One of the most prominent issues universities are dealing with today is public safety. The University of North Carolina system historically has taken the issue seriously, and its latest initiative was headed by Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. and his North Carolina State University colleague, Chancellor Randy Woodson.

Beginning last fall, Martin and Woodson led a group of administrators, police officials, faculty and students in examining how the 17 campuses deal with sexual assault and other violent crimes, campus security, and crime reporting. Their report was released last summer.

The two chancellors spoke about their work on UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Now” program. The interview is available online; it gives Martin and Woodson an extended opportunity to talk about the report and its recommendations.

The UNC General Administration summarized the report’s major recommendations as:

Adopting a University-wide policy and informed practices to help prevent sexual violence and guarantee professional, compassionate responses when incidents of sexual assault do occur. Offering system-level guidance on legal compliance and training.

Setting standards for disciplinary proceedings on every campus that are clear, prompt, and fair. In cases involving sexual assault and other violent offenses, ensuring student well-being by staffing disciplinary panels with trained and experienced personnel, rather than students.

Combatting a culture of alcohol abuse that inflicts lasting harm on students, undermines the educational mission of the University, and threatens the safety of campus communities. This is crucial in preventing safety threats and working to end interpersonal violence on campus.

Acknowledging the increased expectations—and accompanying legal mandates—that campuses face with respect to student safety, and identifying the considerable resources needed to meet them.

Martin has moved quickly to begin implementing the recommendations. A&T recently hired its first Clery Act coordinator, an official in the University Police Department responsible for reporting the university’s crime statistics in compliance with federal law requiring universities to accurately record crime statistics and make them available to the public. 

A&T’s annual Security and Fire Safety Report was issued Oct. 1, as required by the Clery Act. It is available online.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded North Carolina A&T State University an ADVANCE institutional transformation grant for more than $600,000 to better understand gender, leadership and scholarship equity.

Principal investigator Dr. Joe B. Whitehead, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, and co-principal investigators—Dr. Goldie Byrd, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Robin Coger, dean of the College of Engineering, Dr. Zakiya Wilson, associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Stephanie Luster-Teasley, associate professor in the College of Engineering—proposed, “NCA&T ADVANCE Institutional Transformation: Catalyzing Gender, Leadership and Scholarship Equity through Institutional Change for All,” to research how gender barriers intersect with racial/ethnicity barriers.

According to the abstract on NSF’s website, the investigators will study the factors that lead to “The Double Bind,” a phrase coined by Dr. Shirley Malcom to describe the predicament of the lack of STEM women of color. They will develop strategies to address the double bind for women at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that can also be applied to lower barriers for STEM women of color at historically majority institutions.

The goal of the NSF ADVANCE program is to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers, thereby contributing to the development of a more diverse science and engineering workforce.

The grant’s estimated expiration date is July 31, 2019.

In an effort to make it easier for faculty members to attend Faculty Senate meetings, the organization’s chairman, Dr. Tony Graham, associate professor in the Department of Construction and Management Safety, and Information Technology Services have partnered to bring the meetings to their desktops.

“We started live streaming our meetings in October and all meetings moving forward will be live streamed,” Graham said. “They can even ask questions right there from the stream.”

Graham was elected chair of the Faculty Senate in August. Prior to his election, he had been attending meetings since 2008. Since then, he’s noticed a pattern.

“We have the same faculty coming but we don’t have any engagement from the greater group,” he said. “Either they’re saying ‘we don’t need to go,’ why go’ or ‘it’s just for senators.’”

Senators and alternates are elected or appointed from each school or college and expected to attend all senate meetings. The senators are to bring along the concerns of their colleagues and communicate information from the meetings to their colleagues in their respective schools and colleges. That hasn’t been happening the way it should, Graham said.

“We’ve had trouble meeting the quorum and that concerns me. They are the point people for their schools and colleges, and it’s the same people who are doing all of the work,” Graham said. “That’s not fair.”

While senators and alternates who were elected or appointed from all schools and colleges are expected to attend the monthly meetings, they are open to all faculty members. In fact, Graham encourages all faculty members to attend or join the live stream for the same reasons he got involved six years ago.

“The senate represents me so I have to be involved because I need to know what affects me,” he said. “To me, it just makes sense.”

All senate business is handled in various committees that meet monthly. Faculty members do not have to be an elected or appointed senator or alternate to be a part of a committee.

“We have to fill the committees and we're having to have senators do double and triple time. We have some diligent faculty members who have been doing this for years and they are burnt out,” Graham said.

Graham and members of the executive council have started having monthly meetings with the provost and the chancellor. Now that he has the university’s top administrators engaged, there’s only one missing piece: “We need our faculty engaged and taking information back to their schools and colleges.”

The faculty senate meets at 3 p.m., on the fourth Tuesday each month except December, May, June and July. Live streams and playback of the meetings can be found here. The next meetings are scheduled for Nov. 25 and Jan. 26.

Information Technology Services (ITS) has announced the university will migrate away from Lotus Notes to a hosted Microsoft Outlook 365 email system next spring.

This alternative was chosen by ITS and an advisory committee of faculty and staff and approved by the Technology Services Advisory Committee.

Outlook 365 was selected for the strength of its security, its digital leakage protection feature and the additional “free” tools that come with the package, such as unlimited file and email storage, MS Lync communication software and MS Office software. Individual users will be able to use MS Outlook or the Outlook 365 Web Client to access email.

Beta testing will begin Monday, Dec. 1. ITS anticipates the email system cutover will occur during the spring semester. It may take up to six months to convert the existing Lotus Notes email archives into the new email platform.

Be on the lookout for more information via email and the web soon.

Jo Ann Jenkins, chief executive officer of AARP, will be the speaker for the December commencement at North Carolina A&T State University.

N.C. A&T’s fall graduation ceremony is set for 8:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Greensboro Coliseum. More than 800 students will receive their bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees. There will be a live stream of the ceremony on the university’s website.

Jenkins is the first African American woman to lead AARP. Before becoming CEO, she served as AARP’s chief operating officer, leading the organization’s work in support of Americans age 50-plus and their families. Jenkins joined AARP in 2010 as president of AARP Foundation, AARP’s affiliated charity. Among the initiatives she led was the Drive to End Hunger, a national effort to help the millions of older Americans who struggle with hunger.

Jenkins came to AARP Foundation from the Library of Congress, where she served as chief operating officer responsible for managing the library’s day-to-day operations, its 4,000-person staff and budget of more than $1 billion. During her 15-year tenure, she developed and directed the National Book Festival.

Previously, she worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Jenkins is a Malcolm Baldrige fellow (2013), a recipient of the 2013 Black Women’s Agenda Economic Development Award for spearheading investments undergirding innovative social impact programs and one of the NonProfit Times’ Power and Influence Top 50 for 2013 and 2014.

A native of Mobile, Ala., she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Spring Hill College. She is a 1998 graduate of the Stanford Executive Program and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters by Washington College in May 2014.