Board of Trustees Chair Presents Governance Review at Faculty Senate Meeting

Senate passes resolution to Faculty Organization Plan.

September 12, 2015

Nelson Carbonell

Board of Trustees Chair Nelson Carbonell addresses Faculty Senate. (William Atkins/GW Today)

Nelson Carbonell, chair of the George Washington University Board of Trustees, addressed the Faculty Senate on Friday regarding activities related to faculty governance, highlighting important steps of the university’s multi-year process to revise the Faculty Code and Faculty Organization Plan.

“Our efforts have led to a stronger, more collaborative shared governance system at GW than any time in our nearly 200-year history,” Mr. Carbonell said of the two-year process to strengthen shared governance at the university. “I think we have ushered in a new era of collaboration among the board, the faculty, the Faculty Senate and the administration, which I believe will help GW achieve the aspirations we all share.”

The board passed three resolutions in June aimed at aligning shared governance with the university’s Vision 2021 strategic plan. Over the summer, Mr. Carbonell said, the board also commissioned a follow-up study comparing GW’s shared governance to that of peer institutions. That study is ongoing, he said.

The resolutions approved in June came out of recommendations put together by four working groups regarding principles for future university governance outlined in spring 2014: dean’s search and review procedures; appointment, promotion and tenure among university faculty; school rules and procedures; and participation on the Faculty Senate.

A senate resolution

The first of those board resolutions, concerning senate participation, allows all tenured, regular contract and specialized faculty who have attained the rank of associate professor to serve on the senate. It also called for George Washington President Steven Knapp to introduce it for Faculty Assembly consideration in October.

On Friday, the senate passed a separate resolution regarding participation, seeking to allow senate membership to faculty members who have completed at least three years of full-time academic service to the university and who are either tenured faculty members or regular, full-time faculty members who have attained the rank of associate professor or higher. It also calls for a provision that at least half of the faculty members of the senate from each school are tenured faculty members.

Both resolutions represent a change from the current Faculty Organization Plan, which allows only full-time, tenured faculty to serve in the Faculty Senate. Both will be presented for consideration to the Faculty Assembly, though the method for doing so has not yet been decided, Dr. Knapp said Friday.

A collaborative process

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Chair Charles Garris provided thoughts similar to Mr. Carbonell’s on Friday regarding shared governance.

“Shared governance remains strong,” Dr. Garris said. “The Faculty Senate remains strong and influential in university affairs. We’ve been involved in this from the beginning. We’ve been working hard. There is still work to do and some difficult issues remain that we have to take care of, but it’s likely this will be finished this year.”

Dr. Knapp said that the level of cooperation between the board and the senate was likely unprecedented in GW’s 194-year history.

“Having spent more than a decade at two institutions, each, and now being in my ninth year here at George Washington, I’ve never seen a process in which a governing board received as much detailed input from the elected faculty body as has occurred in this case,” he said. “We’re talking multiple hours of consultation, multiple hours of discussion. The character of the process, from my perspective, was uniquely collaborative.”

Also at Friday’s meeting:

The senate held a moment of silence at the beginning of the meeting for Linda Sue Campbell, the former senate coordinator, who died in June. Dr. Garris took time during his remarks to remember Ms. Campbell for her 21 years of service to the senate. He also acknowledged the June passing of Professor of English and American Studies James Miller. Dr. Miller had been at GW since 1998.

Dr. Knapp took time in his remarks to recognize Provost Steven Lerman, who is stepping down from his administrative post in December, and to highlight GW’s annual Freshman Day of Service and Convocation, held Saturday as a kickoff to the academic semester.