Academic Senate holds committee elections
April 21, 2015
Members of the Urbana-Champaign Senate nominated senators old and new to the senate’s various committees at its Monday organizational meeting.
The senate welcomed its new members for the coming academic year, elected committee chairs to the Senate Executive Committee and nominated representatives to the University Senates Conference and the senate’s standing committees.
Gay Miller, chair of Educational Policy, will take over as chair of the Senate Executive Committee when Campbell’s term ends in the fall. Graber will continue to serve as vice chair of the Senate Executive Committee.
David O’Brien, chair of the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee, Michael Sandretto, chair of the Budget Committee and Kathryn Oberdeck, chair of the Equal Opportunity and Inclusion Committee will represent their committees on the Senate Executive Committee for the upcoming academic year.
“One reason why we select different committee chairs as members to the SEC is to give all of the senate committees an opportunity to represent their voice on this committee,” said Roy Campbell, current Senate Executive Committee chair.
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Matthew Wheeler, ACES professor, is one of three new representatives to the University Senates Conference, alongside Harley Johnson, Engineering professor, and Terry Weech, associate professor of Library and Information Science.
Professors Kim Graber, Jay Rosenstein and Joyce Tolliver are new nominees to the General University Policy Committee for the upcoming academic year. This committee studies, reports and makes recommendations to the senate concerning University policy. For example, in 2013-2014, the committee focused on aligning shared governance practices with non-tenured faculty position guidelines, according to its annual report.
Campbell encouraged senators to exercise cooperation in the new academic year to effect real change at the University.
“I’d like you to come to the senate with a spirit of ‘let’s listen to everybody,’” Campbell said. “Let’s get our arguments understood and on the table in a nice, collaborative manner.”
