The idea of shared governance is critical to our well being but one aspect of it has to do with who is actually doing the sharing. The many faculty committees that have been formed to make important university wide decisions have much influence (more than a simple faculty comment or vote on an issue) but, how were the membership of these committees chosen? Was it “the best fit”, “faculty senate”, etc. I believe a significant number of our faculty are being left out of this part of the process because of internal politics or old fashioned thinking that you have to pay some dues first. That’s shared governance based on a hierarchical model and may not be the best one for our future.
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December 8, 2009 at 12:08 am
I believe Scott raises a good point. We have to find a way to draw upon the rich resources of our entire faculty for important university committees. Unfortunately, the well-worn truth of departmental functioning replicates itself at the level of university service, that is “the only reward for good work is more work.” Faculty Senate tends to nominate those with a proven track record of strong participation and, perhaps more significantly, demonstrated willingness to be involved. By putting himself forward, Scott might have just doomed himself to a future nomination
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In the past, I might have quibbled with Scott’s assertion that Faculty Senate was a road to nomination for important university committee work. However, our new Provost has shown an unprecedented commitment to work with Faculty Senate to appoint committees on which faculty have strong representation and representatives nominated by faculty leaders, i.e. not committees stacked to give the Provost’s office a desired, pre-ordained result.
Finally, I would contest the assertion that this is done according to a hierarchical model. It’s far better to have committees formed with strong participation from democratically elected leaders, than by administrators who owe their positions exclusively to the Trustees and the President.