Week of October 30-November 3

2023

Reminder: Faculty, staff participation in elections and political activity

Virginia Tech is supportive of all faculty and staff exercising their right to vote and participate in upcoming local, state, and federal elections. While the university encourages civic engagement, all political activity should be kept separate from the workplace. A political opinion should not be shared as a Zoom background, email tag line, poster, or in other forms in the workplace.

Per the university’s Statement of Business Conduct Standards (Professional and Personal Integrity), “Employees must take care to ensure that their university-related activities are kept separate from political activities; it must be clear that they act as citizens in such activities, not as representatives of the university. Further, employees must not use university resources, including computer and network systems and university work time to promote political positions or political campaigns.”

For more information, read this campus notice or refer to the Statement of Business Conduct Standards and the Faculty Handbook Section 2.25: Political Activity. For questions, email the HR Service Center or call 540-231-9331.

Faculty Affairs: Results, highlights from COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey available online

The Office of Faculty Affairs created a webpage to share results and highlights from the 2023 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey. The webpage includes:

Access to a university-wide results dashboard
A summary of the survey results, including areas of strength and weakness
A recording of a town hall presentation of the results led by Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke, Faculty Senate President Joe Merola, and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Rachel Gabriele

Since 2007, Virginia Tech has partnered with COACHE to survey faculty on their perceptions of the university, the workplace, the community, and their jobs. The survey results allow university stakeholders to identify strengths as well as implement improvements that make Virginia Tech a more satisfying place for faculty to work.

For more information, visit Virginia Tech’s COACHE webpage. Department heads, school directors or deans who would like to explore additional college or unit-level results should email Rachel Gabriele in Faculty Affairs.

Provost’s Office: Call for nominations for Academies of Faculty Service and Faculty Leadership

The Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost welcomes nominations of faculty of all ranks (instructional, research, and administrative and professional) for the Academy of Faculty Leadership and the Academy of Faculty Service.

The Academy of Faculty Service recognizes exceptional service to the university beyond a faculty member’s usual responsibilities. The Academy of Faculty Leadership recognizes exceptional leadership within the university, either within or beyond a faculty member’s usual responsibilities.

Before starting the nomination process, please review the Tips for Nominators page that contains suggestions for submitting a complete nomination. Please note that beginning in fall 2022, separate surveys have been combined so faculty members may be nominated for either or both awards with a single submission.

Submissions are due Monday, November 27.

For more information including guidelines for the nomination process, eligibility criteria, and the submission form, read this campus notice or visit the Academies of Faculty Service and Faculty Leadership webpage.

Division of IT: All users must empty Google Photos prior to January 16, 2024

Virginia Tech is facing many changes to cloud storage services over the next year. One important change is that the Google Photos app will be removed from Virginia Tech Google accounts on January 16, 2024. Because Virginia Tech does not have administrative control over the content placed in the Photos app for university Google accounts, once the Photos app is removed, the university will not be able to retrieve any files left in your account.

Before January 16, 2024, all faculty and staff need to do the following:

Disable any automatic photo uploads or syncing from your phone or other devices to your Virginia Tech Google Photos app. If you don’t have that feature enabled, you can skip this step.
Export and move any files that you wish to keep from the Photos app on your Virginia Tech Google account to an alternative storage location.
Once you have exported the needed files, delete all contents from the Photos app until you have zero data remaining within the app.

To help faculty and staff export their files from Google Photos, the Division of IT has created the following resources:

For more information, read this campus notice or visit the license changes website for information specific to employees along with a timeline for service changes, FAQs, and support resources. If you have further questions or need help with Google Workspace or another Virginia Tech IT service, contact 4Help.

ICYMI: Pay increase effective December 10

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved a two percent pay increase with an effective date of December 10, consistent with the outcome of the Special Session of the General Assembly. Employees receiving the increase will see it reflected on their December 29 pay statement.

The increase will be applied for eligible, full-time Virginia Tech employees, including administrative and professional faculty, teaching and research faculty, and university and classified staff, meeting the following criteria:

Faculty and staff must have been hired by Virginia Tech on or before July 10, 2023. State agency transfers after July 10, 2023, are not eligible.
Faculty and staff employees must have no documented performance issues within the preceding period from December 10, 2022–December 10, 2023.
- Staff must not have been issued a formal written notice for the period noted above and must have received a performance rating of “meets” or “exceptional” on their most recent performance review.
- Faculty must not have been issued a formal sanction, and/or must not have received less than a two percent raise during in the spring 2023 merit cycle due to poor performance.
Employees who are on short-term disability or other paid leave will receive the increase on December 10.

Additionally, with the board approval, all graduate assistantships in the payroll system will receive a two percent increase effective December 10, and the minimum monthly stipend for graduate assistantships has been increased to $2,468.

For more information, read this campus notice or contact your supervisor or college/department HR representative.

Additional Resources and Updates

Please submit a Google form or email Provost Communications for comments or recommendations to improve the Weekly Communications Update or to share faculty, staff, and academic program personnel information.

Visit the provost’s website frequently for new and updated university information. All members of the campus community should also read their VT News daily email for further important updates, notices, and resources.