Senators worked on finding replacements for committee members, April 11 during Faculty Senate’s weekly meeting.
Bill Stone, criminal justice professor and chair of the committee on committees, gave a report on the upcoming vacant positions on all senate committees. One of the concerns brought up was the lack of volunteers and commitment from certain schools.
“We no longer seen each other or the university as a community,” Stone said.
Another concern was the lack of process in selecting chairs for committees. Stone argued that current members of the committee should elect their own chairs while senators favored a more thoughtful process. Senator Alex White, chair of the faculty senate, said he would try to come up with a policy to address this issue.
Faculty senators will look over the recommendations and vote on approving them at the next meeting.
A task force reviewed two applications for Senate Fellow and recommended one. The senate endorsed the candidate selected.
Certain faculty concerns also came up during the meeting. One of them was instituting a staff recognition thank you program. Staff members told the senate they were feeling underappreciated. Although the senate cannot initiate this program, they will be endorsing the idea before forwarding it to staff council.
A concern regarding students not voting was brought up. Some senators agreed that it was Student Government’s task to encourage students to be citizens. A faculty member proposed the university joins The National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement to examine voting trends. This suggestion will be forwarded to President Trauth.