Profs may vote to abolish annual meetings of full Faculty Senate

Faced with low turnout in past years, faculty members may vote to abolish the yearly meeting of the full Faculty Senate. With about 2,000 faculty members, the body almost never reaches quorum, said Political Science Professor Jack Nagel, the Senate's secretary-elect. In recent years, the Senate Executive Committee, a 55-member group, has represented the collective opinion of the faculty to the administration, according to Senate Chairperson Peter Kuriloff, an Education professor. The motion to end the annual full Faculty Senate meetings would effectively make the Executive Committee the faculty's voice. Ballots on the motion have been distributed to all faculty members and will be tallied soon. "[The motion] essentially recommends that the Senate -- which used to be a body of the whole -- has now become a representative body," said Kuriloff, who serves as chairperson with two others, the past chair and the chair-elect. He added that the faculty "town meeting" made sense in the past when the University had fewer professors and moved at a "slower pace." Senate participation dipped to 10 percent last year, according to Statistics Professor David Hildebrand, a former Senate chairperson. "What's happened is that the faculty at-large have delegated most of the responsibility to SEC," former Senate Chairperson Gerald Porter said. Porter, a Math professor, said most faculty members are more concerned with their research and teaching than administrative responsibilities. And many professors seem to think the time is ripe for a change. Although the Senate technically includes every professor at the University, SEC is limited to constituency representatives from each school and a finite number of at-large members. In contrast to the low turnout at Faculty Senate meetings, SEC's attendance at its closed monthly meetings is "usually pretty good," Nagel said. According to Nagel, the referendum will create a more efficient system since the Senate is "much too large for a straight democracy." "It's very difficult to get people to want to go to those meetings unless there are extraordinary circumstances," he added. Provost Stanley Chodorow said the Senate plays a major role in representing the faculty on issues that affect the faculty and University as a whole. Chodorow added that the Senate's role is often advisory because "the central administration usually deals with school faculties through the deans." Because each of the 12 schools controls its own curriculum and admissions, Kuriloff said Penn's Faculty Senate plays a "different" role than other faculty-governing bodies at other universities. He added that the three Senate chairs regularly meet with University President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow to advise the administration on pertinent issues.