‘In the thick of things’– Chair of Faculty Senate discusses upcoming academic year

Randall Teal took the nomination as chair of Faculty Senate to learn more about the issues, as well as to represent the College of Art and Architecture.

“I like sort of being on the front end of what”s going on at the university and being able to not only have awareness of that but hopefully to have an influence on certain things,” Teal said.

Teal began his career teaching at UI in 2006 and started his involvement with Faculty Senate in 2012. Last year he served as vice chair, and said when he received  the nomination to be the chair for this year he embraced the opportunity for all of the challenges and rewarding aspects the position would bring.

“There”s extra stresses involved with it in terms of just bringing all the issues to bear and trying to negotiate them and so on,” he said. “But at the same time, I sort of like being in the thick of things.”

As an overarching theme through the year, Teal said Faculty Senate is looking to address under appreciation among faculty and staff members. Issues like advancement, the treatment of adjunct

faculty and family leave all tie back to the low morale at UI, he said.

Teal pinpointed the faculty evaluation process as another blow to faculty and staff morale.

“Several years ago it was said that we expect excellent teaching,” he said. “And therefore if you”re seen as an excellent teacher you get a “3.” Meaning that since we expect excellence that”s satisfactory, which is sort of, if nothing else, demoralizing.”

As a professor specializing mostly in areas of design, Teal said he is able to look at these  problems facing UI in different ways.

Teal said funding is yet another obstacle for the university, and UI overall needs to be scrappy when it comes to finance issues.

Through his time teaching design courses, Teal has learned how to prioritize the budgets for different projects, and said he thinks this skill could transfer over into his work on bigger university issues.

“Overall you”re trying to make something great,” Teal said. “But it”s not great because all the parts are completely high end. It”s  going to be great because of the way they cohere as a whole.”

Teal hopes to work with Faculty Senate to negotiate with different groups at UI, even if the different groups don”t necessarily have the same priorities that Faculty Senate has.

“Right now it seems like really improving the sense of pride about being a part of the University of Idaho is probably an important thing,” Teal said.

Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer

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