July 12, 2019
Dear Chair Erickson and Trustees:
I appreciate this opportunity to submit a brief overview of the activities of the Faculty Senate since the last Trustees meeting in May 2019. During the 2018–2019 academic year, the Faculty Senate accomplished much through improving our engagement with all units of the university and moving toward our shared goal of improving the student experience. Through tight partnerships across campus, we are excited to implement the new General Education Program beginning in fall 2019. We look forward to completing many tasks this coming academic year, including finalizing our reform of student advising, as well as improvements to student support, such as the transfer and transition center. We look forward to working with Jill Hernandez, our new dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, our interim provost, Lynn Franken, as well as other new partners at the university. We hope for continued improvements to transparency, accountability, and governance at the university. Guidelines for College Budget Committees. One Faculty Code change is before the board for approval at this meeting. It seeks to improve the consistency in function and composition of budget committees at the college and library levels. This code change is part of the continuing effort of Faculty Senate to articulate shared governance at CWU. This Code revision was passed by senators at the last full senate meeting on 29 May 2019. Currently, there is inconsistency in the practices across colleges such that some of the college budget committees are functioning well, while others are not. In addition, there are no university-level guidelines about the purpose of college budget committees or how they should function. The goal of this Code change is to provide a minimum level of consistency in the composition and operation of budget committees at the college and library levels. The scope of this Code language is intentionally broad to allow for appropriate policy and procedure to be formulated in each College. As the Colleges and Library are intended to function as the responsibility centers in our Responsibility Center Management model, it is important to define the budgetary consultation process at these centers in a manner that avoids choosing language that focuses around personalities rather than process. During discussion of this Code change on the Senate floor, the academic deans voiced opposition to the proposed language. Since that time, I have met individually with each of the college deans to hear their concerns. It is my understanding that the principle concern surrounds the placement of the language in Faculty Code, not the substance of the language. The feeling of the deans is that placement of this type of language in the Code may set a precedent where Faculty Senate could be perceived to be usurping authority over committees that do not directly report to Faculty Senate. I can state that this is not the Faculty Code Updates:
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