Spectrum - Volume 18 Issue 29 April 25, 1996 - Faculty Senate elects officers

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Faculty Senate elects officers

By John Ashby

Spectrum Volume 18 Issue 29 - April 25, 1996

The Faculty Senate elected officers for next year, and discussed its efforts to improve the governance structure at its first meeting in April.

Paul Metz, professor and head of collection development with the University Libraries, was elected president. Jim McKenna, associate professor from the crop and soil environmental science department, was elected vice president, and Kerry Redican, associate professor in curriculum and instruction, was elected secretary/treasurer.

Charles Goodsell said the senate's white paper on improving university governance had received a great deal of attention at a series of meetings held by the workgroup that developed the position paper. Negative reaction, Goodsell said, prompted the workgroup to propose a less radical plan for improving the present structure.

"The proposal would not abolish any of the current governance structure," Goodsell said. "But we will make three recommendations [regarding governance] in an open letter to the campus community." Goodsell said the recommendations would include reducing the size, and changing the focus of the University Council; creating a position for an employee who would coordinate governance processes and serve as a communicator of governance information; and sponsoring a study of the current structure to determine if changes would be beneficial. (Editor's note: please see page 3 for details.)