Kent State’s Faculty Senate Chair Pamela Grimm announced her retirement during the April 11 meeting.

“Pam was very good at presenting a multitude of faculty concerns because there were not always unanimity,” President Todd Diacon said. “The faculty is a collection of individuals who have different thoughts and different opinions. And one of the things that I noticed about Pam was that she was exceptionally good at presenting those opinions, whether she agreed with them or not.”

Diacon also praised Grimm for her great work as an editor of communications, especially around the pandemic.

After Diacon made his speech about Grimm’s retirement, the faculty senate election of officers was conducted through email and facilitated by Senator Edgar Kooijman. The positions up for election were chair, vice chair, secretary and at-large.

Tracy Laux, the current vice chair, won the election for chair, which is currently held by Grimm.

“He is the first full-time non-tenure eligible faculty member to ever be elected to this position,” Senator Deborah Smith said.

Along with Laux winning the election, Darci Kracht, the current at-large member, will now hold the position of vice chair, which is currently held by Laux.

Edward Dauterich will continue to keep his position as secretary.

Athena Salaba, an iSchool faculty senate member, won the election for at-large member, which is currently held by Kracht.

While the election made non-tenured faculty members more recognized, Smith called it a historic point.

“It’s worth noting that two of the three elected members of the executive committee will be non-tenure track faculty members as well,” Smith said. “Full-time non-temporary but non-tenure eligible faculty weren’t even recognized as a category until 1996.”

Besides the election, the senate approved the Office of Global Education/English as a Second Language Center: International Pathway Program Admission, which is a new policy that provides a pathway for international students who fall slightly short of minimum English proficiency but are otherwise admissible to the university. The program was presented by Executive Director Sarah Malcolm and Senior Lecturer Debbie Rozner.

There is an undergrad and a graduate program. The undergraduate program is a two semester program with a focus in the first semester on English language coursework, Rozner said.

“So ESL reading, academic communication and Academic Success course, which is kind of like an FYE type approach and the rest of their 15 credit hours would be made up of Kent core requirements, a math requirement, and then the college writing stretch sequence,” she said. “In their second semester, they would lean a little bit more heavily into their academic studies but still be engaged with English language coursework.”

After students complete the program they would enter fully into their degree program, Rozner said.

The graduate program would be only one semester.

“Students would be taking just one course in their academic degree program, so in their major, and the rest of their courses would be tailored ESL coursework to support both their success in that class and then helping them to level up to the English requirement by the end of that semester,” Rozner said.

The program is another admission track, Rozner said. There is no change to the curriculum involved.

The Faculty Senate will meet next on May 9, 2022 at 3:20 pm in the Governance Chambers of the Student Center.

Alexandra Golden is an assigning editor. Contact her at [email protected].