Faculty Beat is Tired of Parliamentary Procedure

At the faculty meeting on February 17, 2025, topics discussed included the response to recent executive orders; changes to the English, History, and ICPS majors; and further discussion of proposed changes to the distribution requirements.

President Audrey Bilger called the meeting to order and first brought the minutes from December 2, 2024, which were approved as usual. Bilger began her report with a shout-out to Reed Admit Day, which was happening the day of the meeting. Moving on, she expressed the importance of our community being dedicated to academic freedom, supporting one another, and creating an inclusive and supportive environment, especially in the face of continued executive orders that are “worrisome.” 

In particular, Bilger spoke about the executive order threatening to cut federal funding for schools with COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which she described as “pesky.” She said the college plans to continue strongly recommending vaccines, but will go through the governance process to revise the faculty code to strike the requirement for a COVID-19 vaccine. This motion is expected to come to the March faculty meeting. Bilger said she will focus on fighting against other issues; in this case, Reed is in a very small minority, as there are only 15 colleges and universities nationwide that still require a COVID-19 vaccine.

Bilger also mentioned the Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education extending the Supreme Court decision on race-blind admissions to “all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life” and restricting federal funding to any institution that does not comply. She said there is a lot to figure out, but that the college  wants to be careful not to jump forward into anticipatory compliance. Overall, Reed is watching the developments closely and seeks to carry on with what the community believes in and supports. “It creates a lot of anxiety,” Bilger said, “and I’ll share that anxiety.” 

Dean of the Faculty Kathy Oleson took over from there. She echoed Bilger’s comments, saying, “I want to acknowledge the continued chaos that we have in our country.” Reed needs to have federal funding, but also to make sure we stand for our values, she said, so the college is taking in information and figuring out how to respond. On a lighter note, she also shared that the faculty retreat will be taking place on Wednesday, May 28. Sameer ud Dowla Khan (Linguistics) asked if there would be a chance to talk about changes to insurance. Oleson said that can certainly be organized for a future faculty meeting.

Next up was Ann Delehanty with the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) report. First, there was a proposal for a new course, Dance 254: Contact Improvisation, which passed easily. Next, there was a proposed change to both tracks of the English major, with the goal of emphasizing poetry. Starting in the 2025-26 academic year, all English majors will be required to take a 200-level poetry class. To keep the same net total of required classes, this goes along with a change that English majors will have to take three 200-level English courses (currently two) and five 300-level English courses (currently six). This change was approved easily.

There was also a proposed change to the Environmental Studies-History and History majors. It clarified how Junior Seminar is listed in the catalog; took away the post-1800 requirement because majors take those classes anyway; and changed the structure of the geographic requirement to move away from a Western/non-Western lens. This motion was also approved.

Finally, there was a proposed change to the International and Comparative Policy Studies (ICPS) major. It will be split into two tracks: an International Affairs major and a Public Policy major, with the goal of making these majors more easily recognizable to other audiences as distinct and well-defined courses of study. This change was approved.

Jan Mieskowski (CAT) was next. He displayed a meme similar to the one published in the last Faculty Beat, featuring Bernie Sanders with the bottom text “I am once again asking you to evaluate your colleagues,” to much laughter. He also added that there will be an evaluation of the Dean of the Faculty coming up this spring.

Nearly all of the rest of the meeting was spent discussing distribution requirements, once again.  

Clarification: in the last distribution requirements article, I stated that these requirements were expected to go into effect for students admitted for 2025-26. It has since been clarified that this is incorrect. These changes may be implemented for next year if the overall impact is increased flexibility, but if there are additional requirements or less flexibility, they will likely not be implemented until the following year.

The first order of business brought by the Ad Hoc Committee on Distribution Requirements, represented as usual by Suzy Renn, was a motion to use ranked choice voting to vote on the second motion (the actual proposed models). There was a long tangent about whether they are technically allowed to do this per parliamentary procedure, but ultimately the motion was approved.

The second motion was to select among the proposed models for distribution requirements. They did not actually vote on this motion at the meeting, just on amendments to the motion. There were six proposed models: current (1a); current + language requirement (1b); added choice,removing the 2-in-1 group requirement (2a); added choice + language requirement (2b); added choice + reduced units,dropping from 3 to 2 units for Groups 2 and 3 (3a); and added choice + reduced units + language requirement (3b). See the February 7 Quest for more information on the proposed models. Those following along will note that a quantitative requirement is no longer being considered, but these changes are otherwise very close to what was discussed at the last faculty meeting.

There were three amendments to this motion prepared in advance. Amendment 1 was to decrease the number of required units in Group 1 from three to two in the added choice and reduced units model (3a). Darrell Schroeter (Physics), who originally proposed this amendment, said that, although he’d prefer 3b to 3a, he didn’t think it made sense balance-wise to have three classes required for Group 1 and only two for the other groups without a language requirement for Group 1. Multiple professors from Group 1 expressed opposition to this amendment due to the size and breadth of Group 1.  

Midway through the discussion of Amendment 1, Adam Groce (Computer Science) proposed an amendment to the amendment, which would create a separate model in the ranked choice voting with this change, instead of changing the existing 3a model. After some debate about the drawbacks of having more options, balanced out by the ease of ranked choice voting, this amendment to the amendment passed closely. The amendment itself also passed very closely, thus adding a seventh option to the existing six models on the ranked choice voting, which would require 2 units in each group, still with added choice but no language requirement. 

Amendment 2 was to eliminate the data collection and analysis (DCA) requirement in Group 3 if the number of units required is dropped to two (for models 3a, 3b, and the new seventh option). The rationale is that students could not take two units in computer science or math (the two Group 3 departments that do not offer lab classes) and have it count toward the distribution requirement, but any other department could contribute two units. 

Kris Anderson (Psychology) proposed an amendment to the amendment to just add more models to the vote rather than changing the existing models. This would add three new options, for a total of ten. After some discussion, the amendment to the amendment was voted down fairly closely (for the third hand-counted vote of the meeting). Amendment 2 itself did pass, so there will be no lab requirement in models 3a, 3b, and the new seventh model. 

Amendment 3 would allow students to get out of the language requirement if they demonstrate competency in a language for which Reed does not offer literature courses through an AP score of 5, an IB HL score of 6-7, or an alternate means of demonstrating competency if petitioned. Alex Montgomery (Political Science), who proposed the amendment, said he’s in favor of a language requirement and thinks this would make it easier for that requirement to pass. He thinks students who have competency in another language shouldn’t have to go back to a 100-level class in a different language. Multiple professors expressed concerns about the complexity of this exception, its inconsistency with other requirements, and the danger of establishing a precedent of allowing students to test out. The amendment failed resoundingly.

The committee will prepare all seven models and bring them to the next meeting (March 10), which will undoubtedly be taken up by extensive discussion. Voting will take place via a ballot sent out following that meeting.

With just two minutes left of the already-extended meeting, Peter Steinberger (Political Science) read a statement in response to the call for new business. He stated that he’s generally in favor of political neutrality, but not when it affects the community directly. He expressed concerns about how nothing is holding Trump in check, the possible crumbling of a healthy constitutional order, and how our country is facing a new prospect of fascism. He described a direct attack on the very idea of academic freedom affecting Reed. Steinberger requested that this statement be included in the minutes because, he said, he thinks there should be a record that there was concern about these issues. He received a great deal of applause. With that, the meeting was adjourned.

The next faculty meeting will be held on March 10. Students interested in attending should contact presidentsoffice@reed.edu.