The IU Bloomington Faculty Council hosts its meetings at Franklin Hall.
(FILE PHOTO: WTIU News)
At its February meeting, the IU Board of Trustees passed a new rule for how university policies are approved.
While the university said it will make policymaking more efficient, some professors fear the administration could use it to block any attempt by faculty government to pass policies it doesn’t like.
Previously, authority to approve policies lay with multiple groups, including the trustees, university faculty council, president or vice president whose responsibilities overlap with the policy.
Under the revised rules for policy UA-08 (Policy Development, Revision, and Retirement), a new committee is responsible for approving any changes to that code that faculty government wants to make. The Policy Executive Committee consists almost entirely of the president’s cabinet and her appointees.
A press release after last month’s trustee meeting said the policy was based on recommendations from the University Faculty Council co-chairs who President Pamela Whitten charged with reevaluating the existing process.
Speaking to the Board of Trustees last month, UFC co-chair Philip Goff said the old policy structure was messy, and the changes represent positive collaboration with his colleagues.
“This is long overdue, and I want to thank the president for working with us, hearing our rationale for various moves, and keeping faith in us that we would produce something that builds on the shared governance of the university,” he said.
Like other universities, IU is nominally run through the process of shared governance, a principle that the faculty, president and trustees play an equal role determining its course.
The previous version of UA-08 said new policies should be adopted in accordance with the principles of shared governance. The phrase “shared governance” has been removed from the policy.
In the past few years faculty and administrators have rarely seen eye to eye. At a meeting of the Bloomington Faculty Council – an elected faculty group that creates policy on campus – some attendees expressed doubts.
The other UFC co-chair and President of the Bloomington Faculty Council Danielle DeSawal responded that three seats on the committee are reserved for faculty. She said that during the old process, policies had to be reviewed by a council of administrators anyway.
“What has changed is an emphasis around transparency and more, not less, faculty engagement,” she said.
But faculty still would form a three-person minority on a board consisting of more than 12 members. As written, the committee is able to expand with “others designated by the president.”
When asked who those additional members might be, how they’re chosen and when they’re appointed, DeSawal said that would be a question for the trustees.
Besides gatekeeping new policies at a university level, the revised policy gives chancellors the authority to review policies passed by campus faculty governments as well.
No such barrier exists for policies passed by the Board of Trustees, which the new language of UA-08 says “may only be modified or rescinded with the approval of the Board of Trustees.”
