TCAC
Index of Commentaries
| UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON |
April 23, 1999
Dear Vandra:
May I ask that your and our colleagues on the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs review this proposal for the establishment of a tri-campus conference of faculty leaders. I hope that you will find it (or a revised version of it) acceptable for recommendation to the Senate in the near future. With the current stage in the evolution of the relations among the three UW campuses, I think it is timely that the faculty take a more direct role n articulating the level of interaction we would expect on our side of "shared governance" at this institution. The administration has already established an advisory body (chaired by Norm Rose) to deal with the practical issues affecting the inter-relations among our three campuses. I hope you will find this current proposal an acceptable means of ensuring that on matters of inter-campus policy the faculty of the three campuses will be able to have a means of discussing and bringing to the Senate matters of concern to them as faculty of these now-"federated" institutions.
The proposal for a tri-campus faculty "conference" was reviewed briefly in its nascent stages by the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs, and it now returns with a request for its formal consideration for Class A amendment of the Faculty Code. The revised proposal has been produced by the faculty organizations of the two branch campuses, under the leadership of the Joint Branch Campus Faculty Council. The general spirit and language of the proposed revision of Chapter 21 of the Faculty Code is intended to establish in the Code a formal place for an heir to the Joint Branch Campus Faculty Council. This Council has recently ceded it authority as the deans' advisory body for tenure and promotion matters to elected faculty bodies at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma. But there is continuing need for liaison amount faculty of the three UW campuses; indeed, one might even argue that this sort of interaction is even more important as we have moved to the present "federal" system.
We have, therefore, designed this new body to re-establish the more equal partnership among the three campuses that existed in the earlier stages of the Joint Council. In recent years, this latter has become almost entirely a Bothell-Tacoma body, with minimal representation of colleagues on the Seattle Campus. We have also opted for a new title, "conference," to recognize the structurally distinct role we see this body playing as a representative of the faculty. We avoided "council" as its title to avoid confusion with other faculty, or college, councils, and we see the Tri-Campus Faculty Conference as maintaining a distinct relationship to the UW Faculty Senate, and to the Faculty of the three campuses.
I'm sure that members of the UW Bothell and UW Tacoma faculty organizations and of the Joint Council would welcome an opportunity to discuss this matter with you and the FCFA. And, as usual, I am very happy to be included in your deliberations of these matters.
I hope you can move with some speed to review this proposal and forward it to the Senate for action.
Sincerely,
Miceal F. Vaughn
| Cc: |
Theodore Kaltsounis, Chair, Faculty Senate Gerry Philipsen, Vice Chair, Faculty Senate Mary Coney, Vice-Chair Elect, Faculty Senate Paul Collins, Business, UW Bothell Rob Crawford, Liberal Studies, UW Tacoma Jean Heuving, UW Bothell Representative, Faculty Senate David Morris, Liberal Studies, UW Tacoma Norm Rose, Chair, Tri-Campus Advisory Committee |
