YES sees improvement in campus climate initiatives

The leaders of a committee tasked with helping to improve the campus climate say much progress has been made over the past few months.

“The committee has been hard at work to identify and implement steps to improve how we function as a campus community, with particular focus on shared governance, respect and communication,” Provost Martin Abraham said.

Abraham and Chet Cooper, chair of the Academic Senate, are co-chairs of the YSU Excellence Steering Committee, formed last year to evaluate suggestions coming out of the Great Colleges campus climate survey last spring.

Abraham and Cooper pointed to several examples of steps already taken to address concerns expressed in the survey, including:

• Reinstatement of the Budget Advisory Council, providing input to the administration for the development of the FY2018 general fund budget.
• President Jim Tressel’s Town Hall meetings across campus, seeking input in small gatherings.
• Abraham’s Brown Bag Lunch meetings across campus, also seeking input.
• Revised Board of Trustees bylaws allowing the chair of the Academic Senate to sit on the board’s Academic and Student Affairs Committee.
• A new provost advisory committee for part-time faculty and a new teaching excellence award for part-time faculty.
• A new anonymous fraud hotline on campus.
• New onboarding orientation procedures for new employees coming to campus.
• Weekly “Macte Virtute” letters to campus from President Tressel.
• Summaries of Board of Trustees actions and discussions emailed to all employees quarterly.
• A new website, “Understanding Our Mission,” to help campus better appreciate how YSU is meeting its mission goals (www.ysu.edu/accreditation/mission).
• Use of the Academic Research Committee of the Academic Senate to select the new Centers of Excellence.

The Great Colleges survey will be administered again on campus March 31 to April 14. Hillary Fuhrman, director of Assessment, noted that this time all employees will be invited to complete the survey. Last spring, only a sample of employees were invited.

“In keeping with efforts to create a more open and inclusive environment, we thought it was important this time to make sure that all employees had the opportunity to participate and be heard,” she said.