Holding Department and Division Meetings and Voting Remotely

Dear Deans and Department Chairs,

Yesterday we successfully held the first remote Review Committee meeting (College-wide P&B) in which we held votes on reappointments, fellowship leaves, and promotion. Now that we have successfully passed this hurdle, I am writing with instructions on how to do this for your department and division P&B meetings.

1. Access to files – We set up a Dropbox folder with all the files and invited participants to give them access to the folder. All faculty have unlimited Dropbox space, so this should not be an issue. If you have not signed up for your Dropbox account, do so now. You will need the account to access the files, even if they are in someone else's Dropbox.
2. The meeting – We met via Zoom. I assume everyone knows how to do this by now. We have had some random people join Zoom meetings (I don't know how), so you should either set up a meeting password or use other features of Zoom to allow only invitees to join the meeting. I recommend trying out the options prior to your meeting.
3. The voting – Mary Ruth, with some design help from Susan Perkins, developed a Google Form voting ballot. Instructions for how to create your own are attached. You can find a sample that Mary Ruth made here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bXay_duLL74t9jLE1TIyI6QPbV7J_hc2PXXAt5z60LI/edit?usp=sharing . The creator of the form has access to the responses, which are anonymous, as described in the attached Cheat Sheet item 10.

I strongly recommend trying this out in advance and doing a test run with your P&B. Look at the various options as you create and share the voting sheet. If you have questions, let Mary Ruth or I know and we will try to help.

Best,
Tony

Tony M. Liss, PhD
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
The City College of New York
160 Convent Avenue, A305
New York, NY 10031
212-650-8261