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Report on Faculty Senate Activities

Presented to: Educational Policy Committee of the Board of Visitors

By: Houston Wood, Chair, Faculty Senate

April 7, 2006

The Faculty Senate is an elected body of 80 faculty members representing all the schools in the University. Recent discussions among faculty have focused on initiatives related to improving academic programs and issues of hiring and retaining top faculty to maintain and to improve academic programs. At the Senate retreat in January, discussions were centered on how the faculty might better work on these issues.

As currently structured, the Senate has several standing committees. These are:

  1. Executive Council - The members are elected by the Senate and the Council sets the agenda for the whole Senate.
  2. Academic Advisory Committee - The members are appointed, and this committee is required to approve addition of new academic programs or removal of existing programs. This committee also oversees the Dissertation Year Fellowships.
  3. Research and Scholarship Committee - This committee deals with a wide range of issues such as intellectual property policies and advising the Provost on emerging policies. This committee also works with the Center for Undergraduate Excellence in choosing Harrison Undergraduate Research winners.
  4. Planning and Development Committee - The members are appointed, and this committee works with the Provost and the Vice President for Development to bring academic matters and development together.
  5. ROTC Affairs Committee - The members are appointed, and this committee oversees the academic integrity of all of the ROTC programs.
  6. Grievance Committee - The members are appointed, and this committee provides an avenue for faculty to bring grievances to the administration.

Committees 2 - 6 can have non-Senators as members, but the majority of members must be elected Senators. The result is many elected Senators are not on committees. My view has been the Senate would be more engaged and more representative if a larger fraction of Senators are actively working on issues meaningful to the faculty.

As a result of the retreat, five interest groups were formed and Senators selected to join the group or groups that appealed to them. The interest groups are meeting and will report to a meeting of Elected Senators on April 13. I anticipate these activities will lead to new directions and new committees for the Senate in the next academic year. The interest groups are:

  1. Restructuring - This group will recommend how the structure of the Senate should be changed to address the next decade.
  2. Tuition Benefits - This group is doing research on how other universities provide tuition support for children of faculty and staff. The feeling is this could help UVA in hiring and retention of faculty, staff and administrators.
  3. Teaching and Research Initiatives - This group is addressing what new initiatives the faculty should pursue in order to develop and to maintain excellence across the university.
  4. Faculty Representation on the BOV - This committee's goal is to promote the idea of a member of the faculty on the BOV. Many other universities in our Commonwealth already have this kind of representation, and faculty feel strongly having at least one non-voting member on the BOV would provide better representation of academic matters.
  5. Undergraduate housing and building a stronger sense of community - this group is looking at peer institutions that have a more successful model of student residential life by housing a higher percentage of their students and programming academic activities more deliberately.

This report is a brief synopsis of what the Senate is doing and is intended to serve as a communication to the BOV about faculty views. The Faculty Senate looks forward to working with the BOV to promote academic programs that will be recognized as models of excellence and innovation. We also look forward to working with you to find ways to increase the number of outstanding faculty who will help the University be recognized as one of the premier academic institutions in the country and the world.

Thank you for your time.