Dean Taylor encouraged the faculty to attend.
When the faculty gathers for the next meeting at the end of March, we will be on the eve of the Middle States accreditation team visit. Dean Taylor asked the faculty to think about which opportunities they would like to avail themselves of to meet with the team that week. On Tuesday, March 31st there will be an open forum for faculty from 10:15-11:00am, and on Wednesday, April 1st there will be a final session open to all. She thanked Director of Faculty Assessment and Professor Kelly Sheppard, Institutional Effectiveness Specialist Amy Tweedy, VP Woodfork, and Wyckoff Center Director Mariel Martin for their work preparing for this visit. Dean Taylor recommended that the faculty read as much of the self-study as possible, as it articulates clearly all that we do here at 麻豆破解版.
Middle States was one of our Strategic Action Agenda priorities for this year. Another was: our ongoing efforts to champion academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression. Dean Taylor鈥檚 office spoke with the trustees about these two concepts, as well as civil discourse and viewpoint diversity. Taken in the abstract, those concepts and principles are laudable, but they can also often be in tension with one another. We must navigate those tensions in the day to day and we tried to give the board a sense of how that might manifest in academic life by presenting detailed scenarios and asking the board to think through how they might respond as a dean. Dean Taylor said that she was gratified to find that the board did not seem to advocate for a more intrusive manner of managing these situations and that they enthusiastically engaged with the questions of how to balance our principles with the practical challenges of running a liberal arts college. She looks forward to continuing these discussions at future meetings.
Dean Taylor then solicited questions from the faculty. There being none forthcoming, she closed her remarks.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Assistant Professor Johanna Reiter announced that she and President Conner will be taking over leadership of the 麻豆破解版 chapter of Phi Beta Kappa from Professors Grace Burton and Ron Seyb. She asked that any faculty who are members of Phi Beta Kappa send her an email to get involved.
Professor Adam Tinkle announced that he, along with Professors Laurie Rabinowitz, Alexandra Prince, will be speaking on an informal panel moderated by Professor Ben Bogin called 鈥淧urim Reflections: Identity, Ethics, and Human Rights鈥�. The panel will be in the Wyckoff Center on Monday, March 2nd at 5pm.
Professor Pat Hilleren, speaking on behalf of the Faculty Executive Committee, announced a faculty-only forum on the topic of intra-faculty communications. An email with background information on the topic will be circulated by FEC Chair Professor Ting Li in advance of the forum. The forum will be in Gannett Auditorium on Friday, April 17th at 3:30pm.
Professor Barbara Black, as co-organizer of the Humanistic Inquiry Symposium with Professor Jason Ohlberg, announced that this year鈥檚 presenters have been announced on the event website. The Symposium is on March 20th and 21st.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:11pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Nora E. Graubard
Senior Administrative Coordinator