Chris Banyas
Staff Writer
After several years of conflict and reorganization, the Idaho State University Faculty Senate is finally getting back to business.
A reorganization of many of the colleges at ISU, and the way it was handled was a major incident leading to the conflict.
“Whenever you have new administration come in, whether it’s a business or a university, there are things they want to have done somewhat differently,” said Sarah Knudson, co-chair of the ISU Faculty Senate. “So I think a lot of the upset came from that.”
Knudson served on the faculty senate from 2008-2010 and her current term began in the fall of 2012. She became co-chair in fall of 2013.
In Feb. 2011, a vote of no confidence in President Arthur Vailas was upheld by the majority of faculty members who participated.
“There was just a lot of discontent and a feeling that perhaps the administration wasn’t listening to faculty input, even though they were providing it,” said Knudson.
The vote of no confidence never had the power to make direct changes but historically these votes have brought about change.
“In theory, a vote of no confidence should be something that sends a clear message, and in fact the president prior, President Bowen, actually resigned within a week of a no confidence vote,” said Knudson. “It can be damaging to an institution. Who wants to come visit? Who wants to come teach at a university where that’s the problem?”
After the vote, the State Board of Education backed Vailas and a new senate was elected with several restrictions in Oct. 2012.
“In the state of Idaho, and I think it’s something that a lot of people misunderstand, the State Board of Education is the boss,” said Knudson. “The president is directly under them, and then everyone who works for the university is under the president.”
Several elections and several years later, the senate has undergone changes but is still working hard to serve the faculty and ultimately the university.
“At one point in time there were restrictions about who could be on the senate and who could serve,” said Knudson. “The colleges elected and sent in new representatives for this academic year and to my knowledge there were no restrictions given.”
One change that came after the senate shake-up involved human resources information.
“The senate doesn’t have any human resources personal type information,” said Knudson. “It used to be that the senate was involved if a faculty member had a grievance. The senate was in the know and they got the documentation.”
Knudson is hopeful that the senate will still be approved to help provide members for appeals boards.
Another major change affecting the senate deals with who they report to.
“The faculty senate used to report directly to the president of the university,” said Knudson.
Reorganization brought about major changes in that protocol.
“The faculty senate is now under the office of the provost, and the provost is in charge of all academic affairs.”
Prior to the reorganization, all committees and councils at ISU reported directly to the faculty senate.
“This no longer occurs. The faculty senate is somewhat less centralized but this also frees the senate from having to discuss and approve pages upon pages of minutes from other councils,” said Knudson.
Recently, the senate has been focusing on dealing with many outdated policies that remain on the books, some of them 10 to 15 years old.
Newly elected senators have worked hard to fill the shoes of those who came before.
“I think that the morale among senators has been good as a group,” said Knudson. “This year we have some new faces who weren’t there last year and I think it continues to be positive. The senators are bringing information back from their constituents.”
In addition to rebuilding policies and filling out the ranks, the senate has worked hard to rebuild its image.
“I feel like we’ve tried to regain the trust of people who felt very negatively about faculty senate and its role,” said Knudson. “The reality is we all work here, we all work together and I think that faculty would rather have some say in what happens and how things work rather than no say at all, and if you refuse to participate that’s what happens, you’re just out of the loop.”
