coe-staff: FW: [UO Senate 2014/15] [Senate:] An Urgent Matter re: UniversityPolicy-Making

[Deborah Olson]

My sincere apologies for clogging your mailbox with my mistake, here's my full message:

Hello again - here is our next crisis and it really is pretty bad.  I am forwarding Senate President Kyr's message concerning the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday.  They will entertain a policy to replace existing policies concerning the Senate role in, what else? Policy development.  The Senate role is being replaced by a Policy Advisory Council selected by the president. The resolution would remove the requirement that the university president respond within a constitutionally-mandated period to policy statements made by the Senate and that the university president make a public accounting to the Senate when s/he rejects a policy; remove the provision that, in case of a presidential veto, the Faculty Assembly can be invoked; and require the president to develop a new policy-making process with some requirements, all of which the Board can choose to not follow.

Please see his links below to read full texts.  President Kyr is holding an emergency Senate Executive council meeting today at 5 in Music 178.  This is a public meeting and anyone can attend.  Attendance at the Board meeting, Thursday at 8 am in the Ford Ballroom is also very desirable.  The thing that amazes me is that the BOT policy states a desirability for a transparent, public process to policy development and the presentation of this resolution has been anything but that.  The campus community found out about it when the Board's agenda and documents were placed on line Friday afternoon.  Since the Senate represents instructional faculty, research faculty, officers of administration, classified staff and student, this is an historic change in shared governance at this university.

I also wanted to follow up my communication concerning the Academic Integrity Task Force.  With lightning speed they met with administrators and issued a report.  It can be found at the Senate website: http://senate.uoregon.edu/sites/senate.uoregon.edu/files/AITFRecommendation-%2012.7.14_Final.pdf   I have my fingers crossed that the gtff strike will end soon and grading can return to normal procedures.

Once again, I am sorry that my fingers slipped when putting this email together - deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: uosenate2014_2015-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu [mailto:uosenate2014_2015-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu] On Behalf Of rkyr
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2014 9:30 AM
To: uosenate2014_2015 at lists.uoregon.edu
Cc: uosenateexec2014_2015 at lists.uoregon.edu
Subject: [UO Senate 2014/15] [Senate:] An Urgent Matter re: University Policy-Making

To: University Senate

 From: Robert Kyr, President

RE: Board of Trustees Motion;
Change in University Policy-Making Procedure

I am writing to inform the Senate about an important motion that will be presented to the Board of Trustees at their meeting this week. On Friday, December 12, 2014, the board will discuss and vote upon the "Adoption of a Policy on the Development and Revision of University Policies." This motion will significantly change our University Constitution and redefine the role of the Senate in shared governance as it pertains to the making of university policy.

You may access the text for the motion, which was first posted on Friday, December 5, 2014, by following this link:

http://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees1.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/field/image/Full%20BOT%20Notice%20and%20Materials%20120414%20-%20r.pdf

The text of the motion is on page 7 of the document and Exhibit A "shall supersede all related and existing University authorities, policies, and procedures, to the extent they are inconsistent with the Policy on University Policies or would otherwise materially alter it, subject to the Board’s retention of authority to adopt, revise, or repeal any University policy by independent Board action."

The University Constitution was unanimously ratified by the Statutory Faculty at the Faculty Assembly that was called on December 7, 2011. The section of the Constitution related to policy-making is on pages 9-11, which may be accessed through the following link:

http://senate.uoregon.edu/sites/senate.uoregon.edu/files/Constitution%20of%20the%20UODec_15_2011.pdf

After convening the Senate Executive Committee at 5:00 pm on Monday, December 8 (place TBA), I will be in touch with you as soon as I have further news to report. In the meantime, I strongly urge you to become familiar with the documents that I have cited above.








_______________________________________________
Uosenate2014_2015 mailing list
Uosenate2014_2015 at lists.uoregon.edu
https://lists.uoregon.edu/mailman/listinfo/uosenate2014_2015