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Meeting of the Faculty Senate

3 May 2005

Chair's Report - Marcia Day Childress

This report is a brief look back on this year, but I've framed it to be a look ahead and to identify some issues that will and should carry forward. My report is also, necessarily, a heartfelt thanks to everyone with whom I've worked this year on behalf of the Senate.

Sounding Board and Advisory Group

As a forum representing faculty of all the schools, the Senate is advisory to the administration on academic issues and other matters affecting the welfare of the university. We're a sounding board for the president, the provost, and the Board of Visitors, and we welcome serving in this capacity. We've worked especially closely this year - and well, too, I think - with Provost Gene Block on all manner of academic issues, from research policy review and revision (undertaken by the Research and Scholarship Committee) and degree program reviews (handled by the Academic Affairs Committee) to implementing recommendations of the Diversity and Equity Report and crafting the academic plan that will go to SCHEV this fall (representatives of our Development Committee are involved). We've offered faculty perspectives to the Board of Visitors through regular reports to the Educational Policy Committee. Policy review and academic planning are major agenda items for the new year, especially with both the SACS reaccreditation process and the renegotiation of the University's relationship with the state getting underway.

Charter and Planning

The year was dominated by the "charter" question and the many questions that followed from it. The Senate's deliberations and our statement - a statement on behalf of public higher education, access to and affordability of a U.Va. education for a socioeconomically diverse student body, faculty and staff excellence, and faculty representation in governance - made a difference, I think, in the outcome of the legislative process. Now, faculty are included in the academic planning that is a key part of restructuring U.Va.'s relationship with the state. We trust that this work will link productively, too, to faculty involvement in academic goal-setting for the capital campaign that is now on the near horizon. It's important that faculty remain engaged in these activities as they relate to the core academic mission of the university, and important, too, that the administration continue to bring us meaningfully into the deliberative and decision-making processes.

Faculty Advancement and Mentoring

Faculty development and advancement deserve our careful attention if we're serious about sustaining the excellence and enhancing the diversity of U.Va.'s faculty. This year, the Senate has partnered with the Women's Leadership Council, the Women's Center, and Gertrude Fraser's Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement to welcome new women faculty across all schools and to champion mentoring of all faculty, women and men, especially new junior appointees and minority faculty. Last winter, with these other organizations, the Senate cosponsored a dinner and discussion for women faculty new to the University. This spring there was a follow-up reception and conversation for these women as they complete their first year here. Such events for women faculty will likely continue in future years, and I hope the Senate will continue to participate, as these gatherings do help newcomers to get their bearings as faculty. These events also help those of us who have some experience here to see the place with new eyes and to identify anew what still challenges us institutionally as we strive for equity among all faculty.

Harrison Awards and Dissertations Fellowships

The maturing of two programs conceived and nurtured by the Senate - the Faculty Senate Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards and the Faculty Senate Dissertation-Year Fellowships - is requiring now that we "codify" the award competition guidelines and processes and develop management plans for these programs' operation, funding, and administration. These competitive programs are good for students, for faculty, and for the University. And they're good for the Senate. We need to assure the perpetuation of these programs and sustain their quality through careful planning and through establishing the most productive alliances possible between the Senate and key academic administrative offices.

Board of Visitors

I've considered it most valuable to speak about and on behalf of faculty at the meetings this year of the Educational Policy Committee of the Board of Visitors. My remarks about faculty partnerships, made at the early April meeting, are now on the Senate's website. Without a doubt, the present Board recognizes that it oversees an academic enterprise and that this is not in every way synonymous with running a business. The Board recognizes, too, how much faculty excellence contributes to and correlates with the excellence of the University, and this recognition underpinss many Board actions. And the Board members are interested in core academic matters and in the faculty's perspectives on them. This is good - for the University, for the faculty.

More than half of Virginia's colleges and universities, though, now have one or more faculty members sitting on their boards as non-voting representatives. In my view, U.Va. should be heading in that direction. State law now permits schools to have such faculty representatives, if they so choose. Precisely how or when this might play out at U.Va. is unclear. But perhaps our Rector and Board members might ask their counterparts at Virginia Tech or George Mason or William and Mary or VCU how it is to have a faculty member as well as a student representative join them at the boardroom table? Or perhaps our Board might take an intermediate step and formally appoint a faculty representative as a nonvoting member of Educational Policy, the committee that oversees academic matters? It has truly been my privilege to serve you this year. I am so grateful for what you Senators do for the faculty and for the University, for the support you have given to me and others in the Senate leadership, for the good work that we have all been able to do together. It's been a busy and sometimes demanding year - you've made it all worthwhile.

Let me thank President Casteen and Provost Gene Block and their staffs and the Vice Presidents and Deans with whom I've worked this year. A generous thanks, too, to the Senate officers - especially Deborah Johnson, Bob Davis, and Houston Wood - and the Executive Council, whose advice was always welcome and, without fail, very, very wise. Deep thanks to the chairs of our standing committees and to the many members of these committees for good work well done. Thank you, too, to the Senators who represented the faculty on a raft of University committees. Finally, a very heartfelt thanks to Frances Peyton, who keeps the Senate office running and keeps the Chair on track through the year; I certainly couldn't have managed this year without her.