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November 14, 2017

Academic Futures Open Forum: Strengthening Faculty Governance

Moderator:      David Brown

Listener:          Bill Kaempfer

Points made and issues raised included:

1. There is a perception among faculty that the shared governance model has weakened over the last several years, and that administration is making decisions without any consultation or discussion with faculty.  This is leading to confusion, misperceptions, concerns, distrust, and unintended consequences.
2. There are two equally important pieces to a working shared governance model:
   1. Administration needs to empower the faculty
   2. Faculty needs to “step up” and fully engage
3. Effective communication is key to shared governance.  Communicating well requires resources and staff to create and manage inclusive, multi-directional communication channels.  We need to decide what we want and then invest in making it work.
4. We need to rethink the structure of BFA.  Several units have no representation on BFA. Each unit and college should have a governance structure that then feeds BFA. The intent should be to create an inclusive structure for conversation and decision-making.
5. Clarification is needed on where shared governance “is” and “is not” required.
   1. Shared governance is required on topics like curriculum, tenure, admissions, and research. 
   2. Other topics may only require “input” – in these cases, clarification is needed on how to enact input on these topics.
6. Governance body meetings need to utilize effective meeting practices.
7. Communication tools (emails, websites) are great tools for outreach and sharing basic information, but we also recognize that face-to-face communication is important in building trust, not only between administration and faculty, but also between faculty members themselves.
8. There are several important committees in the Provost office (advisory, program review, budget, graduate school).  There needs to be more cross-over communication between these committees and BFA.
9. We should be making better use of our retired faculty. We need to utilize their talents and connections.