Primer for New Senators
Shared governance is an essential leadership value that requires an investment of time and conscientious work, meaningful faculty participation and shared responsibility in institutional governance, open communication, mutual trust, and respect. The faculty has the central role of participating in shared governance, whether an elected senator or not.
Expectations of Senator Roles and Responsibilities
- Represent department constituents, college, and faculty common good
- Serve as bi-directional conduit for information-sharing and eliciting input/feedback
- Department meetings-share/report (ask for standing item on department meeting agenda)
Faculty Eligibility for Nomination
- Full-time faculty members (including department chairs and school directors with, a 50% or less administrative appointment) with a minimum of three years of experience as a member of the faculty at the institution.
- Full-time librarians (with a 50% or less administrative appointment) with a minimum of three years of experience as a librarian at the institution.
Faculty Eligibility to Vote
- Full-time faculty (including department chairs and school directors with a 50% or less administrative appointment).
- Full-time librarians (with a 50% or less administrative appointment).
Faculty Senators Duties & Responsibilities
- Members are expected to attend and participate in all formally called Faculty Senate meetings and to represent their department/unit or library as informed and responsible members of the Faculty Senate.
- Members shall report the business of the Faculty Senate back to their constituencies.
- Members shall notify the Senate Secretary or President of the Faculty Senate if university business precludes them from attending a meeting of the Senate.
The Faculty Senate is the only officially recognized faculty-governance body that represents the General Faculty. It is composed of elected senators and a Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC). The latter is composed of officers elected from the pool of serving senators and representatives from each college or comparable unit.
As a governing body the Faculty Senate holds a regularly scheduled monthly meeting during the academic year and the FSEC meets and sets the Agenda for the senate meetings. The construction of the Agenda is based on numerous factors: need for policy reviews, revisions, or development; requests from the Administration; concerns brought to us by senators, faculty, SGA, standing or other committees/task forces; policy proposals; unexpected events or demands.
Senators communicate information, seek feedback and opinions, develop positions, and vote. Since within the current structure they are elected at the department or comparable unit level, senators primarily direct these efforts to and from that immediate constituency. This takes place via the “Faculty Senate Report” item in our regular departmental or unit level meetings. Senators may also reach out to faculty and seek input or information outside of the context of a regularly scheduled meeting; reasons for this may include time constraints, to ensure faculty feel comfortable to speak without concerns for retaliation, and/or because what is needed is written feedback and/or well-developed ideas that require more time than a department meeting can normally afford.
It is also important to remember that as members of a university level representative body, elected senators are entrusted by their faculty to learn, evaluate, take a position, and vote on behalf of their constituents, not always in direct consultation with constituents. When the Faculty Senate or FSEC votes or produces a document (e.g., Resolution, Policy, Report, Recommendations) it is always through an evaluative process that includes the review of knowledge sourced from Faculty Senate leadership or committee members’ participation in meetings and/or engagements with distinct efforts (e.g., the FS-President, FS Past-President, and/or FS President-Elect attending the university level meetings with members of other administrative and executive Offices and constituents, working with the UT Faculty Advisory Council and Texas Council of Faculty Senates) and based on multiple first-person or confirmed third-person accounts of events/concerns that establish patterns, accessible institutional data, documents and communications produced by other university offices, Faculty Senate’s institutional/documented memory, relevant HOP policy, Regents Rules, Texas Education Code, and established American Association of University Professors’ principles and norms, information or directives from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, SACSCOC Accreditation Agency, etc.
As a university level body, the Faculty Senate works on behalf of the General Faculty as an essential pillar of what makes our institution one of higher education. The General Faculty’s authority in the governance of UTRGV lies in our peer recognized scholarly mastery and production of knowledge, capacity to teach it to students and transfer it in the service of the public. Therefore, a senator’s responsibility includes but is never limited to the interests of their individual department or comparable units alone.