President's Report 9/13/24

September 18, 2024 / Lyndsay Rhodes

BOT updates 

The following items are summarized from the Board Relations communication that came out September 11, 2024.

The FGCU Board of Trustees met Tuesday September 10, 2024. The full agenda and all materials are available on the  BOT website.

Trustees approved the first phase of FGCU’s workforce housing project to build 70 units of villa-style homes and townhomes on university-owned land adjacent to West Lake Village. The project will offer transitional housing opportunities for FGCU faculty and staff relocating to Southwest Florida.
Trustees authorized the following:

Hiring Soltura Development as development manager for Phase One ($2 million)

Creation of a new Direct Support Organization (DSO) to own, manage and finance the project

Transferring of the land to the DSO at no cost

Debt financing of the first phase at 100% of the project cost (estimated at $23 million)

The item now moves to the Florida Board of Governors for final approval.

Construction of Phase One is estimated to be completed by November 2026.

Trustees approved the 2024 FGCU Student Success Plan, which will be presented to the Florida Board of Governors during the September 18 meeting. The plan targets four areas with the greatest potential for improvement:

Metric 4: Four-year graduation rate for first-time-in-college (FTIC) students

Metric 5: Academic progress rate

Metric 9a: Three-year graduation rate for associate in arts (AA) transfer students

Metric 9b: Six-year graduation rate for Federal Pell Grant recipients

FGCU submitted final documents for its Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) Decennial Reaffirmation of Accreditation. As part of this, the university has announced that its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is focused on giving greater visibility to FGCU’s transferable skills offerings. It is called “The Skills Advantage: From Campus to Career.” The SACSCOC review team is scheduled to visit campus February 2025.

  The next meeting of the Board of Trustees is Thursday, October 24. 

 ACFS Updates

Advisory Council of Faculty Senates continues to meet in response to the syllabus key term search. The ACSF voted on Tuesday September 3, 2024, to not be involved in the review process and sent the following letter to Chancellor Rodriguez:

“The BoG’s proposed textbook screening policy will create a state database of Jewish courses and subject them to heightened scrutiny relative to courses on other religions. This process is antisemitic. The members of the Advisory Council of Faculty Senate’s denounce antisemitism and other forms of bias unequivocally – we will not contribute to it.

 Combating antisemitic bias as well as other bias based on protected identities is a top faculty priority. We have proposed the approach advocated for by major Jewish advocacy groups, which is to conduct proactive education and training opposing antisemitism and other forms of bias. Faculty would be happy to work to develop and implement anti-bias programs of this kind at our institutions. This kind of training is the best way to reduce antisemitism and other forms of bias in all contexts in our universities, as in society at large. This would further build on existing processes at our institutions to identify and address instances of bias or discrimination in classrooms. We continue to encourage the BoG to refrain from creating new and onerous course material review policies that impede antisemitism-prevention education.”

My understanding is that the Chancellor is continuing to discuss this with University presidents.

ACSF will be meeting with the Chancellor next Tuesday September 17 and with the Governors on September 18th to discuss the course review process and the General Education course approval concerns.

Other University Updates

PDP – 99% completion rate on time. Thank you! Looking for feedback on the process. Amendments are welcome, but need to work with Chairs to determine if an amendment is needed and they will then initiate the request to open a new case for amended PDP.

New policy coming soon regarding additional compensation off grants – up to 33% of base pay during contract and in addition to current summer months. Be on the look out to review.