University Senate streamlines governing structure

GCSUnade.com

Issue date: 3/4/05 Section: Campus News

By Vanessa Voigt

University Senate approved a revised draft of the Institutional Statutes Feb. 28 to continue the approval process for streamlining the governing structure.

According to the current Institutional Statues, University Senate is "the policy making assembly at Georgia College and State University, " and the University Senate was established to "exercise legislative functions dealing with all issues that affect the general educational policy of the University, the well being of the University, the discipline of students and all other student activities and affairs."

The Senate is comprised of President Dorothy Leland, 36 faculty members and six appointed members. Six other members are included in the Senate that are initiated automatically due to their position on campus. One of this six includes the one student representative, the Student Government Association President.

"The Statutes are actually the governance concepts that are recommended by the university and approved of by the Board of Regents [BOR]," Dr. J.W. Good, vice chair of the Executive Committee for University Senate, said. 

Good is also apart of the Statutes and Bylaws Team [S&B Team], which was responsible for drafting the revised Institutional Statutes. 

"Goals of the revision of University Statutes included reduction of bureaucracy and increased flexibility for GC&SU to be able to revise and improve policies on campus without having to submit the revisions to the Georgia BOR for approval," Good said. 

Leland said the S&B Team was successful in meeting their goals. 

"The committee that worked on revising the GC&SU Statutes did an admirable job in streamlining this important document," Leland said. "It is important to remember that most of what the committee eliminated from the statutes won't disappear but rather will become part of other kinds of documents--for instance, bylaws or institutional policy statements."

This will provide a greater flexibility for the university without needing approval from the BOR, Leland said. 

The S&B Team has also proposed a policy handbook for the Senate, Good said. 

"Additionally the S&B Team was set up to develop a proposal for a policy handbook to organize policy. It will literally be used to hold the policy that is developed through shared governance and approved by the president," Good said. "The policy handbook will be in one place so that everyone can see what it is. And it will be organized so that it [policy] can be stored, retrieved and revised by the senate."

The revised Statutes and the possible future policy handbook will be used for guiding the direction of the University Senate system, Good said.

"We don't control BOR policies, we follow them. Those things that are essentially governing what we have within our scope of authority, we're trying to put them on the campus level so that when they do need to be changed, we can change them without having to go through a contracted, long process that ultimately ends up off campus at the BOR," said Good.

"What we are trying to do with the Statutes is provide GC&SU with the ability to grow and maneuver and adjust without having to get the BOR involved in the minute fine details," said University Senator and chair elect of staff council Neil Jones. "For us it's just as a waste of time in a way if we say 'hey we want to move one person off this committee or add two people to it, due to university growth,' and it doesn't make sense for us to have to contact the BOR." 

One aspect of change that has been mentioned for the future of University Senate is the lack of student representation. 

Current SGA Secretary and President Elect Sarah Johnson said she thinks the lack of student representation needs to be addressed. 

"There is only one voting member that is a student and that is Loman Martin, the president of SGA," said Johnson. "University Senate is really trying to evolve right now. It's just the evolution that I really am concerned about with University Senate because if it is solely a faculty board then it doesn't make sense that it's the sole policy making body for the University."

Good said that addressing the student representation issue is not possible right now.

"First of all we have to go through the approval process for Statutes and right now we are really just concentrating on that," Good said. "We are taking it one step at a time." 

According to Good, there are three future steps to approving the new Statutes.

"First of all, there is senate approval. Then it goes to faculty approval. Ultimately the President (Leland) approves the policy changes and then the recommendations go to the BOR for their approval," said Good. "The current Statutes are in place until the BOR agrees to any revision."

Although revising the Statutes does not directly change student representation, there will be positive outcomes for all groups of people represented on campus if the proposed documents are approved, Good said. 

"We feel that this will create greater involvement of the campus community and what goes into policy, and what we will also have is an opportunity for persons to be empowered to have a say in what goes to the president as a recommendation for policy," Good said. 

Adding more student representatives is not up for revision yet, Jones said, but the future for University Senate is unknown.

"Will there be increased student representation? That's not determined in the Statutes right now. That's determined in the University Senate bylaws and the bylaws are yet to be developed. But that is all apart of that process which is ongoing," Jones said. "Not at any point in this venture is any one trying to be excluded, and I think that in essence it's more of an inclusion of people to input the opportunity of change. Each one of the three groups, faculty, staff and students are dependent upon the other and that is what we are trying to do- create a document or a process structure that helps foster that growth and camaraderie."

Now that the proposed Institutional Statutes have been approved by the University Senate, faculty members will vote on this issue March 28.