GOVERNANCE TASKFORCE

MINUTES, JUNE 9, 2004, 11:00-12:15

 

AGENDA

1. FACULTY COUNCIL LIAISON

2. WEBPAGE UPDATE

3. OFFICERS OF TASKFORCE

4. SUMMER SCHEDULES

5. WEEKLY MEETING TIME

6. TASKS FOR TASKFORCE

 

Attending: Braam, Caldwell, Grandy, Scott, Huffer (FC liaison)

 

  1. FACULTY COUNCIL LIAISON: The committee discussed potential Faculty Council liaisons and asked Lynne Huffer to ask a candidate to serve as liaison to the Governance Committee.

 

  1. WEBPAGE UPDATE: Caldwell reported that he has asked Sarah Holloman to set up a webpage linked to the Faculty Council webpage. The committee also discussed whether the secretary/webmaster should place faculty comments for posting and discussion on Taskforce activity on the webpage rather than making use of a complex bulletin board program.

 

  1. OFFICERS OF TASKFORCE: The committee members in attendance recommended that Braam and Zeff serve as committee co-chairs (pending Zeff's agreement) and that Caldwell serve as secretary/webmaster. Caldwell will ask Cooper, Levander, Long, and Zeff whether they are in accord with this decision.

 

  1. SUMMER SCHEDULES: Caldwell will send out a separate email requesting summer schedules from all committee members.

 

  1. WEEKLY MEETING TIME: The committee proposes to meet weekly, every Thursday, 12:00-1:00, for the coming weeks. Caldwell is reserving HUMA 327 from 12:00-2:00 every Thursday for this purpose, pending agreement of Cooper, Levander, Long, and Zeff.

 

  1. TASKS FOR TASKFORCE: The committee began to discuss the issues that it will address and how to address them.
    1. STANDING COMMITTEES: Given the apparent absence of standing committee reports on file in the President's Office (which, according to the committee charges, is supposed to receive copies of these reports), the committee will have to undertake the time-consuming task of contacting chairs of each committee to find out what the committees have done.

                                                     i.     BRAAM and CALDWELL will examine the official charges to the different committees and compile a list of committee chairs; on this basis, they will recommend a course of action to investigate the committees at the next meeting.

                                                      ii.     The committee brought up a number of questions to ask about standing committees, including:

1.     Are there gaps in the areas where a faculty voice would be helpful for the formulation of university policy, such as matters related to the budget, academic priorities, and space planning?

2.     Are some of the committees redundant?

3.     How effective are the committees? Do they adequately bring a faculty voice to bear on university decisions?

4.     How effectively do the committees facilitate faculty and staff interaction?

5.     Is there a need for greater continuity on some or all committees? Would overlapping chair terms (past/current/elect) or a multiple-year term as chair of some committees make sense?

6.     How does the process of appointing faculty to the standing committees work in reality?

    1. REPRESENTATION: The committee agreed on the need to consider how the faculty's voice is represented at present at Rice University and alternative forms for allowing that voice to be heard. It was agreed that committee members should begin looking more closely at the systems of faculty governance at the schools named in John Ambler's report: Cornell, Georgetown, Pennsylvania, Stanford, Emory, Northwestern, Duke, Chicago, Rochester, Vanderbilt, and Washington University. Grandy will look at Tulane; Scott at University of Houston and Stanford; Caldwell at Washington University. The committee agreed to focus on the following questions:

                                                     i.     How does representation of the faculty take place? If the faculty as a whole expresses its voice, how? As an assembled group? By electronic voting? If the faculty expresses its voice through a representative system, how is that system formed? Through general elections? Through a system of representatives at the level of Departments?

                                                      ii.     Where an executive of faculty representatives is formed, what power does that body have? Where are final decisions articulating the faculty voice made, in the executive body or in the faculty as a whole?

                                                        iii.     How effective is the system of faculty governance at the universities under examination?

                                                        iv.     How are decisions on promotion and tenure decided, and how does P&T fit within the system of faculty governance at the universities in question?

    1. P&T AND A&G: Any system of representation has to take into account the relationship of these committees both to other committee structures and to faculty representation.