After news broke that the board of trustees declined to include changes proposed by faculty senate in regulation revisions set for decision at its May meeting, the senate met today to handle business as usual for now and introduce three new resolutions.
In his Chair’s Report, Faculty Senate Chair, Michael Barker, touched on the announcement regarding the regulations, released by General Counsel Tara Evans Friday evening. The regulations in question are uni-reg 1-101, which sets the standards for how regulations are defined and regulations 6-42, 43 and 44, which focus on definitions, procedures and authorities pertaining to various levels of budget reductions and the terms under which programs (and associated faculty) may be eliminated.
As part of a comprehensive overhaul of UW’s regulations, which began months ago in the fall semester, Barker is working with faculty senate, its Executive Committee and the Board of Trustees, as well as administration, to draft versions of the regulations that are agreeable to all.
“The Board of Trustees chose not to incorporate almost all of the serious-issue recommendations that the faculty senate made,” Barker said. “I will admit, I was very discouraged—I was even ticked off.”
Barker also said he found the board’s decision to exclude Faculty Senate-proposed changes “unacceptable,” and that he and President Laurie Nichols met earlier to discuss next steps.
“There is a plan in place,” Barker said. “President Nichols recommended that I meet with the Board of Trustees Regulation Committee again and have more of a heart-to-heart meeting about shared governance, about our recommendations and how we can move forward at this point.”
Barker said his objectives for that meeting are the removal of these regulations from the board’s May meeting agenda, a plan for more effective shared governance and to pull the regulations back into the cycle of deliberation and revision.
“When executive session comes up, we are going to have quite a robust discussion on this,” Barker said. “I’m not sure there’s a lot more to say about that, other than in general discussion in the exec session.”
Following the meeting, that session was opened to the general senate as more of a listening session as opposed to the regular closed discussions of the executive committee.
The senate then put a pin in that endeavor and turned to regular business, with Barker encouraging all present to take it in stride and take time to give it thought for the future—given that the news was released during the final and busiest stretch of the semester.
Several prestigious awards for faculty senators were announced, chosen by the Recognition and Development Committee of Faculty Senate. Those faculty senators are Farhad Jafari, Ryan Kobbe, Amy Spiker, Eric Teman, Larry Weatherford and Scott Walker.
President Laurie Nichols, followed by President and CEO of the UW Foundation, Ben Blalock, who is also vice president for institutional advancement, took the podium for a presentation. The presentation focused on grants, budgets and tuition, the release of funds to continue the Science Initiative Building, increased tuition revenue and the tentative plan to distribute it (including staff and faculty raises based on market averages and personal merit) and upcoming hearings to settle on the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2019 budget.
Blalock focused on plans to bring in private funds for UW with the support of Nichols, whom he praised for working particularly hard on reviewing more than 500 endowment plans to distribute various funds.
Molly Marcusse, chair of the academic planning committee and faculty archivist at the American Heritage Center, gave an annual report informing the senate of the committee’s work putting together proposals for changes to, and the creation of, a number of programs and certificates.
David Bagly was nominated and gave a stump speech for an open member-at-large position, which represents the senate as a whole and is part of executive sessions.
The meeting adjourned and moved to the special executive session, after three brief introductions of resolutions that expressed support for proposed revisions from General Counsel Tara Evans. These are Senate Resolutions 342, 343 and 344, which pertain to a range of academic requirements, programs and policies—with eliminations centered on clearing away old or redundant policies.
“These are the regulations that we actually have regulatory authority on, so it is important that we get these right,” Barker said.
