Faculty members could have the chance to voice their opinions and concerns regarding shared governance at the college and department levels by the end of the academic year.

At the Senate Executive Committee meeting Monday, Nicholas Burbules, chair of the Senate’s General University Policy Committee, led a discussion regarding his drafted proposal for an “evaluation of shared governance practices in departments and colleges.”

This Web-based survey would allow faculty members to rate their departments and colleges on communication between faculty and administrators, according to the draft. Survey questions would cover the topics of budgeting, hiring faculty and governing bylaws within each department.

Burbules said this would be a broad, general survey of about 10 questions and would allow faculty members to anonymously rate their departments without identifying their specific departments.

“We don’t have enough information based on this survey to draw conclusions about individual units,” Burbules said. 

He added that responses showing any specific or major concerns may trigger further inquiry and investigation.

Although the survey is in preliminary discussion stages, Burbules said he hopes to keep discussions continuous throughout the next couple of meetings.

SEC member Joyce Tolliver said senators should also think about whether such a survey should be administered by the SEC or the General University Policy Committee.

At last week’s Senate meeting, faculty members were split on the issue of unionization. While some believed collective bargaining would be a beneficial change for faculty members, others stood by the current departmental structure of shared governance.

Burbules supported the idea of shared governance, but said if individual faculty members see a problem in the current system, they should be able to freely express their concerns.

“We can think that shared governance is working just great at the campus and University levels,” he said. “But if the individual faculty members are in agreement that they aren’t being listened to … it’s our job as the Senate to get that information so that these situations could be identified and hopefully remedied.”

SEC member John Kindt said he believed all faculty members should be alerted of their departments’ bylaws before a survey is conducted, as some may be unaware that their units have any sort of set rules. 

Although no decisions regarding the survey were made at the meeting, Burbules said he hoped a formal proposal could be reviewed at the next SEC meeting on March 11. If approved, he said the survey would ideally be administered by the end of the academic year.

Lauren can be reached at rohr2@

dailyillini.com.