UA faculty wants more involvement in reorganization plan
by Renee Schafer Horton on Oct. 07, 2008, under Education, LocalConcerns about a lack of faculty involvement in the University of Arizona proposed reorganization arose at Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting.
A number of senators said although they were supportive of the UA Transformation Plan, they were hearing from their constituents that too little had been done to get faculty involved in the process, which was announced less than six weeks ago.
Deans, department heads and interdisciplinary groups have been asked to submit three-page White Papers to the provost’s office by Oct. 13 detailing ideas to reorganize their units to become more efficient and enhance the quality of programs offered.
“There has been too little meaningful faculty involvement in some quarters,” said Glenn Songer, a professor of veterinary science and microbiology. “It is a habitual thing in some colleges. I don’t oppose the process of change, but there is far too much middle management and heavy handedness going on.”
Thomas Kovach, professor of German Studies, agreed and asked Provost and Executive Vice President Meredith Hay to set up a blog on the transformation Web site that would allow faculty comment.
“Despite the best intentions, it will happen that substantial portions of the faculty won’t be represented in these (White Papers),” Kovach said. “A blog would offer an opportunity to go on the record . . . so if there’s a significant trend in faculty sentiment, that can be noted.”
Hay agreed to set up a forum for comment once the White Papers are published on the site, which she said could be as soon as Monday.
UA President Robert N. Shelton stressed that now “isn’t the final or most substantive opportunity to comment” on the proposals. Once the papers are turned in, they will be reviewed by a 16-member university subcommittee that will send the most promising proposals to Hay and Shelton by Nov. 3. Then, from Nov. 3 to Dec. 15, those proposals will be vetted by faculty, students, staff and appointed personnel before they are developed into final proposals forwarded to the central administration.
Also at the meeting, Shelton gave a report about the planned $68 million for building repairs and maintenance, which is hung up in the Legislature. The money is from the $1 billion Stimulus Plan for Economic And Educational Development, or SPEED, passed by the Legislature in June.
SPEED requires bonds to be sold and has to be reviewed by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Capital Review before the university can do so. The committee on Thursday declined to review the SPEED projects, as well as UA’s plan to build two dorms on Sixth Street.
“They don’t have to approve, but they have to review, and they declined to,” Shelton said. “So we are dead in the water . . . even though the dorms have no tie-in to state funds.” Dorms are funded by rental fees charged students.
He encouraged UA senators to call Sen. Robert Burns, R-Peoria, Senate appropriations committee chairman and a member of the review committee. Shelton told students in attendance that each month the dorms are not built results in a 1 percent increase in cost that will be passed on to students through higher dorm rental fees.
Burns said in a phone interview from his Phoenix office Monday that “everything is back on the table” in regard to capital projects and because of the current economic downturn “we need to advance with extreme caution.”
“We’re facing a $300 million reduction in revenue in the first three months of this (fiscal) year,” Burns said. “We have to rethink the use of our lottery revenue. Maybe it doesn’t need to go to these projects right now but something else.”
SPEED bonds would be repaid, in part, by lottery revenues, which are down by about 13 percent, according to a legislative budget report. Burns voted against the budget that included the SPEED package.
