The old adage of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” does not apply to Loyola’s current committee structure. As major committees have grown in size over the years numerous ad hoc committees have sprouted creating a tangled mess of bypassed proceedings, isolated parent committees and a diluted overall arrangement.
“I am so tired of being on committees that do not function,” said the Rev. Robert Gerlich at the Sept. 11 Faculty Senate meeting. “It is an insult to the faculty to drag them to committees that do not function again and again, year after year.”
Provost Ed Kvet, vice president of academic affairs, has proposed a “one-year experiment” to enhance efficiency through committee consolidations, redefinition of purposes and member reductions.
However, some faculty have already expressed concern about their voice in the future structure.
At the senate meeting where Kvet pitched the idea, faculty representatives made sure to specify conditions regarding its eventual evaluation in May. After several members voiced concerns regarding faculty representation and transparency issues, the senate approved the plan without opposition.
Kvet attributed the inefficiencies of the current system to oversized memberships, which he intends on reducing while maintaining the representative ratios specified in the handbook. The University Budget Committee currently has 30 members with 10 representing faculty. Kvet proposes to reduce the total number to 10 members with two representing ordinary faculty. The handbook stipulates 18 members with four ordinary faculty along with the deans of each college.
Connie Rodriguez, language professor, said the former senate chairman had added faculty representation to the UBC to “bring back the voting power of faculty representation because at that point under the proliferation of members of the administration, the faculty vote was being diminished.”
“And it makes me very nervous that out of these 10 people there are only two faculty members and no deans,” she said in response to Kvet’s proposal.
Kvet said the ratio of representation within committees conformed to the handbook and that he would serve as representative to the deans as chairman of the deans’ council.
“You say that you represent the deans, but you can fire deans,” English professor Marcus Smith said. “So how can they represent themselves to you when it comes to budget matters?”
Conrad C. Raabe, political science professor, said it was important to distinguish whether membership on committees represented interests or numbered constituencies. “So long as all the segments of the university that have an interest has input, and everyone knows what that input is through a Web site, then this is not an unreasonable structure,” Raabe said. “But when the votes begin to count, then it is.”
Kvet insisted he would welcome disagreement among deans to encourage discussion and strengthen his role in committees where he represents the deans.
The plan also calls for reducing the University Planning Team to 14 members with 5 faculty. UPT currently has 33 members.
The Faculty Handbook Revision Committee will become the Working Group on Planning and will continue evaluating the university planning structure as well as reviewing changes to the handbook. The committee will retain its current membership, but will take on an additional representative from the Administrative Senate and SGA for issues related to committee planning.
The Faculty Senate approved the proposal on condition that they vote to evaluate the plan at the last meeting in the spring. This along with reports from the Working Group onPlanning will provide the Board of Trustees an overall evaluation of the new structure’s efficiency.
The process for restructuring originated last year when the faculty handbook committee chaired by Kvet began evaluating the status and role of current standing committees specified in the handbook. Their task was to identify those that needed to be revived, combined or eliminated.
With a similar mission the ad hoc University Planning Team proposed a trickle-down system where a university-wide committee would feed into the university budget committee then into the various academic and institutional committees on down.
After considering this approach, Kvet, at Gerlich’s behest, decided to streamline the current system by reducing members and combining committee roles.
Steve Heath can be reached at [email protected].