Minutes - December 12
Faculty Governance Restructuring Committee
December 12, 2007
Present: D. Hayes, D. Johnson, B. Jones, J. Neitzke, J. Pauls, V. Pultz
Absent: J. Bulen, W. Miner
Jones moved and Neitzke seconded to approve the minutes of the December 4 meeting.
The group requested that the chair send a memo to department chairs to remind faculty to visit the blog/website for the committee. A number of features will be added to the site, including discussion resources, approved minutes, and ultimately some possible models. Karen McClaskey has completed her research of peer institutions. Those data are available in the “U” Drive (hydrogen). The chair will email specific information about accessing that information to the members.
Schedule comparison for next semester indicates that our best meeting time is 4:30 p.m. on Mondays. We will begin our work on Monday, January 28.
The group discussed accountability. There is some concern that if members of governance bodies are elected independent of departments, there will be no regular reporting back or gathering of opinion. At the moment, the only time faculty regularly meet is during department meetings. Not all faculty attend those meetings, but probably more than would read an email. If regular feedback is desirable, keeping accountability close to the departmental structure may be desirable.
We also discussed representativeness and its particular importance in curricular matters. Small departments must have a voice. In the divisional structure, that was sometimes difficult. We discussed the possibility of allocating representation based on a formula that would include numbers of faculty but might also include number of student credit hours generated and/or number of majors. People who are allocated to more than one department also present some challenges. The interdisciplinary contingent might grow over time and we need to design a system that is flexible enough to accommodate that.
Electing faculty at large has some disadvantages and some advantages. The accountability link is weaker (no departmental structure to report back to). In order to vote intelligently for faculty at large, one must know the person and must be able to easily communicate with him/her after election. “Siloing” in departments might weaken knowledge of faculty across campus. We are concerned that small departments might lose out in the faculty at large option. This is a particular concern in curricular matters, so possibly we could design a departmental structure for a UGC-type body, but use another design elsewhere. We looked at the numbers of faculty in departments; we could look for “natural breaks” in numbers. If we allocated one representative to departments of 24 faculty or less, and then additional faculty to departments larger than 24, we could end up with a group of about 30, a workable size.
We agreed to meet on January 28 for further discussion.