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Proposal for a Faculty Senate By Laws Amendment

Our Planning and Development Committee, one of the Senate's standing committees, has worked over the past year or more to help shape the academic focus of the $3 billion capital campaign and to help assure faculty input into academic planning for the University. This group has worked closely with Gene Block and Bob Sweeney and will continue to engage in valuable dialogue with the administration. The committee is also the main way that the Executive Council and the Senate as a whole can learn about academic planning and fund-raising activities on an ongoing basis.

It has become clear to me over the past year that we would benefit from the ex officio participation of the Planning and Development Chair on the Executive Council. This would support a continuous dialogue, just as we currently have the Chair of Academic Affairs and Research and Scholarship sitting on the Council.

I am proposing that we place a by-law amendment on the agenda for our April 28 Faculty Senate meeting to take up this question. Please note the following proposed change:

This is what we would be amending:

  1. b. There shall be an Executive Council of the Faculty Senate.

(1) The Executive Council shall consist of the President of the University, ex officio, the Chair of the Faculty Senate, ex officio, the Chair-Elect of the Senate, ex officio, the Secretary of the Senate, ex officio, the immediate past chair of the Senate, ex officio, the chair of the Committee on Academic Affairs, ex officio, the chair of the Committee on Research, ex officio, and seven Š other elected members of the Faculty Senate, serving for staggered terms of three years.

The new language, if adopted, would read:

  1. b. the Faculty Senate. (1) The Executive Council shall consist of the President of the University, ex officio, the Chair of the Faculty Senate, ex officio, the Chair-Elect of the Senate, ex officio, the Secretary of the Senate, ex officio, the immediate past chair of the Senate, ex officio, the chair of the Committee on Academic Affairs, ex officio, the chair of the Committee on Research, ex officio, the chair of the Committee on Planning and Development, ex officio, and seven other elected members of the Faculty Senate, serving for staggered terms of three years.

In other words, we would not change the composition of the Council in any other way - we would simply add this committee chair in an ex officio capacity.

April 28, 2006