At today’s meeting in Bascom Hall, the Faculty Senate will vote on this resolution submitted by the Sociology Department. Unless we are completely misreading faculty sentiment across campus, it will likely pass by a large margin and will thereby reassert the faculty’s commitment to the tradition of shared governance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In response to faculty concerns voiced here and elsewhere, Chancellor Biddy Martin has already conceded that the Graduate School restructuring must be delayed until after the ad hoc committees return their reports on the research enterprise. In a very narrow sense, then, the resolution is moot.
Nevertheless, we believe it is very important that the Faculty Senate vote for the resolution in overwhelming numbers. Such a vote would send the following messages:
- it is not just a small but vocal minority of the faculty that have been deeply troubled by the provost’s apparent disregard for shared governance, and
- we will be watching very closely how the administration responds to the reports of the ad hoc committees when they become available.
We urge faculty readers of this page to communicate your views on the resolution to your Senator before the Faculty Senate meeting this afternoon at 3:30.
- the Editors