At the Faculty Senate’s meeting on Dec. 2, Senate President Vickie Fedele said senate representatives attended six Board of Trustee committee meetings in November and contributed to discussions on various topics.

“We've largely been observers at the Board of Trustee committee meetings,” said Fedele, associate professor of English and women and gender studies in the Associate in Arts Program. “Chair Terri Kelly has encouraged us to be more active participants — sharing the agendas of these committee meetings with you in advance and taking questions back into the committee meetings for discussion.”

Fedele said she would share summaries of the committee meetings with the Faculty Senate and invited senators to follow-up with comments or questions.

She reminded senators that the Board of Trustees accepts public comments at its semi-annual meetings. Commenters must register within 72 hours of the meetings and may be given up to two minutes to share their comments.

Also at the Faculty Senate meeting, Athletics Director Chrissi Rawak spoke about the University of Delaware’s athletics program, highlighting the academic achievements of student-athletes, its support of UD’s academic mission and its economic impact in Delaware.

Fedele invited Rawak to speak at the meeting in response to the faculty’s questions about funding of UD’s athletics program.

UD Athletics offers 21 varsity sports, and the addition of women’s ice hockey next summer will make it 22. Also, Athletics directs campus recreation programs, such as intramural sports and wellbeing programming, and manages facilities that serve the community, such as pools and ice rinks. Rawak said that more than 1 million people engage with UD athletics annually, which translates into a significant economic impact.

“Every time we have a football game on campus, there's over $1 million spent in a weekend for our community,” said Rawak.

She explained the department’s funding model, which includes institutional support, self-generated revenue and student fees. The department has increased self-generated revenue — such as ticket sales, facility rentals, philanthropy and sponsorships — and gradually raised student fees to become less reliant on institutional support, she said.

“In the past five years, we've been able to reduce our institutional support by 24% and increase our self-generated revenue by 58%,” said Rawak.

Philanthropy covered the $5 million Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) reclassification fee for UD to join Conference USA in 2025. When UD began considering a conference move, the fee was only $5,000.

“We asked the question, what do we think about the long-term implications of FBS and how does the $5 million fee impact that decision?” said Rawak. “We took the long view. Certainly $5 million is not a small amount of money, but long-term, as it relates to this University in five to 20 years, $5 million was not significant enough to deter us from making this decision.”

Rawak is confident that UD and Delaware will benefit from the global recognition that comes with being in Conference USA — sporting events televised on ESPN, revenue generated from fan bases traveling to Delaware and UD’s ability to continue to expand its student enrollment market.

Academically, Rawak said that traveling to games to compete in Conference USA will not negatively impact students’ academic experience, and any increased travel costs will be covered by projected revenue growth from media rights, sponsorship and ticket sales.

“From a cost perspective, by joining Conference USA, now we have money that comes to us for being on national television and this offsets all of our travel expenses,” said Rawak. “Academically, we manage traveling now. Missing class is not ideal. We certainly understand that, and we appreciate our faculty working with our student-athletes on this.”

Last year UD had more than 600 student-athletes who had an average 3.3 cumulative GPA, the highest in department history, said Rawak. She added that the department is proud of the 418 students who were on last year’s Dean's list, as well as student-athletes' 95% graduation rate. Almost all of the graduates — 96% — were employed or in graduate school within six months after graduation.

“Our student-athletes take pride in their academic experience at UD; they're proud when they talk about why they came to Delaware,” said Rawak. “Academics is absolutely one of the most important reasons why they choose to come to Delaware — it’s about the experience that they have in the classroom.”

Classroom experiences extend beyond the typical lecture hall. The athletic department supports UD’s academic mission by ensuring that facilities are accessible to all for purposes of research, internships and capstone projects, said Rawak. Athletics also works with faculty to provide students a variety of experiential learning opportunities.

“The ability for us to complement the curriculum being taught in the classroom, providing real-world experiences within our area, is something that we're deeply proud of,” she said.

In other business, the Faculty Senate voted 71-0 to replace gender-specific pronouns with gender-neutral alternatives in the faculty handbook. Michael O'Neal, professor of earth sciences, explained that this recommendation is an effort to make the faculty handbook more inclusive and up to date.

There were eight items on the consent agenda — six proposals for professional and continuing studies certificates and two proposals from the Department of Communication to add a theory course to its master’s and doctorate programs. There was no discussion, and the proposals were approved in a vote of 73-0.

Fedele also announced:

• Senate committee vacancies:
  • Undergraduate studies representative for the College of Earth Ocean and Environment
  • Committee on instructional computing and research support services for the Biden school
  • Ad hoc committee on department chairs
    • Contact Chris Williams, the Committee on Committees and Nominations chair.
• The availability of Curriculum training videos and the curriculum proposal deadlines:
  • Non-CAS courses – Dec. 13
  • Non-CAS programs
    • Recommended deadline – Jan. 17, 2025
    • Absolute deadline – Feb. 7, 2025
• Faculty Senate meetings will move to Purnell Hall in room 115 in the spring
  • The goal is to reduce the media services budget by using the Zoom capture technology to record the meetings. It is uncertain if this will continue for the next academic year.

Further information about the Faculty Senate, including meeting minutes and agendas, can be found on its website.