YEAR IN REVIEW REPORT FROM CHAIR KNOWLES

 

            In the view of your outgoing chair, the Faculty Senate has made major strides this year which figure to benefit the university in the long run.

            Although a significant number of you disagree, I’m pleased that on my watch you passed plus/minus grading, which I remind you goes into effect autumn semester 2004. This will allow us to provide more accurate grading of our students, particularly helping those of who teach big freshman-level survey courses.

            You also established, not without controversy, a new and stronger Faculty Library Committee, with a strong charge that figures down the road to assist all of us in our dealings with the Mansfield Library. The new committee has met and elected a chair, from whom you’ll hear in a few minutes.

            Your approval of the ASCRC-recommended terminology change from pass/fail to credit/no credit is one which should help clear up confusion and some occasional abuse of the original intent of pass/fail. The discussion and approval of curriculum changes that your respective departments brought through ASCRC and Grad Council obviously contributes to the university’s growth and future.

            The university has moved forward with your approval of new centers, one more scheduled today. And you took a big step forward by the Senate’s unanimous approval and the entire faculty’s near unanimous approval—only one vote against of more than a hundred cast—of the new chair-elect position. That will provide continuity to your leadership.

            In terms of the Senate’s executive committee—with its infamous acronym ECOS—I’d like to thank the committee for buying into my idea that we needed workgroups headed by individual ECOS members to sort thorough the huge amount work that falls on the committee’s shoulders. Vice Chair Celia Winkler and members Dick Field, Ralph Judd, Mike Monsos, Joe Crepeau and Liz Ametsbichler have performed well and moved us forward. So has our interim member, Dave Beck.

            However, one person really makes all our Senate organizations run. I want to give special thanks to our administrative assistant, Camie Foos. Dealing with me all year has been difficult enough, but she handles minutes for the Senate, ASCRC, Grad Council, and the new Library Committee. And she does a masterful job fielding all kinds of calls, emails and other requests that come to the Senate. Let’s hear it for Camie.

            For me, the most enjoyable part of this job was representing you at meetings of the Board of Regents. That board provides one of the most fascinating dynamics I’ve ever witnessed in either the academic or corporate world. Faculty dialog with regents both collectively and individually has provided much-needed information to them about what we do. At my insistence, the elected faculty representatives from all units of the system formally meet the night before each regents meeting. That has helped us understand each others problems, and has resulted in increased respect regents have for faculty. I think that was made clear when Chairman Mercer visited ECOS a couple of months ago. And I’m not through with the regents just yet. Under the new chair-elect language my term doesn’t expire until June 1, so I’ll be representing you at the May 20-21 meeting in Havre where we expect, among other things, to hear a lot about Grizzly athletics.

            And speaking of that, I’d like to thank Senator Michael Mayer for serving on the commissioner’s investigating committee. Tough job, high profile, lots of pressure. Also my sincere thanks to Lou Hayes for his year as chair of ASCRC and Nigel Priestley for his chairmanship of Grad Council this year. Those are each weekly meetings with hugely important work as you all know, and both chairs performed extremely well under much pressure.

            And finally, my thanks to each of you for serving. One of my happiest moments as your chair this year was when I presented former Senator Audrey Peterson with the Faculty Service award at Charter Day ceremonies. I said then and say now: without faculty service there can be no faculty governance.

            Tied closely to service and governance is the principle of faculty collegiality. We all need to respect one another, and hear one another’s views. As your chair this year I’ve tried to do that, sometimes within the confines of our bylaws and Robert’s Rules, and sometimes without.

            I’m pleased that I have another year to serve on my term as the Faculty Senate representative of the School of Journalism. Thank you all for choosing me to serve you this year as your chair.

 

Respectfully submitted,

William L. (Bill) Knowles

Professor, Journalism

Chair, Faculty Senate, AY 2003-04

 

 

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