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Executive Committee
Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
Annual Report 2000-2001
April 22, 2001
The Executive Committee was established by vote of
the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering on March 13, 2000:
The primary duty of this Executive Committee will be to design the
agenda of faculty meetings, doing so in the context of a coordinated
collection of information from the administration, faculty committees,
department chairs, and other sources, in order that
the discussion at faculty meetings adequately reflect faculty concerns and
proceed in a well-informed manner. The Executive Committee will also be
responsible for directing business to appropriate faculty committees and
for assuring that there is no unnecessary overlap in the charges of the
committees. The committee will furthermore be responsible for overseeing
the committee structure in general and recommending changes when needed.
The committee organized itself in early October, following a September
election in which eighty percent of the AS&E faculty cast ballots. Howard
Solomon agreed to serve as Chair for a one-year term, and (in February)
Robert Gonsalves was elected Secretary. Designated members have
established ongoing liaison with particular faculty groups
(Bushnell/Committee on Committees; Cochrane/EPC; Gonsalves/Budget and
Priorities; Wechsler/department chairs) as a way of facilitating
communication. We have met nearly weekly since mid-October.
Ongoing concerns:
AS&E faculty meetings: The Executive Committee has replaced
the Liaison Committee in setting AS&E faculty meeting agenda. Since
December, the Chair of the Executive Committee co-presides with the Vice
President at AS&E faculty meetings and reports on the activities of the
Executive Committee at the beginning of each meeting.
Committee structure: From information gathered at meetings
involving chairs of approximately forty standing committees, as well as
an open discussion at the April 2, 2001 AS&E meeting, we are moving
forward in analyzing the committee governance structure. We are
developing a short survey to gather additional information from current
committee chairs, as well as a study of the role of ad hoc committees
over the past few years; we will be meeting with the Committee on
Committees. We are hopeful that we can bring some proposal for reform to
the AS&E faculty in the Fall 2001 semester.
Interface of the Executive Committee with the Administration:
As our role emerges over time, we have been slowly finding our way in
interacting with the administration. It is our intent to establish a
working relationship that will more easily facilitate the sharing of
information between faculty and administration, hopefully leading to
better clarity on how and why decisions are made by all parties. On
April 10, we voted unanimously: "In the spirit of shared governance the
Executive Committee asks that the Vice President for Arts, Sciences, and
Engineering seek the counsel of the Executive Committee on major
administrative appointments and on major policy initiatives" -- a
resolution jointly agreed to by the Vice President and the Executive
Committee.
As the committee's purview and responsibilities are still in a
process of formation, it seemed premature to issue a Statement of
Purpose, as we had initially anticipated last Fall. Such a statement
might be written in the Fall 2001 semester.
Specific action issues (unless indicated otherwise, passed by
formal vote)
In November, we requested that the Trustees appoint a member of
our committee to the Presidential Screening Committee. In late
January, we urged the screening committee to recommend finalists who
have unwavering commitment to the principles of shared governance.
Even though both of our letters were cordially acknowledged, our
request for a formal role in the screening process was rejected.
We supported the Computer Facilities and Usage Committee's
current ad hoc revised organization and asked them to bring us a
formal proposal for faculty consideration at a future AS&E meeting.
We approved the action of the Committee on Student Awards,
provisionally for Spring 2001, of moving faculty awards from the April
20 ceremony to the May 14 AS&E meeting and requested that the
committee examine other possibilities for restructuring the Student
Awards Ceremony in the future.
At the request of Joanne Michalak of Tisch Library, we distributed
copies of
"Principles for Emerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing" to
all AS&E faculty.
We met with TCU senators to discuss their proposal for increasing
student involvement on student/faculty committees. We will be
following up on the issues raised, in consultation with the Committee
on Committees.
We are in favor of keeping administrative reviews in the
Faculty Advisory Board for Administration, except under urgent
circumstances, thus ending the current practice of hearing the report
read at an AS&E meeting. We are meeting with the Faculty Advisory
Board for Administration on May 8 to discuss our vote with them.
The Vice President has requested our counsel regarding possible
changes to the organizational structure following the resignation
of Deans Fawaz and Hollister. In order to get a sense of faculty
opinion, we are now talking with department chairs and program
directors; we expect to discuss our findings with the Vice President
in the very near future.
The committee gratefully acknowledges the role of Cathy Doheney and
Mohammad Mussavi Rizi in preparing materials, taking notes, and other
support activities. Howard M. Solomon, Chair
Members of
the Committee:
Mel Bernstein, Vice President, AS&E
Emily Bushnell, Psychology (2000-2003)
David Cochrane, Biology (2000-2002)
Carol Flynn, English (2000-2002)
Robert Gonsalves, EECS (2000-2001)
Howard Solomon, History (2000-2003)
Judith Wechsler, Art/Art History (2000-2001)
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