Ohio University's Faculty Senate has asked for more faculty representation on a key committee overseeing Intercollegiate Athletics.
The Intercollegiate Athletics Committee is currently made up of 14 voting members, seven of whom are faculty appointed by the president. The senate has asked OU President Roderick McDavis to add one more voting faculty member after a national group suggested faculty should dominate such committees.
OU's senate based its resolution on a document from the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a group of faculty senates at Football Bowl Subdivision schools.
Senators did not spend much time discussing the substance of the resolution, but Scott Titsworth, who chairs the Finance and Facilities Committee, said improving shared governance was the intent of the resolution.
I think that what we as a committee ... but also in conversations with other senators ... tried to come up with ideas for resolutions that contained aspects that everyone across campus would find something they could agree with
Titsworth said before the meeting.
The resolution passed unanimously, but requires the provost's signature to take effect.
Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit would not indicate yet if she will sign the resolution, but said through a spokeswoman that she hopes this will provide an opportunity for open discussion.
The resolutions draw attention to a variety of issues that could help guide a larger conversation about athletics at the university she said in an e-mail. I look forward to participating in that conversation.
Faculty also passed a sense of the senate resolution, which will not require Benoit's signature, stating the current funding model for Intercollegiate Athletics is incompatible with the academic mission of higher education institutions.
Titsworth, whose committee sponsored both resolutions, said at the meeting that the sense of the senate resolution was not targeted at OU administrators, but rather at a system senate sees as broken.
We think there is a systemic problem with the way Intercollegiate Athletics is financed that stems from things outside our control he said.
In another look at athletics, the senate debated a resolution that would call on McDavis to talk with leaders at other Ohio and Mid-American Conference schools about how to move forward with athletics funding.
Uniquely in Ohio
there's a lot of money being put into subsidy of intercollegiate athletics that you do not find in other states
Titsworth said. What seemed like the prudent course of action would be to ask the university to look into the long-term sustainability of what we're doing with Intercollegiate Athletics right now.
Becky Watts, McDavis's chief of staff, said after the meeting that the president is already having some of those discussions.
That discussion is already happening at the MAC level
and he's going to continue participating in that discussion
she said.
- Rebecca McKinsey contributed to this article.
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Emily Grannis
