Editorial : University Senate loses purpose by rushing through meetings
Long discussions have disappeared from the monthly University Senate meetings. Consisting of faculty members and administrators, including the chancellor and vice provost, USen makes decisions related to all academic and faculty issues.
Thoughtful deliberation and debate has been stifled by the overwhelming wish to finish the meetings as soon as possible. Since fall 2010, the agenda for every meeting has been rushed through with very few moments devoted to feedback and questions. Wednesday’s meeting lasted no longer than 20 minutes.
The longest meeting last semester was only a half-hour. The passion and participation found in fall 2009 and spring 2010’s meetings are now absent.
Even the use of the meetings seems to have changed.
During the last academic year, USen meetings were used to address issues such as raising money for Haiti relief and protests over moving collections from the library to an off-campus site. There has been no comparable give-and-take for more than a semester, and apathy prevails.
That being said, the work many of the individual committees do is extensive and laudable. For instance, the Budget Committee spends months evaluating and drawing up the details of Syracuse University’s finances, and the Committee on Curriculum constantly updates course offerings.
Likewise, ad hoc committees, such as the one created to review the effects of a larger-than-usual freshman class, are an effective way to deal with new concerns. But time and space must be created at USen meetings to talk about these issues before handing them over to a small group. If major issues are rarely put on the table for the entire senate to discuss, unique ideas and feedback are lost — all for the cause of a short and painless meeting.
If senators and the faculty members and administrators become complacent and passive about USen meetings, the senate as a governing body loses its power and instead becomes a set of disconnected, singularly focused committees.
The campus is left in the dark and could become apathetic to the hard work of this important body, when the progress of ad hoc and regular committees is rarely and sporadically presented in public. The issues that tie this campus together as a community are forgotten.
SU’s governing body for student affairs, Student Association, holds meetings weekly. These meetings have, at least for the past several years, consistently lasted an hour or longer. If the students can find enough on campus to discuss and review with due diligence, so too should faculty members and administrators when they assemble for their monthly public meetings.
