[Plsfaculty] Graduate Funding Plan

Thu Apr 25 12:49:22 MST 2024

Hello all,

Here is the quick result from the vote on using Boynton Endowment funds to pay for summer 2024 stipends of SPLS graduate students.

A personal link was sent to all active faculty in SPLS.  Everyone had one vote and the vote was anonymous.

We had 18 of 30 possible votes. Therefore the vote had quorum participation.

The 18 votes split into

  *   15 votes in favor of using the Boynton Endowment funds to pay for summer 2024 stipends
  *   3 votes not in favor of using the Boynton Endowment funds to pay for summer 2024 stipends

In summary the faculty shows strong support for the use of the Boynton Endowment funds given background information available at the time of the proposal.

Yesterday, Judy suggested a three more votes:

1. Do you agree to use unit funds can be used to cover grad summer pay for students of faculty that cannot provide support, as the last resort to paying graduate students in the summer.
2. Do you agree that for only this year, summer 2024, will exceptions be made for faculty that accepted a student knowing insufficient funds were available, and does not include students that cannot be funded despite efforts to obtain grants or renewals (hard times, potentially experienced by all during career)
3. Do you agree that faculty will not take students if they have no grant, or know at that time, that they do/will not have sufficient grant funds to pay their graduate student for 12-months over the first 2 years.

1. and 3. are not time critical and should be on the agenda for the next faculty meeting to discuss and voted on for the future
2. is a subset of students that was voted on here. Therefore, these students would anyhow have support for funding by the faculty for summer 2024. A new vote is not necessary.

Last but not least some notes:

1. I could not not find any policy retricting the use of the Boyton Endowment for assistantships (Thanks to Judy for sending the description along).  Note, scholarships would be different.
2. The new amount available on the Boynthon Endowment sent around yestderday by Judy and Leslie is a little more than previously communicated.
3. There seems to be no policy from UA Foundation that would classify the Boynthon Endowment as an unrestricted endowment on which a mandate can be placed (https://policy.fso.arizona.edu/fsm/800/813). It seems restricted by the donor wish. However, all these policy issues are to be figured out and reported in detail by Mark and Judy.

Thanks for voting, it is now up to the leadership to act on all the voices.

Best,
Alex

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[attachment.png]

Dr. Alexander Bucksch
Associate Professor - School of Plant Sciences
BIO5 member
GIDP Faculty in Data Science & Statistics and Applied Mathematics

e: bucksch at arizona.edu
w: http://www.computational-plant-science.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abucksch/

[image002.jpg]

http://www.ipps8.org/

We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.

On Apr 24, 2024, at 1:08 PM, Orbach, Marc Joel - (orbachmj) <orbachmj at arizona.edu> wrote:

Hi Judy,

An alternative plan for funding student stipends this summer was proposed by Mark Beilstein, representing the GPSC, both Friday at our faculty meeting and in great detail on Monday via email. Following that, Ravi proposed a faculty vote on that plan and it was seconded by Alex B.

The plan sounds reasonable to me and should be discussed. You have not responded to those emails and I think you owe it to the faculty to respond and either set up a poll that allows for faculty input or explain why you will not do that.  The poll could be completed in a day, allows faculty to opt out of that support, and if people have submitted their plans, would not delay implementation of either funding as Mark proposed or via the plans people submitted.

Thanks,

Marc

From: Plsfaculty <plsfaculty-bounces at list.cals.arizona.edu> on behalf of Bucksch, Alexander - (bucksch) <bucksch at arizona.edu>
Date: Monday, April 22, 2024 at 8:10 PM
To: Palanivelu, Ravishankar - (rpalaniv) <rpalaniv at arizona.edu>
Cc: plsfaculty at list.cals.arizona.edu <plsfaculty at list.cals.arizona.edu>, Bonilla, Leslie Anne - (lesliebonilla) <lesliebonilla at arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: [Plsfaculty] Graduate Funding Plan
Dear Judy,

I want to second the motion of Ravi.

After considering the proposals from you and Mark, I second Ravi’s motion for three reasons:

  1.  I agree with you, we should have a professional process to clear out differences in opinion among the faculty.
  2.  To the best of my knowledge and the information provided by you and Mark, none of the two proposals conflicts with any policy. Thus, faculty governance is in order.
  3.  I could not find any by-laws that regulate such decisions, but democratic conscience warrants that a motion must be second to be acted on.

In addition to Ravi’s suggestion, I believe it is prudent to expect quorum for the number of votes casted through the proposed Qualtrics vote.

Best,
Alex

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

<attachment.png>

Dr. Alexander Bucksch
Associate Professor - School of Plant Sciences
BIO5 member
GIDP Faculty in Data Science & Statistics and Applied Mathematics

e: bucksch at arizona.edu
w: http://www.computational-plant-science.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abucksch/

<image002.jpg>

http://www.ipps8.org/

We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.

On Apr 22, 2024, at 6:47 PM, Palanivelu, Ravishankar - (rpalaniv) <rpalaniv at arizona.edu> wrote:

Hi Judy,

I read through the information you provided. I also have read through the recommendations that GSPC provided, which Mark Beilstein presented in the Friday meeting, and followed up with more information earlier today via email.

As we have done in the past, in keeping with our commitment to faculty governance and being respectful of the time GSPC and you have spent on this issue, can we vote on this issue to move forward? We can do a Qualtrics survey to do this vote, with a deadline of Wednesday COB. A question along this line can be posed:

Do you support the use of the Boynton Endowment funds to pay for summer 2024 stipends of SPLS graduate students?

If it does not win a majority, the form you sent can be left as such.

If it wins a majority, account number for Boynton funds can be provided by the faculty in the form you sent, in addition to any other account number of faculty member's choice.

Thank you
Ravi

--
Ravishankar Palanivelu, Ph. D.
Professor
School of Plant Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona, 85721
Phone: 520-626-2229
Fax: 520-621-7186
Web: http://ag.arizona.edu/research/ravilab
________________________________
From: Plsfaculty <plsfaculty-bounces at list.cals.arizona.edu> on behalf of Brown, Judith K - (jkbrown) <JBrown at ag.arizona.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2024 4:19 PM
To: plsfaculty at list.cals.arizona.edu <plsfaculty at list.cals.arizona.edu>
Cc: Bonilla, Leslie Anne - (lesliebonilla) <lesliebonilla at arizona.edu>
Subject: [Plsfaculty] FW: Graduate Funding Plan

Dear All,

Please see attachments with information and reiteration of information from Faculty meeting discussion.

Fill out and email the SPLS Grad Student Funding plan Leslieno later than Wednesday, end of day to assure your grad students are on payroll for summer supplement.  Please don’t make us tell you that your students will not be paid if you fail to submit the form. Help the office staff help you, please.

Please let me know if you have no grant funds available to cover your grad students (name, M.S. or Ph.D.) from May to mid-July.

Tomorrow we’ll have a zoom call tomorrow with Assistant Dean for Graduate Education Dean Jia Hu to discuss CALES policy and Grad Funding Plans. Please watch for an email coming shortly.

Have a good rest of your afternoon -

Judy

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