Ohio University Faculty Senate will vote on a new building naming policy and discuss the presidential selection process at its second meeting of the year on Monday at 7:10 p.m. in Walter Hall 235.
The Resolution on Revising the University Naming Policy and Practice’s first draft asked Pam Benoit, executive vice president and provost, to put together a task force to review university decisions more thoroughly. Joe McLaughlin, chair of Faculty Senate, said senate asked for stronger consultation and collaboration with regards to the review process at OU.
“What we are requesting in our new resolution is something that does not typically happen, which is at least one face-to-face meeting that brings together the people who are making the revisions and all of the parties that they would consult,” McLaughlin said.
The Executive Committee and Provost met early last week to revise the resolution.
“Usually at the second reading is when we take our vote on it. … Given the issue with the Roger Ailes Newsroom and previously with the Schoonover building and with the Bob Ney building up in the Eastern campus, I think there will be support for passing a resolution that says we need to clarify our policy on how and when we name spaces after people,” Ben Bates, chair of the Promotion and Tenure Committee, said.
The agenda also includes a meeting with the Board of Trustees' Chair David Wolfort and Vice-Chair Janetta King.
“There are some of us … that have a lot of interaction with the Board of Trustees, but most faculty don’t get to interact with them so I’m hoping we will have a good conversation and they’ll get some good questions,” McLaughlin, who is a member of the university’s 21-person presidential search committee, said. “I expect … the faculty is going to want to hear from them about the presidential search we’re doing.”
McLaughlin said a faculty member concerned about the racial climate on campus may also address the images on the graffiti wall a few weeks ago.
Two other resolutions will be presented, both of which are from the Professional Relations Committee.
Bates said the Professional Relations Committee looks at faculty governance and faculty rights issues such as making sure class distributions are equitable. The committee attends to non-tenure track faculties’ and adjunct faculties’ needs when it comes to having academic freedom and meeting their rights and responsibilities in the classroom.
“(It is a) generalist committee, any number of things fall to us … (but) not finances, curriculum, or promotion and tenure,” Sherrie Gradin, chair of the Professional Relations Committee, said.
The Resolution to Revise Language on Comprehensive Review of Deans is part of an effort to further define what the word “faculty” actually means in the handbook because of two different kinds of faculty, Group I and Group II, at OU.
Over the past four to five years, Faculty Senate has evaluated many policies and practices to try to review the role of Group II faculty in terms of shared governance. Group I faculty are tenured or tenure track faculty and Group II faculty includes non-tenured or non-tenure track faculty, McLaughlin said.
The Resolution to Clarify Language on the Annual Deans’ Evaluation tries to establish how we can make sure deans have comprehensive reviews not only from Group I faculty.
“We did have some concerns that over the past four or five months,” McLaughlin said. “Three of the deans have been reappointed to new contracts and there had not been a comprehensive review of those deans in the recent past so we’re trying to strengthen the language in the handbook to indicate that there should be a comprehensive review of the deans within the last couple of years.”
