Maine Perspective Front Page
Faculty Senate to Observe Its 10th Anniversary Year
The start of the next academic year marks a milestone in University of Maine history with the observance of the 10th anniversary of Faculty Senate.
It has been a decade in which faculty members increasingly found their voice, took responsibility for UMaine's academic quality and were involved in institutional governance. A look back at the history of Faculty Senate offers a perspective on some of the toughest issues the institution has faced in contemporary times. It also demonstrates the potential of those closest to the classroom and to students to shape the institution's intellectual integrity.
"The 10th anniversary of Faculty Senate should be a celebration of the role faculty play on this campus," says Faculty Senate President Dana Humphrey. "Without the Senate, all the faculty would be employees whose job it is to teach. By having the Senate, faculty are empowered to set the policies, and guide the way we teach and the quality that we expect.
"Being on the Faculty Senate gives you the power to have a voice. Being a senator has helped me appreciate how many different things this campus does. As faculty members, we often can't see the other end of campus from our office."
Faculty Senate next semester will include more than 50 faculty members who are elected to three-year terms by their peers in the five colleges and Cooperative Extension. Serving as ex officio members are the UMaine president, vice president for Academic Affairs/provost, vice provost for Research/Graduate Studies, Deans Council representative, and three students.
Faculty Senate has final responsibility for the University curriculum and for all matters of academic policy, including establishing the academic-year calendar, setting grading standards and graduation requirements. Faculty Senate also makes policy recommendations to the president concerning such areas as organizational structure of the University, the quality of the University environment, and the allocation of financial and other resources within the University.
"Faculty governance is a real positive thing about UMaine," says Kathleen March, Faculty Senate president in 1996-97. "Not always have the decisions (of the Senate) been upheld, but they have been given thought, and I believe we have rightfully earned the respect of the administration."
The history of Faculty Senate is traced to faculty involvement in governance at the University during the years following World War II when the almost 300 faculty members met once a semester with then UMaine President Arthur Hauck. By 1950, Hauck had formed a 27-member Faculty Council, which included administrators and deans. As the University grew, there was increasing dissatisfaction with faculty having little influence in institutional policies. The Council of Colleges was created in 1969.
For more than 20 years, the Council existed as an advisory board to five presidents. Jim Acheson, the last Council of Colleges president who is credited with laying the foundation for the Senate, remembers 1988-89 as an "exciting time."
"That fall, we formed a committee of faculty chaired by David Wihry that looked around the country to see how other faculty senates worked," says Acheson. "In the spring, as the proposal came to fruition, we had a series of meetings with the president and vice president that were far from friendly. Yet a vote of the faculty demonstrated overwhelming support. It turned out that the chancellor (Robert Woodbury) supported our efforts."
The goal, says Acheson, was to give faculty a voice. "We needed much more of an academic presence and we hoped Faculty Senate would work effectively to move UMaine upward on the national quality standard. The hope was that Faculty Senate would make UMaine a stronger university and a better place, helping faculty, students and taxpayers.
"A dynamic engine of change is what Faculty Senate should be."
The Faculty Senate constitution and bylaws gave faculty "quite a bit of responsibility, if they chose to accept it," says Chuck Russ, who served on the Council of Colleges and as the Senate's first president. "I think it's worthwhile to go back to that charge and realize that we do have real authority to do some things.
"Through Faculty Senate, we have a vehicle for faculty input," says Russ. "There is dedication to intellectual endeavor, working for an environment, policies and procedures that advance it."
A review of UMaine's Academic Guidelines and Information is proof of the Senate's influence. From setting standards for academic integrity and refining the add-drop process to helping to establish the policy for students withdrawing from the University, Faculty Senate has left its mark. But perhaps no academic milestone was more important for Faculty Senate than the role it played in establishing General Education Requirements, which went into effect in 1995. Described as "a unifying force" for both the Senate and the colleges of the University, the General Education Requirements "shaped education for all UMaine undergraduates." Now students across all the colleges had an academic core based on science, human values and social context, mathematics, writing competency, ethics and senior capstone experience.
This academic year, the most important issue was the passage of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday as a University holiday, says Humphrey. "It was absolutely the right thing to do and it was a shame it took so long for the action. It is only a single day but it is important in raising awareness about the importance of diversity on this campus, and how far we need to go to reach our goals."
Other benchmarks of Faculty Senate's first decade did not have as direct an impact on academics, yet are cited as precedents for the power of the faculty voice. "I think the most significant milestone - the Systemwide vote of no confidence in the Chancellor (Michael Orenduff) - occurred when Jim Gilbert was president," says Ginny Gibson, a senator from 1991-93 and Senate president in 1994. "No one involved took that vote lightly. It reinforced the role of faculty governance in the institution and, for a very brief moment, united the System."
Gilbert, Senate president in 1994-95, took the vote of no-confidence by UMaine faculty senators to the Board of Trustee meeting in Machias that spring. While Faculty Senate was joined in protest by other faculty associations on other UMS campuses, UMaine seemingly bore the brunt of the storm, says Gilbert.
"In a lot of ways, my year as president was different than most," he says. "Faculty Senate primarily deals with University of Maine issues. This was systemwide, and in a sense I worked with the administration much more than other Faculty Senate presidents have. That's because Faculty Senate and President Hutchinson were out on a limb.
"The shared governance concept was practiced very well, with Faculty Senate and administration working together."
Faculty who served in the mid-90s also cite as a milestone the Senate's recommendations concerning the fate of University College in Bangor. Under then President Fred Hutchinson's 1993 downsizing plan, it was proposed that University College move to Orono and the Bangor campus be closed. By summer 1994, the decision had been made that University College instead would become part of the UMS Community College of Maine.
That December, the Senate made three recommendations, including one calling for UMaine to continue to offer a two-year liberal studies program. The next month, Hutchinson agreed to all but the Senate's third recommendation because it was not in keeping with the goals for four-year and graduate programs.
"The Senate's decision not to get rid of University College was a milestone," says Mary Ellen Symanski, who is the 10th Faculty Senate president. "Although it didn't change the view of the administration, it was important because the recommendation reflected the feelings of the larger University community. Through the years, faculty have been willing to take stronger stands and when things really mattered, made their voices heard."
Symanski points to the Senate's involvement in last year's search for a new UMaine president as evidence of the growing confidence of faculty to be actively involved in the institution. Looking ahead to the 10th anniversary year of Faculty Senate, Symanski says it's time for the Senate to take even more responsibility for setting the agenda, rather than always responding to it.
A primary issue to be taken up by the Senate in the coming academic year will be enrollment, she says. Discussions are expected to include the role of faculty in increasing enrollment and retention. In particular, such issues as faculty advising, classroom climate and the effect of increased enrollment with static faculty numbers will be addressed.
"My impression is faculty will rally around what needs to be done to facilitate administration plans to get enrollment up," she says. "But it's just as important that faculty give input into how more students will affect our classes, course offerings and academic quality.
"My goal is to ensure that faculty feel comfortable speaking their minds. I will encourage Senate members next year to do grassroots communicating. Faculty need to look to themselves and to their departments, to what they want their voices to be."