The Urbana-Champaign Senate unanimously approved the composition of the chancellor’s search committee Monday.

The senate also concluded its evaluation of the proposed administrative restructuring and passed a resolution to allow a representative from the wheelchair basketball program to probe admissions officers on information regarding recruits, an act banned after last year’s admissions scandal.

Joyce Tolliver, chair of the Senate Executive Committee, said President Michael Hogan asked her about two weeks ago to “get the search rolling” for the next Urbana campus chancellor.

She added that the president has not set a date he would like the search completed by, just that he would like it to be soon.

Now that the makeup of the committee has been approved — one committee chair, eight faculty members, three students, one dean or director, one academic professional and one staff member — the next step is nominating and selecting the individuals who will serve on it, Tolliver said.

“We’re still working out the exact schedule of when we open the nominations,” she said. “It is rather involved and complicated, and we’re still working out each of those steps.”

The senate also concluded its formal evaluation of the administrative restructuring proposals by voting to include a report from its statutes committee along with a formal statement they already approved to the University Senates Conference. The statement rejects a proposal that would create a vice president of Health Affairs among other changes. The senate said, however, that they would be willing to continue discussing the proposals if the Board of Trustees is.

Toward the end of the meeting, the senate unanimously passed a resolution to allow one individual from the wheelchair basketball program to discuss admission of recruited student athletes with admissions officers.

Keith Marshall, associate provost for enrollment management, said after last year’s issue involving “inappropriate clout,” a firewall was created around the admissions process.

The firewall limits all admissions discussion and information to the approximately 100 admissions officers with the exception of the student applying and the student’s parents, spouse or high school counselor, Marshall said.

“They can all call an admissions officer and ask questions, but anybody else other than that is not allowed to,” he said.

Marshall said the firewall was modified to allow the associate athletic director, currently Tom Michael, to discuss admissions for recruited athletes. The resolution that passed in the Urbana senate extends this privilege to an individual with the wheelchair basketball program, which Marshall said is among the best in the nation.

“We recruit nationally for that team, but it’s not an NCAA sport so it’s not part of DIA (Division of Intercollegiate Athletics),” he said. “It’s kind of it’s own entity. We just passed the resolution for someone in the wheelchair program, whoever they designate … to also have that similar ability just to make a call to admissions and discuss a case, ask questions. It just allows them to get that information, which is what they were able to do prior to the firewall coming in.”

The senate was also scheduled to discuss a resolution regarding the academic freedom of University employees, but David Olsen, student body president, made a motion to refer it back to committee.

Olsen said there was concern about some of the specific language in the resolution, which, if passed at the Dec. 3 meeting, will amend the University statutes to reinforce academic freedom for faculty and staff.

“I thought it was prudent, since the chair of the academic freedom and tenure committee was not present (Matthew Finkin), for him to be able to be at the meeting to discuss (the resolution),” Olsen said.