Faculty Senate prepares critiques

The UT Faculty Senate drafted a list of critiques of the Committee on Strategic Organization’s reorganization proposal similar to the list of questions by the College of Arts and Sciences Student Council at their meeting on Tuesday.

The critiques were in response to a letter sent to the Senate by UT President Lloyd Jacobs addressing their concerns and include things such as the data and evidence supporting the need for reorganization and the cost of reorganization.

The Senate wants Jacobs to consider their critiques before making his final decision on the proposed restructuring of the university.

Chair of the Faculty Senate Mary Powers, read the letter from Jacobs to the senate stating, “Our mission and vision have not changed, but we need to change strategies.”

Jacobs wrote the letter in response to concerns previously raised by the Senate.

The “mission and vision” Jacobs speaks about in his letter is his vision for the “relevant university” which is one that meets the needs of the community be they “academic, scientific, athletic or cultural.”

Powers said she believes the list of critiques will be important to Jacobs.

One of the finer points of the critique involves Jacobs’ view on tenure and tenure track positions at universities.

In the letter, Jacobs explains, one of the variables in a new education system is the eroding of tenure and tenure track positions proportionally to other positions at the university.

“There are a decreasing number of tenure track positions, preparations must be made,” Jacobs said is his letter to the Senate.

Nick Piazza, Doctoral Program Coordinator for the College of Health Science and Human Service, who is also a member of the faculty senate, said the trend in education is to hire more part-time faculty.

“The implication is that part-timers don’t have the same level of ownership over curriculum and instruction,” he said.

Piazza, who also serves as UT’s Representative to the Ohio Board of Regents Ohio Faculty Council, was in Columbus at the Council’s last meeting discussing reorganization.

Concerning speculation at OBROFC’s last meeting that reorganization would create “confusion and uncertainty,” Piazza said he does not see these conditions as necessarily bad.

“The transition can be good,” he said. “What is important to me is if the proposed reinterpretation is data driven — how is this reorganization going to reduce spending so that these costs are not passed onto students? I have not yet heard how we will address this,” he said.

Piazza used UT’s merger with the Medical University of Ohio as an example.

“We had to spend money to make it work,” he said. “I believe that we’re a better university for it. My concern going into to this is will the reorganization add to the costs.”

Linda Rouillard, Chair of Arts and Sciences Council and associate professor of French at UT who has been very critical of the reorganization said the problems faculty members have with the restructuring proposal have not gone away.

“I don’t see us making peace [with the restructuring proposal] — we still have huge concerns,” Rouillard said. “We really insist that this project be done with hard data.”

Like Piazza, Rouillard is concerned with the data that led Jacobs to ask the Committee on Strategic Organization to come up with the restructuring proposal in the first place.

While some believe the future of UT may include less emphasis on Arts and Sciences, and more on technical and scientific studies, Rouillard said the idea of the “themed university” would be ill-founded.

“I think that the reorganization doesn’t even make it possible for us to be a ‘technical institute,’” she said. “People interested in science are interested in data, and none of these plans are driven by data, they are driven by anecdote and uninformed conjecture.”

Powers said she hopes the senate compiling a list of concerns makes it evident they are interested in the excellence of the university.

“I hope the desire of the Faculty Senate to have more meaningful engagement in the process of building a more excellent university is apparent.”

Jacobs stated in his letter to faculty members “If the faculty is passionate about the reorganization, they should pack the house at the [Faculty Stakeholder meetings.]”

The meetings will be held today, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m,. and tomorrow, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., in the Savage Athletic Complex and Dana Conference Center, respectively.

Jacobs is set to announce his recommendation to the UT Board of Trustees on Sept. 24.