Governance Council
Monday, April 16, 2012
10:30 AM
UNH 306
Andi Lyons, Chair
Minutes
Present:
Liang Chu, Cynthia Fox, Donald Keenan, Danielle Leonard, Andi Lyons, John
Schmidt, Joette Stefl-Mabry, Daniel White
The meeting convened at 10:39 am.
CHAIR’S REPORT
Chair Lyons informed GOV members that UPPC has not submitted a recommendation for one its members to
serve on the committee to be established as outlined in Resolution 1112-05R. Chair Lyons will address the
issue at today’s SEC meeting.
Chair Lyons asked for a nomination of a GOV member to serve on the Committee on Council Nomination
which is responsible for forming the council slates for the coming year. The council meets on April 20.
Senator Keenan said he was available at that time and was nominated and elected by acclimation.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of March 19 were approved without change.
NEW BUSINESS:
Task Force Composition for the Feasibility Study Regarding a Smoke-Free Campus
Chair Lyons opened the discussion and noted that ULC has been obtaining feedback on a proposal for a smokefree campus environment. In a follow up to a request to establish a task force to address the issue, President
Philip has made recommendations to the Senate via the Governance Council of ten individuals to serve on the
task force as well as 11 representatives from additional stakeholder groups for GOV to consider. Chair Lyons
has asked ULC Chair Gulatee for her council to provide some names of suitable representatives. Chair Lyons
will also raise the matter at today’s SEC meeting but asked GOV to consider names for the 11 additional groups
and to review the names suggested by President Philip. Senator Keenan pointed out there was no presentation
from Residential Life. Having served on ULC, he said past discussions included concerns with the student
populations and disciplinary actions which would require representation from Student Success as well. Senator
White said the ratio of administrative to non-administrative representation needs to be addressed to ensure a
balanced task force. Chair Lyons said she would submit these as friendly suggestions. A motion was made to
approve the preliminary membership of the task force with additional representation from Residential Life and
Student Success. The motion was seconded and approved by a vote.
Senate Resolution 1112-03R Investigation Draft Report discussion
Chair Lyons said the goal today was to obtain some consensus on the draft report on whether there were
violations of governance procedures in the 2010 program deactivations. She opened the discussion to members.
Senator Fox began the discussion and said this should be taken as an opportunity to look very closely at what
we do as a senators and what the administration does as administrators. She expressed concern about being
advisory to the administration and that the senate’s opinion does not matter and we need to make sure that it
does matter. The Senate has a role to play and if there were failures on the part of the administration there were
probably failures on the part of the Senate. Senator Fox referred to the message from the vice provost sent on
the eve of the decision to deactivate five programs and said there was no suggestion that the decision was
presented on advisement. After students became upset and the vice provost reversed her decision, the provost
came forward to explain the events. Senator Fox did not feel the decisions were well thought out but believed
governance needed to assume some responsibility for what happened. She noted the lack of response from the
president and in the spirit of shared governance she did not believe procedures were properly followed. Senator
Stefl-Mabry was in agreement. She said if ultimately what the Senate does is just advisement it’s a bit of
charade. She added that the faculty needs to be respected for their viewpoints in order to maintain a purpose for
continuing to engage in conversations with the administrations.
Chair Lyons provided supporting history to the events leading up to announcement of the deactivations. The
entire membership of UPPC was on BAG4 with the exception of a graduate student and one other faculty
member. UPPC’s membership was also part of BAG3. She said Senator Fox’s point was well taken but GOV
had a specific resolution that needs to be addressed. She hoped that bringing different points of view together
would make it easier to address the issue. Senator Schmidt added that while UAC would have been the normal
channel for deactivations to go through, it was not formally incorporated into specific responses that were made
to the administration.
GOV members discussed the response the Senate received from the administration which included a response
concerning minors but not the other deactivations. Chair Lyons said there are no guidelines in the Bylaws about
how the administrations should respond. The response was received in writing but Senator Fox acknowledged
that providing a statement that minors would be retained and savings would have to be found elsewhere was not
a very detailed response. Chair Lyons and Senator Fox discussed meetings with the CAS Dean and the Counsel
of Chairs leading up to the deactivations. From Senator Fox’s view, BAG did not make the decision about
which programs to cut but rather it was a decision made by the CAS Dean in consultation with the Counsel of
Chairs. She continued, saying that if the intent is to concentrate on the role of the Senate, the Senate did not
have a role in selecting the programs that were cut. She added that is not what our Bylaws suggest. Senator
Schmidt added that much of the Senate’s objections were not about the decisions made by the dean but that cuts
to non-CAS or non-academic programs should be deeper. Chair Lyons said the budget situation at the time was
dire and the results could have been much worse. As things are now, the cuts have ceased but the budget gap
still exists. She said she believed the administration’s decision was data driven but we now have a culture of
paranoia as demonstrated at the last Senate meeting in the reaction to the general education bill that was passed.
Chair Lyons said it’s important to find a way for both sides to move on together and to regain trust on both
sides.
Senator White referred to the address delivered to the Senate by UFS President Kenneth O’Brien. Dr. O’Brien
advised on the importance of transparency through a clearly understood process of consultation. He further
advised on setting the criteria and then walking away from the final decision making process. Senator White
said that part of transparency might have been missing in our circumstance.
Chair Lyons described an exercise conducted during the final meeting of BAG4. All of the members were
given sticky notes. The notes were to be applied to areas of lower priority if the budget were to remain the
same and then apply them to areas investment if the money existed to do so. In theory everyone made
independent decisions but there were clear areas where people felt investment should be made and places not to
invest. There was some commonality in assessing areas of strengths and weaknesses.
As the discussion came to a close, the status of the report was still unclear. Chair Lyons pointed out there was
one more scheduled meeting before the last Senate meeting and the report could be presented at that time. She
suggested the possibility of meeting again on April 30 but to also continue the conversation via email and
reminded everyone that the charge is to make a full investigation of the administrative actions. Much of what’s
been charged in the resolution has been accomplished in large part by BAG4 and the strategic plan
implementation committee. GOV needs to address whether or not violations occurred and not whether the
procedures could have been done better. She added that BAG 2 and 3 were properly constituted and GOV was
asked to approve the constitution of BAG4. The administration talked with many people across the campus in
open forums and town hall meetings in a show of both formal and informal consultations.
GOV agreed the task was overwhelming and considered the need to address the many issues to make it a
satisfactory response. Chair Lyons said it would not be put to a vote but will be presented as a report. Because
it would be too overwhelming for one person to handle it was suggested putting it in a drop box folder so
everyone could have input. Chair Lyons said the larger issues have been discussed and now the group could
begin to focus on fine tuning the documents. She thanked everyone for their frank and open comments.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 12:16 pm.
Respectfully submitted by
Gail Cameron, Recorder