Communication was a recurring topic of conversation as the University of Idaho Faculty Senate met for the first time this academic year.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Faculty Senate Chair Patrick Hrdlicka made communication a primary focus during his chair report.
“Communicating to our constituents is absolutely critical,” Hrdlicka said. “In surveys we have seen that people are somewhat disgruntled with shared governments and I think a large component of that has to do with communicating what goes on in the committees and in this body to our constituents.”
Faculty Secretary Liz Brandt will now provide senators with a brief synopsis of talking points before meetings for distribution to their constituents in their prospective colleges and departments. This way, if constituents have questions or ideas they want addressed they can contact their representative before the weekly meeting.
The Chair’s report also included short introductions from the senators, as there are a number of new members of Faculty Senate this year. The chair report also included a short description of the Faculty Senate’s duty to the university and their different groups of constituents.
“Faculty Senate’s role is to review and not to redo the work of other committees … I do want us to think holistically about the good of the university and try to avoid any faculty versus administration mentality,” Hrdlicka said. “We’re here to be representatives of staff, faculty and students and we should be thinking holistically about the good of the university.”
UI Executive Vice President and Provost John Wiencek introduced various conversation topics that will likely be on the senate agenda this semester. Among these topics were funding market based compensation for faculty and staff. Wiencek said the gap between current pay and market based compensation is especially large for staff members compared to the pay gap for faculty members.
Wiencek also mentioned increased compensation for teaching assistants, and the possibility of an in-state tuition waiver for them. The issue, he said, would be a multi-year project and will be discussed in greater detail at future meetings.
Another item of business Brandt addressed, like her colleagues, was communication. Brandt specifically spoke on communication between committees and the senate, saying it’s easier to implement a policy passed by a committee when they give the senate advanced notice of a potential policy.
Brandt also stressed the importance of senators reaching out to their constituents via email or personal interaction.
“We’re depending upon you all (the Faculty Senate) to be part of our communication link,” Brandt said. “I think the best communication is local.”
Brandt said The Great Colleges Survey gave the UI’s faculty governance low marks, a finding Brandt disagrees with. He said a lack of communication between the senate members and their colleagues was the reason for the low marks. Brandt described communication as a key stepping stone for the Faculty Senate to become a more prominent force in campus policy.
“We can be a nominal rubber stamp or we can be a vibrant, engaged process and entity on campus that is playing an important role in the development of policy for our campus,” Brandt said. That means we all have to work on getting our colleagues engaged and keeping them engaged on these issues as we work through them.”
Elizabeth Marshall can be reached at [email protected]