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Chair's Report

2005-2006

Houston Wood -- April 28, 2006

Mr. President, Mr. Provost, Fellow Senators and distinguished guests, I want to thank all of you for your attendance and support of the Faculty Senate. This marks the end of my ninth year on the Senate, and I will serve one more year as Past-Chair. It has been a good ride, and I have enjoyed it.

This year began with some sad and disturbing racial incidents with a number of our students suffering abusive comments. As a member of our academic community, I was very hurt by the fact such things could continue to take place here. However, I know my hurt could not compare to that of those who were the targets of the abuse. I asked several Senators to draft a response on behalf of the Senate, and with help of the Executive Council, we prepared a statement, which is on our website. Through conversations with our administrators, who were in direct contact with these abused students and their families, I am convinced the timely action of the Senate helped soothe the wounds and reassure our students they are indeed welcome in our community.

In October, Mr. Block presented the idea of Semester at Sea to the Executive Council. He did not have a lot of confidence the University would win a contract for this adventure, and the Executive Council did not see this as a "new" program requiring Senate approval. Then, in December, Mr. Block announced we had the contract, and everyone had to scramble to see how this would fit into the University. If I could go back to October and replay this event, I would have suggested planning and conversations with faculty, especially CAS faculty, begin immediately in order to prepare for the possibility of winning the contract. I can say my decision on this matter was partly due to my being new on the job, but I hope my experience can help my successors be more active in response to any academic matter. I do have confidence the Semester at Sea will eventually be a much better academic experience than before UVA took over, but only time will tell whether this is a good fit for us or not.

I did hear from many Senators they want to have discussions at our meetings rather than only receive information, and every time I asked a Senator to take on a task, I got a positive response. These two things made me realize how much untapped energy was lying fallow, and I decided the Senate should have a conversation about how to be pro-active and engage more Senators in our mission. This led to the retreat in January with two facilitators, John Pickering and Tyler St. Clair of the Weldon Cooper Center. At the end of the retreat, I received comments from many of you about how good the exchange had been. As you all know, we self-selected into five interest groups, and each of those groups has prepared a report about activities in which the Senate should engage in the future.

I believe the retreat and subsequent activity has prepared the foundation for the future of the Senate over the next decade. I am confident our next Chair, Mr. Schwartz, is ready, willing and able to lead us into the new framework.

Earlier this month, we had the first meeting in my memory of only Elected Senators. We discussed the reports of the interest groups and how to go forward with the proposals. From this meeting, I am confident one of the changes in future years will be to have meetings of only Elected Senators each semester so all the energy can focus on Senate initiatives.

At yesterday's meeting of the Executive Council, the decision was made to create three new standing committees from the interest groups. The new committees are:

  • Faculty Recruitment, Retention and Welfare Committee
  • Policy Committee
  • Communications Committee

Mr. Schwartz will appoint chairs of these new committees and draft charges for them. Other interest groups not represented by these new committees are encouraged to continue their work to further their goals and objectives.

On April 7, I reported on Senate activities to the Education Policy Committee of the Board of Visitors. I explained our retreat and summarized the five interest groups, including the desire of the faculty to have representation on the Board. Prior to the meeting, Mr. Schwartz had a telephone conference with BOV member Glynn Key in which he discussed the BOV interest group's report. On April 13, I met with the Rector, Mr. Farrell, and discussed our desire to have faculty representation on the BOV. I gave him a copy of our report, which contains the report Mr. Smith delivered to the BOV when he left the position of Senate Chair. I told the Rector the Senate had never had a response to Mr. Smith's petition. The Rector assured me he would provide our report to other BOV members and this time we would receive a response. The BOV view is the faculty view is represented by the President and the Provost, and my response is both of these positions straddle the line between academic and administrative interests. My view is the faculty wants a representative firmly on the academic side of the line, and we want to have the process institutionalized so we are prepared to deal with changes in administrative leadership. Mr. Schwartz and I will continue to meet with the Rector and others to promote our cause.

I am not one who likes to talk too long, so I will conclude my report on activities. However, I want to recognize the strong support of many individuals this year. I relied heavily on our Past Chair, Marcia Childress, and our Chair Elect, Ken Schwartz. I frequently ran things by them to help me think through issues, and I always received prompt thoughtful responses. I want to thank Ms. Culver, who served in the office of Secretary. When we began to organize our interest groups in February, I was overwhelmed with other responsibilities, and Teresa stepped up and organized all the groups. This is just one example of her hard work, and I thank Teresa for all she did. I had the good fortune of having chosen excellent chairs of the standing committees. For those who have not chaired one of these committees, let me tell you, they do a lot of work. This year's chairs, Mr. Garrett, Dr. Kirk, Mr. Kehoe, Ms. Robinson and Ms. Childress were diligent in their duties, and I thank each of them for their dedication and leadership. We have a special ad hoc Telescope Committee, chaired by Janet Herman, and many other Senators serving on various University committees. All of these Senators have put in many hours doing this work, and I am very grateful to each and every one of them for their service.

I am still Chair until June 1 when Mr. Schwartz takes over the job, but this is our last scheduled meeting of the full Senate before then. There will still be more meetings of committees, but I want to thank all of you now for all of your work this year. Last but not least, I want to thank the person without whom the Senate could not function - Frances Peyton. She is our corporate memory, our book of knowledge and our tireless worker who takes care of more details than most of you will ever know. I want to give her this small gift as a token of appreciation from all of us.

I appreciate having the honor of serving as Chair of the Faculty Senate. I am sure many of you feel you would have done things differently on some issues, but I can truly say I always listened to your comments, pondered the choices and acted in a way I felt represented a majority position. I did the job to the best of my ability. Thank you for support and cooperation over the year. I am pleased to have such an able successor, and I am confident you will support Mr. Schwartz when he takes over the position.