Professor Hestiyas took the reins of a difficult issue that affected all faculty who use Canvas to teach or support their classes. While negotiators worked to strengthen the collective bargaining agreement to restrict unscheduled visits to faculty classes, Professor Hestiyas realized that the language would not necessarily prevent unannounced access because an administrator's entry wasn't visible to the faculty member. In her role as chair of the Web College Committee of the Faculty Senate, she worked with other concerned faculty members to craft a proposal that tightened permissions and required visitors to be granted access to the class by either the faculty member or web college, which created a record of the visit. Her action has solved a concern expressed for years by nearly all faculty who use these online tools. She spent much the 2022-23 academic year working on behalf of her colleagues to protect academic freedom and enforce shared governance.
