Faculty Association Year-End Updates

Hello Colleagues,

Thank you. Thank you for your engagement this year and for sharing your questions, ideas, and feedback. One of our goals this year was to engage more with all faculty. To reach this goal, we hosted four Meet & Greets events, seven open office hour sessions, two all-faculty meetings, one FA member meeting, and one Lunch & Learn. We plan to continue hosting events next year, and hope that you will continue to join us.

FEC Minutes

Did you know that you can access the FEC minutes on the District Sharepoint site? The minutes can be found under Groups and then Faculty Executive Council. Your Faculty Senate President can also answer questions about the meetings.

Chancellor Executive Search Update

The Chancellor search continues to move forward. As part of the search, the Governing Board has decided to host invitational forums with the finalists for Chancellor, which is different from past executive searches. The reason for the invitational forum in place of a public forum is to recruit the most qualified candidates without them worrying about repercussions from their home institutions for expressing interest in a role outside of their institution.

One residential faculty member from each college will be identified by college Faculty Senates to participate in the forum focused on the interests of faculty. We want to make sure all faculty have the opportunity to provide input for the forum, so we are asking for you to complete this form. The goal is to gather topics faculty would like discussed with the candidates. Results will be organized by theme and shared with the designees to address during the forum.

The form is available to all residential faculty through Thursday, May 7.

Guns on Campus Survey

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. We received over 500 responses, and here are the results.

AI Resource Center

The AI Resource Center (ARC) is charged with providing strategic and advisory leadership to guide the ethical, collaborative, and effective adoption of artificial intelligence across the Maricopa Community College District. We successfully advocated for a faculty co-chair who will be the faculty voice in this emerging work.

Board-approved Acceptable Use policy

The Governing Board approved the Acceptable Use Policy in January. The policy’s focus is on protecting data and access to data, and it applies to anyone who has to log into the district’s networks. The early draft did not include an academic freedom consideration, which is essential for faculty work. The Residential Faculty Agreement is clear, “All Faculty are entitled to instructional freedom in discussing their subject with students, and they should exercise their best effort to ensure topics are relevant to their subject.” The RFA continues, “All Faculty are entitled to freedom in research and in the publication of the results.” (RFA 3.1) After consultation with FEC, academic freedom was added to the final policy.

Challenges & Opportunities

Although there have been successes, we continue to monitor the following issues:

• Maricopa Additional Requirements: Questions were raised regarding how graduation requirements are determined. Currently, there are no established guidelines or formal processes for designating a course as a graduation requirement. We are working with the Provost’s Office to develop a clear, student-centered and faculty-led process for determining any future graduation requirements.

• Benefits: Employee benefits remain a concern. We have two faculty representatives on the Employee Benefits Advisory Committee (EBAC) and two faculty representatives on the Compensation Advisory Committee (CAC). These groups are using data from the recent Total Compensation Survey, which asked about medical plan design, coverage preferences, and priorities; compensation preferences and priorities; and long‑term benefit strategies. The survey evolved, in part, from concerns faculty had about the process for making critical benefits decisions.

• Police Reorganization: We have been keeping track of the impact of the reorganization of police departments on campuses. A team of Vice President of Administrative Services and College Presidents are helping the Chief of Police to identify problem areas and potential solutions to map out a public safety plan that best meets the needs of the campuses.

• Dear Colleague Letter (DCL): There have been questions about the status of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and efforts since the letter from February 2025 is no longer in effect after a judicial decision. However, there is additional guidance issued by the Trump administration that alludes to enforcement activity on the basis of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, which is still in effect. The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo containing guidance similar to the DCL for all recipients of federal funding. The DOJ memo has not been rescinded, nor has it been struck down by the judiciary. Also, another Executive Order expands the government’s audit authority and imposes DEI certification obligations on all federal contractors and subcontractors and prohibits any “racially discriminatory DEI activities.”

• Plans for the FEP: The conversation about the FEP will continue. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. After RFACT develops draft language that is supported, then FEC will set up a task force to draft the Guidelines for implementing the revised policy language. There will be a vote of all the faculty to approve or reject the changes to the Guidelines. No date has been set for the vote. More details will be shared as the work progresses.

We have achieved a lot this year, and we have more work to do. We hope that you will continue to stand with us by staying involved, sharing your thoughts with faculty leadership, and, if you have not, joining the Faculty Association today.

We are all stronger when we work together.

Thank you,
Stacy Smith Hannon
President
Maricopa Community Colleges Faculty Association