Cynthia Benally, Ed.D., and Connor Warner, Ph.D. presented on a new interdisciplinary graduate certificate: Working with Native Communities.

The College of Education’s Department of Education, Culture, and Society (ECS) proposes to establish a new graduate certificate, Working with Native Communities. This interdisciplinary program will support students pursuing professional work and research in a variety of fields in which they will work directly or indirectly with Native communities. The interdisciplinary graduate certificate comprises of 15 credit hours from the College of Education, School of Social Transformation, and other colleges and departments throughout the University. The proposed certificate compliments the University of Utah’s Land Acknowledgement that states that “the University of Utah is committed to serving Native communities throughout Utah in partnership with Native Nations and our Urban Indian communities through research, education and community outreach activities.”

Robin Marcus and Leslie Francis gave the final report on the Presidential Search Task Force.

At the Oct. 4, 2021, Academic Senate meeting, senators voted that the senate leadership should empanel a task force to investigate the presidential selection process in USHE and for similar organizations and make recommendations for future searches. This presentation discussed the methods, findings and task force recommendations for future searches for R-1 universities in the state of Utah. We emphasize that these recommendations are for R-1 universities in Utah; different considerations may be relevant to other institutions in the state. We also emphasize that these recommendations are forward-looking and should not be taken as comments on any particular prior searches or their outcomes.

Emily Ostrander, director of the Conflict of Interest Office/COI officer, and Hailey Ritchie, from the Office of General Counsel, proposed revisions to the Individual Financial Conflict of Interest Policy 1-006 (and associated regulations).

The University of Utah Conflict of Interest Office proposes revisions to the following regulations:

• [Interim] Policy 1-006: Individual Financial Conflict of Interest Policy (“Policy 1-006”)
• [Interim] Rule 1-006C: Individual Financial Conflict of Interest in Research (“Rule 1-006C”)
• New Procedure 1-006B: Conflict of Interest Office Procedures Related to Requirements for Federally Funded Research (“Procedure 1-006B”)
• Guideline 1-006A: Determining “Relatedness” to Research (“Guideline 1-006A”)

The current policy version was approved in February 2021 on an interim basis and must be ratified now. Additional policy changes are also proposed to ensure compliance with new federal regulations. In December 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy released an updated conflict of interest policy. In January 2022, the Biden administration put forth a call for federal agencies to standardize their grant applications (which may result in other federal sponsors releasing updated COI policies, as well).