Faculty Beat Sets Goals for the Year
By Bella Lee
The September 8 faculty meeting consisted of reports on various committee goals for the year, updates to the SOLAR interface, increased automated communication with students about credits and other graduation requirements, the announcement of the approval of three new academic courses, an executive session that left the budget discussion shrouded in mystery, and a complete lack of responses to reports given.
The honor of calling the first faculty meeting of the 2025-26 academic year into session naturally went to Reed College President Audrey Bilger, whose opening comment that it “feels like it’s been longer than a week” was a big hit with attending students and faculty alike. She went on to compliment this year’s President's Student Showcase, held on the past Friday, September 5. Bilger expressed approbation for all participating parties’ enthusiasm, which—we can hope—was not lost on the attending members of the Board of Trustees, including the chair. Bilger noted that the showcase was executed this year at a larger scope than was typical previously.
President Bilger thanked all of the faculty for the work done during the May faculty retreat, and, perhaps as a gesture of her appreciation, promised to honor the request for shorter reports during the meeting. The reporting faculty attempted to abridge their information as well as simply speak fast to follow through on the request. Thus, for full immersion in the goings-on of this Faculty Beat, it is recommended that you read the following account with a slight increase in words per minute.
The President went on to remind the faculty of last year’s overall goals for the college as a collective—student retention and graduation rates—and established the institutional focus for this year as enrollment. She will be traveling around the country with the Admissions Office throughout the year in order to meet with college counselors and high school cohorts for the purpose of recruitment, but she reminded her audience that it is the faculty who inspire students to come to Reed, so every level of outreach they are involved in is highly important. A “splashy” fundraising campaign is in the works, and the Office for Institutional Diversity will be facilitating conversation spaces centered around the topic of “imagining dialogue” to continue to pursue the ideals of Reed that accommodate students from all over the world.
After passing three sets of minutes dating back to early April as well as a question period without any comments, Dean of the Faculty Kathryn C. Oleson began her report. The seven-year accreditation report has been successfully submitted, and creditors will be on campus in October. Oleson thanked the faculty for their hard work facilitating pre-arrival class registration, as it was very helpful to students and worked better as a system for registration overall.
The Dean then handed over the presentation to Registrar Jason Maher, who introduced some new features added to SOLAR. He walked the audience through how to properly navigate the platform’s new formatting before explaining the launch of degree progress notifications, which will inform students at the end of each academic term of how many credits they should have to be on track to graduate on time. Detailed graduation requirements are also now being sent to seniors. He gently informed faculty of the unusually high number of outstanding grades last spring and strongly encouraged them to start planning immediately in order to submit final grades on time.
A report from the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) Committee, presented primarily by chair Jay Dickson, consisted mainly of a reminder that applications to teach a course in the program are open to almost anyone, and a great place to pilot a class with a group of “fantastic” students.
A representative from the Digital Accessibility Committee assured the audience that, while they continue to work towards meeting the May change in federal regulations regarding accessibility, faculty are not expected to adhere to new standards immediately, and should instead focus on phasing out technology that does not meet the requirements.
Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) director Jon Rork followed with his report, which included the contentious information that actions will be taken to start having conversations about how to teach with AI as an educational tool, and faculty should join in on those opportunities. There will allegedly be egg bites as a reward for participation.
The Dean concluded her report with a reminder that on Friday, September 26, there will be a Reed Union discussing the Honor Principle, and no questions followed the close.
The Committee for Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) reintroduced themselves as those responsible for “overseeing the academic program with a wide lens” and encouraged faculty to interact with them by attending their meetings. They will be improving the committees in charge of AI-related policies per request and will spend the semester focusing on improving the Junior Qual, interdisciplinary study, and managing faculty workload. CAPP announced the approval of three new academic courses now being integrated into the curriculum: Introduction to Environmental Humanities, Discourse Analysis, and Historical Linguistics.
CAPP was followed up by the Committee on Advancement and Tenure (CAT) with a quick plea for faculty to submit their letters of peer evaluation and an announcement of their goal to review some language in the faculty handbook regarding the effectiveness of teaching and service over the course of the year.
The concluding item on the agenda, a discussion on the budget, was moved into executive session, unopposed, by President Bilger. The report was conducted behind closed doors and lasted roughly 45 minutes until the presumed adjournment of the meeting as unconcerned parties were not permitted back into the auditorium.