QUESTION: GovernanceC1

Department faculty are actively involved in university governance, serving on the Faculty Senate and the Graduate Council.

See B above.  The faculty are not sufficiently informed about many of the changes taking place in administration.  There is much turnover and how various positions relate to each other is unclear.  

The department has representatives on all major university and college committees and faculty governing bodies.

The current level of participation meets the needs of the department and college.  Because the department is relatively small, all faculty sit on search committees (average 2 per year), building committees (2 at this time)the student Advisory board (meets weekly to address student FAA compliance and flight lab progress), other ad hoc committees (currently 3) such as equipment acquisition and curriculum.  

The department has one representative on the faculty senate, and the department chair is a member of the CEPS executive council and ADCO.  

The department faculty are highly visible on some of the most important governance committees including Faculty Senate, General Education, Academic Advising, and CTL Advisory Council.  Faculty are encouraged to serve on university level committees beginning in their second year and to take leadership roles as their career develops, particulary at the Associate Professor rank.    

Communication faculty make use of every opportunity to particiate in university governance.  However,  it seems in recent years that unviersity governance -- especially budgeting -- has become less transparent to faculty.

January, 2008
Due to the activities described in part B, the department believes that the faculty actively participate in the governance and planning for the university.

Department faculty has the opportunity to be involved at multiple levels.  Their involvement at the department and program levels are indispensables. There are times when such acts cannot proceed at the desired pace due to other time commitments.

Many of the faculty members serve on university committees and boards. This is appreciated but other department members.  One concern is the appearance of lack of follow through in regards to proposals submitted. A general feeling in the department is that administration has grown in size at a greater-than-needed rate.  As a result of this, decisions and policies often appear to be forced on faculty members.

The department has two faculty senators and has been very active in faculty senate business.  Members of the department serve on or chair many committees at the college and university level.

There has been considerable frustration that decisions traditionally made at the department, committee, or faculty senate level have been preempted by administrators.  We take recent efforts to communicate and cooperate through ADCO as a positive sign.

Faculty are given multiple opportunities to participate in university governance.  Faculty involvement level is their choice.

The faculty is probably less involved than the typically department.  One reason is that 50% of our faculty are at Westside Centers:  Des Moines and Lynnwood.  Another reason is that three of our four department faculty in Ellensburg are new and two are ABD.  

Faculty have always been involved in the governance of the university.  Trying to govern something like an American university, without the collaboration of its core constituency, the faculty, would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.  Before collective bargaining, the faculty senate and its officers, "...represented the faculty in all matters."  Since the advent of the union and collective bargaining.

The Department of Geological Sciences is a major contributor to university governance. Faculty are routinely asked to be members of committees that have impact on university policies and functions. 

Due to the lack of faculty and workload requirements the IET department has been unable to fill the two faculty senate positions. 

While the faculty are actively engaged in university and faculty senate committees, it seems communication problems still exist between administration and faculty - particularly when faculty perceive that administration is making unilateral decisions. More and more work is being pushed down from administration to departments without adequate resource support and often without faculty input.

The faculty has been increasingly active in college and university committees. We anticipate this increasing in the future

Faculty involvement in university governance is appropriate, but limited time makes it difficult to fully participate. At times decisions appear to be made in the administration with little or no consultation with the faculty. One example would be conversion of classrooms from chalkboards to white boards despite requests that some rooms retain chalkboards. In this case, it is unclear if feedback was ever solicited at the departmental level.

Faculty serve on a variety of university committees, but it is not clear that faculty input is taken into consideration adequately in the university decision-making process.

Due to the activities described in prior sections, the Physics Department is satisfied by its involvement in University governance and planning.  

As Political Scientists, we naturally have a different take on "adequacy" in the area of governance.  We believe governance implies an effective role in decision-making and some real power; in this respect, faculty do have some degree of input, but not much formal power outside of some academic matters. A look at the organization chart confirms as much.

The fact is, the Faculty Senate is mostly a recommending body, as the Board of Trustees itself has recognized and the Administration knows.  It does have some degree of influence over academic matters, though Since unionization in 2006, the faculty has gained some degree of influence through able to negotiate its working conditions and the like, though without the power to strike.  Nevertheless, we would argue this is somewhat of an improvement.

All of these mechanisms suffer from what political analyst Robert Michels called the "Iron Law of Oligarchy": that even in pseudo-democratic organizations (like political parties), the development of bureaucracy for "efficiency" reasons, along with the fact that certain "doers" tend to run organizations as opposed to the more apathetic (or busy with more important things) grassroots, leads to a small elite making decisions for the larger whole. 
Jan. '08

(January 2008)
Many routes to influencing the day-to-day operation of the university are open to faculty members. Item 6.B describes some of the ways our department participates in shared governance. We are generally satisfied with our representation to higher-level bodies, especially those that strongly influence our mission. Representatives of those higher-level bodies typically do not initiate participation in our department’s affairs, however.

Historically, the faculty has not felt that its influence has extended very much to improvements in wages and working conditions. The vote to unionize should be seen in this general historical context and the occasion of the state legislation enabling collective bargaining. All of the state’s comprehensive university faculties have now unionized. It is too early to tell whether unionization will alter faculty perceptions of influence over the administration of wages and working conditions. 

Department faculty sit regularly on and the college and university committees. One senior faculty is serving as associate dean (full time) of COTS. One faculty is serving as director of academic coordination (part-time). Three faculty members are chairs of three university or faculty senate committees this year.

Faculty have traditionally accepted service opportunities across the university community as part of their service load.  Often the appointments are of limited commitment of time due to the demands of production within the department.  Administration has been supportive of this adjustment.