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Merriam |
University Council will again this year be called on to deal with a number of critical issues but, according to the new chair, the most pressing may well be faculty’s lack of interest in the workings of Council.
Jim Merriam agreed to let his name stand for chair only after two calls by Council’s nominating committee failed to produce any candidates. As he said in a recent interview with On Campus News, “no one wanted to do it.”
The committee approached Merriam personally and then needed to change Council’s bylaws to allow it to bring forward a candidate’s name when calls for nominees fail. That bylaw change, and approval of Merriam’s nomination, took place at the Sept. 21 meeting but the chair sees the lack of candidates as an indication of faculty apathy toward the body that deals with academic issues relating to University operations.
“What course to take and how to fix it I’m not sure,” he said, “but we have to re-engage faculty.” Merriam, who has served on Council for three years, including time on the programs committee, said the nominating committee “doesn’t want to be saddled with finding people to serve. Everybody’s got a job already, everybody’s busy…(but) what if we had a Council meeting now and no one showed up?”
Merriam believes Council needs “a win” to attract the attention of faculty members. “I’d like an issue to come along that faculty see as important and see Council doing something of great value to them. I think we’re not pro-active enough. There’s very little that Council actually initiates.”
It might help, he said, if issues are brought to Council as discussion items earlier than in the past. One example is the faculty compliment plan which has been in the works for some time “but I don’t even know what the guiding principles (for its development) are. Council needs earlier involvement in how the people putting it together are thinking.”
The lack of interest in serving on Council has also created in imbalance of representation, he said. Although he praised the work they are doing, Merriam pointed out that Commerce faculty are “overrepresented on key committees” despite the nominating committee’s efforts to create equity among disciplines.
While he is confident those currently serving set aside their college affiliations to handle Council activities, the reasons for the imbalance need to be examined, he said. “This lack of interest hurts us."
Looking ahead to the coming year, Merriam said that in addition to the faculty compliment plan, some of the major issues Council will deal with are the re-tooling of the student evaluation system, the Teaching and Learning Foundational Document, proposals for at least one if not two of the schools outlined in the Integrated Plan (public policy, environment and health) and the University’s chairs program.
He also expects Council to discuss the disposition of small enrolment programs “of which mine is one.” Before accepting the top post, the geophysics professor made it clear that when this issue comes up for discussion, “I will step out (of the chair) so I can speak.”
Merriam, who will serve only one year to accommodate a sabbatical in 2007-08, chaired his first meeting Oct. 19.
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