The full Faculty Senate met Friday to discuss course evaluations, available resources for professional development and recent and upcoming Board of Visitors meetings, including reasoning for the Board’s atypical meeting schedule this spring and faculty desires for greater communication between the two bodies.
Senators heard from Jim Lambert, faculty representative to the Board of Visitors, who discussed the Board’s one-day meeting March 5. Although the March Board meeting is typically held over two consecutive days, he said, it was separated into a March session and an April 16 session this spring because Board members must vote on tuition increases for the 2026-27 academic year.
According to Virginia law, university governing boards must provide the public with an ample public comment period before approving any increases in mandatory fees or tuition. The Board’s recently-appointed members were not confirmed by the General Assembly until late February, meaning that there was not enough time before the early March meeting to allow for public comment, Lambert said.
Nursing Prof. Kim Acquaviva asked that Lambert continue to encourage new Board members to communicate and work with faculty members, which she said would help build trust between the governing body and the broader community.
“With changes to the old Board, and then a new Board coming in, I know I'm filled with hope that things will be different,” Acquaviva said. “I would urge you as our representative to the Board, to encourage them to be transparent, to communicate openly, about everything that's going on to the extent they're able to.”
Lambert also noted that Vice Rector Victoria Harker’s first appointment to the Board came in 2012, shortly after former University President Teresa Sullivan was pressured to resign, creating circumstances similar to those that have followed former University President Jim Ryan’s resignation in June.
“It also heartened me to know that [Harker’s] first appointment here was in 2012,” Lambert said. “She also walked into a situation then that required commitment to transparency and collaboration and to reconnecting with faculty, staff and students.”
Prior to Board-related discussions, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Maïté Brandt-Pearce answered questions from senators regarding proposed changes to Student Experience of Teaching course evaluations — questionnaires students fill out with feedback on each of their classes. A faculty group has been working on composing new SET questions over the past two years, she said, and some of the new questions will be piloted this semester, with the hope of fully utilizing the new survey in the Fall 2026 semester.
Economics Prof. John Pepper said that some faculty are concerned that the new survey is evaluating professors’ teaching process rather than how much students learn. He also expressed concerns that the survey would produce more favorable results for small seminars over large lecture courses and encourage faculty to make their classes easier.
“There's a lot of questions about clarity, about engagement with students, about the comfort of students [and] about pedagogical boxes, but there's not a single question about whether students learned anything, or whether the faculty were effective,” Pepper said.
Brandt-Pearce said that the questions were formed based on published research that found students are not able to accurately judge their own learning. Specific questions focused on process also help avoid unconscious bias, she said.
“If you want to evaluate student learning, it's not through the [SET] that you evaluate learning,” Brandt-Pearce said. “You have to do it through other means.”
The questions are also being disseminated to faculty via email, with the opportunity for professors to provide online feedback — Brandt-Pearce encouraged senators to include their concerns in their feedback.
Anthropology Prof. Eve Danziger asked whether the new SET evaluations would continue to be considered when faculty are being reviewed for promotion and tenure — she noted that SET results are part of the documents that must be submitted to the promotions and tenure committee. Danziger said that the new questions focused on quantifying student satisfaction and questioned whether this was ultimately important with regards to promotion and tenure.
Brandt-Pearce said that the University’s evaluations of professors focus on both teaching effectiveness and student experience — while the SETs help measure student experience, there are a number of other ways to evaluate effectiveness that are also considered in promotion and tenure decisions.
The Senate also heard from Anna Santucci, associate director for the Center for Teaching Excellence, about the center’s resources for faculty development. She noted that the center offers one-time workshops and events as well as more intensive programs offered over a longer period, covering topics such as course design and teaching methods. Santucci also noted that faculty can request classroom observations to receive individual feedback from the center on their teaching style.
“[CTE serves] in diverse groups and committees that drive change and growth at the institutional level,” Santucci said. “We partner with colleges, schools [and] departments, on a wide range of needs and initiatives.”
The full Faculty Senate will hold its next meeting at 2 p.m. April 17.
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