Professors bote to abolish yearly meetings of full Faculty Senate

The Senate Executive Committee voted yesterday to formally abolish the annual faculty meeting. SEC sent out ballots to all faculty members earlier this semester to address the fact that only a small fraction of the University's professors have attended the meetings in recent years. Senate Secretary Carolyn Burdon tallied the votes, which called for an end to the annual meeting by a margin of 308 to 288. Senate Chairperson and Education Professor Peter Kuriloff said he was surprised the vote was so close. "Even though they don't come, they want the right not to come," he added, referring to the small number of faculty who had attended Senate meetings. In place of full Faculty Senate meetings, the faculty has delegated the task of representing its collective opinion to SEC. "[The motion] essentially recommends that the Senate -- which used to be a body of the whole -- has now become a representative body," Kuriloff said. According to Political Science Professor Jack Nagel, the Senate "is much too large for a straight democracy" and it is difficult to get professors to go to the meetings. Nagel, who is also the Senate's secretary-elect, added that the full Faculty Senate of about 2,000 professors "rarely" makes quorum. SEC also discussed the National Collegiate Athletics Association review reports.