Ingrid Allstrom
EDITOR IN CHIEF
The University Policy and Planning Council voiced differing views on the Faculty Senate's restructuring plan in its meeting Monday, with some members commending the efforts of Faculty Senate President Robert Palmer and others voicing concerns about both the plan itself and the procedure by which it was drawn.
The plan would cut down the number of faculty positions in the Senate and the councils by half. The plan also consolidates the councils and the Senate, which are separate bodies. The faculty governance system would be overhauled so that the many governing bodies would be centralized under the Faculty Senate.
Currently there are about 140 positions for faculty in the councils and Senate, and under the new plan there would be only about 70.
"It's a real drain," said Palmer. "We shouldn't be doing this to people."
The councils, unlike the Senate, are not made up entirely of faculty members and are appointed by the provosts office. The other councils are the Undergraduate Council, the Research Council and the Graduate and Professional Studies Council.
The chairwoman of the UPPC, Paula Rechner, identified five major areas of concern with the plan for the council. These issues included whether the representative body should be faculty-based or university-based, with representation for students, staff and faculty. The plan is more faculty-based than the current structure.
Also of concern, Rechner said, is the size of the body and whether a smaller representative body would be more effective. The most important issue, the council seemed to think, was whether the councils would be as independent as they have been. The purpose behind the proposal is, Palmer said, to create a more unified, and thus more effective faculty voice.
Cynthia Freeland, chairwoman of the GPSC said that while the plan "would facilitate good interaction between the councils," she "doesn't want everything funneled through the Faculty Senate."
Shirley Ezell, a professor of technology and councilmember said that though the councils do need to interact more with each other, "that can be done in other ways" without a drastic restructuring.
The councils now report directly to a relevant administrator and they exist separate from and on par with the Faculty Senate.
Ezell also asked "why the process was not done more collaboratively," and expressed concern about the beginning of the process of determining the new structure.
Palmer first drafted the document and worked on it within the Faculty Senate's executive committee. The draft was then presented to the Senate for comment. There is a Website open for comment at http://www.uh.edu/campus/rep/fsenate, but so far there have been few comments about the document.
"The proposal document is long and complex," former Faculty Senate President Angi Patton told The Daily Cougar Thursday. "My sense is that most faculty haven't yet had time to sit down with it. The faculty is not resistant to change." Patton, as former president, sits on the executive committee.
Marco Marriotto, chair of the psychology department and member of the Faculty Senate executive committee said that he knew from personal experience that faculty often get over extended and do not have time for all the demands of serving on councils and committees.
"The current structure (of faculty governance) grew to meet needs. There are some fundamental questions about the role," he said. He also pointed out that often the way governance is broken up is "in budgetary units, not disciplinary."
The proposed restructuring plan addresses that by providing for some representation by colleges and some by discipline.
"I'm a proponent of this plan, but there are some problems," he said.
Allen Warner, dean of the college of education, saw the main issue of the restructuring plan one of representation.
"It strikes me that ... the councils are the one who seem to have gotten the work done," he said. What the issue is, he said, is "the notion of representation. Equal representation and proportional representation. I'm not sure that I see either. Thirteen colleges offer graduate work, but there are (in the proposed plan) only nine seats on the Graduate Council."
Nothing guarantees large graduate schools like education or social work a seat, he said.
"How do we view the issue of representation? Equal, proportional or neither."
Marriotto saw the independence of the councils as the main issue.
"Do you have many voices as one or a multitude of voices being easily ignored?"
Rechner said that her biggest complaint with the new model is that "with the diversity of prospective filtering through one lens, you get a false consensus. UPPC has been ineffective because the administration chose not to listen.
"This isn't about governance. It's about participatory decision making. It's important that you have a voice."
Rechner and other members will draft an official response to the proposal based on the councilmembers' responses in the meeting and by e-mail.