Faculty Beat Is So Close to Being Done with Distribution Requirements
At the faculty meeting on March 10, 2025, topics discussed included removing the COVID-19 vaccine requirement, several minor updates to various college procedures, and a long discussion about the upcoming vote to change distribution requirements, especially the arguments in favor of and against adding a language requirement.
President Audrey Bilger called the meeting to order and first brought the minutes from January 27, 2025, which were approved as usual. Bilger began by discussing the latest concerning updates from the federal government. “I’d be remiss as your president if I didn’t say, we continue to see some very scary things,” she said. She said they’d received some clarification about the aforementioned “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education regarding diversity initiatives. It appears to be less sweeping than originally thought and not so much about course content, but still “deeply troubling” and a rapidly-developing situation.
Bilger reiterated that college administration is committed to the mission of the college and will continue to foster an inclusive campus, free speech, and free exchange of ideas. Legal actions are being taken to speak up about some of these actions, she said. Additionally, the college is tracking the updates, assessing the risk, and working to ensure the community’s voices are heard. They are also simultaneously watching the economic indicators. Bilger said it’s important for Reed to persevere and avoid getting knocked off course.
Next to speak was Dean of the Faculty Kathy Oleson. Her first order of business was a vote to change the faculty code to eliminate the requirement for full COVID-19 vaccination. As discussed at the last faculty meeting, this is in response to the recent executive order threatening to cut federal funding for schools with COVID-19 vaccine mandates. As Bilger stated in the last meeting, they don’t see this as a precursor to yielding on all federal actions, but that it’s not a fight they think we need to have. Oleson said that the majority of American institutions of higher education have already eliminated COVID-19 vaccination requirements. The only institutions that still have mandates are Reed and Bryn Mawr, a decrease of 13 since last meeting.
Even with the requirement removed, COVID-19 vaccines will still be strongly encouraged and community members will still be able to get vaccines from the Health and Counseling Center. In response to a question about how Reed will support the community to be ready to fight, Bilger stated that they will do their best to keep people informed of the possible responses. They have already put in place a group to monitor risks, and they’ll get more information out soon. There were some questions about logistics regarding how faculty and staff can get COVID-19 vaccines easily and how this information will be communicated, but there was no opposition to the motion and it passed unanimously. Oleson said that she appreciated everyone working with her team on this, but hates that they have to do this.
Oleson also shared that there will be a survey coming out from the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) next week regarding an agenda for the faculty retreat. For this fall, Oleson reported that they are seeking to move new student registration to about two weeks before Orientation Week, rather than two days before classes start, as it was this year. This registration would be held via Zoom for incoming new students and equally distributed between the academic faculty. The proposal is based on feedback from the Academic Success Committee, the Retention and Persistence Group, and various other groups. The idea is that it would allow for faculty to know more information about enrollment, students to start getting accommodations earlier, the Registrar to record transfer and AP credits sooner, and students to know their schedules earlier for job purposes. Oleson said a survey would be sent out for feedback in the next few days.
Next was Ann Delehanty with the CAPP report. She shared that the Registrar is piloting a seat assignment model, which will allow for more dynamic seat assignment for classes with high enrollment. This has been piloted for psychology classes and will be tried for art. This should mean that they won’t have to kick students out after they’ve already enrolled! Another announcement is that they are piloting applying the four-week comment model to eight-week comments. This will most likely start for the fall 2025 semester. The idea is that this will help with the robustness of data. She also said they were aware of the feedback that the current setup is tedious, and they are working on conquering the technological problems. Additionally, Delehanty said CAPP is moving sabbatical certification to the spring, because they were getting information too late: staffing decisions had already been made by the time they were trying to figure out if faculty qualified to take a sabbatical.
Delehanty then brought several proposals from CAPP. First, there was a set of new courses to be approved: Econ 342: International Macroeconomics, Econ 383: International Trade, Fren 373: Alchemies of the Verb: Experiments in French Poetry, Pol 311: Quantitative Methods for Political Science, Pol 378: Mass Incarceration in the United States, and Thea 345: Advanced Playwriting. All were approved without discussion. There was a minor change to both branches of the art major: changing from a requirement for “two 100-level art courses in different disciplines” to “two art courses in different disciplines.” This requirement was too difficult because 100-level courses are too full for art majors to get into, so in practice, the department has already been flexible in approving exceptions to this requirement. The change was approved. The faculty also approved a change to the CRES-History major to bring it in alignment with the changes to the Environmental Studies-History and History majors that were approved at the last meeting; CRES-History was missed earlier due to an oversight.
Jan Mieskowski, speaking for the Committee on Advancement and Tenure (CAT), was next. As always, he asked for more letters of recommendation for faculty members; they are late but can still be turned in if they really want. Additionally, he announced that course evaluations will be moving exclusively to Moodle to make them easier to find and less associated with spam. If there is no Moodle for a course, that page will be “magically” created. Some faculty expressed concerns about whether they’d be able to see which students clicked the link from the Moodle page, which the committee said they’d work on.
Yet again, the rest of the meeting was spent discussing distribution requirements. Suzy Renn, representing the Ad Hoc Committee on Distribution Requirements, led the discussion. As discussed at the last faculty meeting, there are seven proposed models, which faculty will vote on using ranked choice voting in a ballot to be sent out soon. The ballot will open March 17 and close April 3, with results announced to faculty on April 4. Students can expect updates in the next faculty beat (April 11).
One of the proposed changes, as previously covered, is to reduce the number of required units per group to 3/2/2 or 2/2/2 (instead of 3/3/3). Arguments in favor of this change are that it would give students more choice and flexibility, while reducing the amount of box-checking. Those opposed wanted students to explore more outside their major.
Most of the discussion was about the proposed one-semester language requirement. At least fifteen professors expressed opinions on the matter, a slight majority of whom support the prospective requirement. Arguments in favor included that college language study is different from high school language study; other similar colleges have a language requirement; exposure to other cultures is important; language acquisition is a different modality of learning; monolingualism is dangerous; and language learning is fun.
Arguments against included that there are other routes to cultural engagement besides learning another language; they don’t want students to feel boxed in; this would impact class enrollments; it could negatively impact admissions, which are already in a decline; one semester isn’t enough to demonstrate proficiency; many departments have been removing language requirements over the past few years; and there’s a risk of feeling othered when learning a language in a frequently imperialist context.
There was also some discussion about whether the language requirement would be better if there was an exception for proficiency, reiterating previous conversations. This is not currently on the table, and it is too late to add an amendment, so the discussion was largely irrelevant.
This discussion continued for a very long time. Finally, as the meeting came to a close, a motion was made to vote on the distribution requirements changes via electronic ballot, as proposed. With that, the meeting was adjourned.
