University Of Evansville Faculty Senate Resolution
On December 10th, the President held a meeting at which he presented the faculty with his draft academic realignment plan. At both that meeting and the follow-up on December 15th, the President asked the faculty to offer written proposals in response to his draft plan. In the spirit of positive cooperation, the Senate would like to honor this request. Recognizing that the academic component of the university is necessarily fundamentally intertwined with all its other components, the Senate seeks not to merely propose its own academic realignment plan but rather to follow the lead of the President and so propose an institutional alignment plan. For the faculty’s representative body to do so is entirely in keeping with the faculty’s role within the shared governance system of the university. This is clear from the AAUP’s “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities,†the document that informs the Faculty Manual’s definition of the university’s shared governance system:
The allocation of resources among competing demands is central in the formal responsibility of the governing board, in the administrative authority of the president, and in the educational function of the faculty. Each component should therefore have a voice in the determination of short- and long-range priorities and each should receive appropriate analyses of past budgetary experience, reports on current budgets and expenditures, and short- and long-range budgetary projections.
To enable itself to produce an institutional realignment plan, the Senate resolves as follows.
Be it resolved that the Faculty Senate of the University of Evansville shall establish a Faculty Institutional Alignment Plan Ad Hoc Committee to produce an institutional alignment plan. The committee shall consist of one faculty member from each of the university’s four schools and colleges (William L. Ridgway College of Arts and Sciences, College of Education and Health Sciences, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Schroeder School of Business) elected by a vote of their own school or college, the Associate Vice President of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness, the Director of General Education, the Chair of the Faculty Senate, and the Chairs of the Senate’s eight Standing Committees (Academic Services Committee, Admissions, and Standards Committee, Faculty Athletics Committee, Curriculum Committee, Faculty Appeals Committee, Faculty Professional Affairs Committee, Fiscal Affairs Committee, Promotion and Tenure Committee).
The Faculty Institutional Alignment Plan Ad Hoc Committee will begin by defining the specific goals and timeframe of its plan. It will then develop relevant and practical methods of evaluation, comparison, and judgment that it will use to review all aspects of the university. During this review, the Faculty Institutional Alignment Plan Ad Hoc Committee will be granted access to all institutional data and information it deems relevant to its purpose unless such access is prohibited by law or university policy.
(The university’s policies on data access include compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 2000.) On completing its review, the committee will produce an institutional alignment plan in the form of a written report and submit it to the Senate.
The Senate will pass that plan on to its standing committees and each committee will review the sections of the plan relevant to its remit. The standing committees will then submit recommendations to the Senate. The Senate will review those recommendations and senators will be allowed to use those recommendations to offer amendments to the plan submitted by the Faculty Institutional Alignment Plan Ad Hoc Committee. When all such amendments have been offered and a final plan has been produced, the Senate will vote on that plan. Approval will cause the plan to go out for a vote of the faculty, whereas disapproval will cause it to be returned to the Senate’s standing committees. On endorsement by the faculty, the plan will be submitted to the President. However, if the faculty votes down the plan, it will be returned to the Senate.
In accordance with the President’s statements on the need for urgent action, the Faculty Institutional Alignment Plan Ad Hoc Committee will create a timetable for its work that will enable the President to receive the Senate’s plan prior to the last day of the Spring 2021 semester, May 7th. To give the committee the time it needs to produce its plan, the construction of the President’s institutional alignment plan will be suspended until the Senate has submitted its institutional alignment plan to the President and the President has offered a full written response. During the suspension period, no final decisions will be made regarding curricular changes or faculty appointments.
Should this resolution be approved by the faculty, the Faculty Senate requests a written response to this resolution from the President within seven days of the official announcement of that approval. In the event that the President is unable to respond affirmatively to this resolution, the Senate requests a full written explanation as to why.
