1

EP-001-034, Clarification of Article III of the Academic Senate Bylaws – Conversion of Steering Committee to Executive Committee Status

CALIFORNIASTATEPOLYTECHNICUNIVERSITY, POMONA

ACADEMIC SENATE

ELECTIONS & PROCEDURES COMMITTEE

REPORT TO

THE ACADEMIC SENATE

EP-001-034

Clarification of Article III of the Academic Senate Bylaws – Conversion of Steering Committee to Executive Committee Status

Elections & Procedures Committee Date:

Steering Committee

Received and Forwarded Date: 4/7/04

Academic Senate Date: 4/14/04

First Reading

4-28-04

Second Reading

Background

Some senators have raised a question about the appropriate role of the Steering Committee. Presently, the Senate Bylaws do not specifically empower the Steering Committee to make recommendations to the university administration on behalf of the Senate when that body cannot meet in plenary session. The referral presumes that faculty-administrator consultation is thus inhibited, in turn diminishing faculty input and hindering expeditious decision-making at the University. Therefore, an argument is advanced in the referral that the Senate Bylaws should be amended to endow the Steering Committee with the authority to act on behalf of the Senate, thereby transforming its function to that of an executive committee.

Membership of the Steering Committee is set down in Article III, Section 11of the Constitution of the Academic Senate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. However, the Constitution does not delineate authority or constraints respecting the committee’s jurisdiction. Article III, of the Academic Senate Bylaws does provide a general directive as to the Steering Committee’s role:

“The Steering Committee is the administrative body for the purpose of conducting Senate business between plenary meetings. It shall report to the Senate all actions taken.” (Section 1)

Section 2 of Article III of the Bylaws details various administrative duties and functions with which the Steering Committee is charged. These cover a wide range of “housekeeping” duties, including designating time and place for regular Senate meetings as well as emergency meetings, providing agendas, screening referrals and directing them to appropriate standing committees for investigation, ensuring that committee reports comply with format requirements, deciding upon issues of jurisdiction and satisfactory resolution of referrals, making appointments to ad hoc and standing committees, and reviewing all correspondence to and from the Academic Senate.

None of the provisions in Article III, Section 2, subsections (A) through (O) direct the Steering Committee to make recommendations to University managers on behalf of the Academic Senate independent of the prescribed referral procedure.

Resources Consulted:

Members of the Elections and Procedures Committee met with the current Steering Committee during Fall Quarter to solicit individual opinions respecting the role of the Steering Committee in Academic Senate affairs. The Elections and Procedures Committee also polled present members of the Academic Senate by e-mail, requesting input on this issue. Twelve Senators responded to the committee’s query, including Senators Morehouse, Tillman, Self, Brock, Johannessen, Janger, Kauzer, Klein, Girouard, H. Lord, and Stoner. Additionally, committee members interviewed Senator Marvin Klein and Professor Frank Gibbons.

Discussion

The Elections and Procedures Committee began its investigation by reviewing the senate organizational structures of the other CSU campuses. The Committee determined that Cal Poly Pomona is the only campus whose administrative committee is designated as a “steering committee.” All other campuses assign the term “executive committee” to their senate’s administrative body. The membership and authority of executive committees varies significantly from campus to campus.

In respect to membership, all executive committees include the senate chair and vice chair, most include the past chair. Many executive committees include standing committee chairs as members and most campuses include either the president or the provost—some include both—as executive committee members.

In respect to authority, some executive committees are given carte blanche to act on behalf of the senate between plenary sessions. San FranciscoState’s Executive Committee is so empowered:

The Executive Committee shall have the authority to act for the Academic Senate, except that in addressing the Chancellor, the Trustees, or other appropriate bodies on matters of policy it shall distinguish whether it is expressing the position of the Academic Senate or the position of the Executive Committee alone. This authority should be exercised only when a situation arises requiring resolution before the next regular meeting of the Academic Senate is feasible. In any case, the Committee shall report such action to the Academic Senate at the first meeting of the Senate following the action.

--By-Laws of the Academic Senate of San FranciscoStateUniversity

Some campuses, such as San DiegoStateUniversity, are more circumspect in granting permission to the Executive Committee to act on behalf of the Academic Senate. San DiegoState requires a two-thirds majority vote of the entire membership of the Executive Committee before such executive actions are authorized. Even more restrictive of Executive Committee authority, the Constitution of the General Faculty at CSU Stanislaus consents only to a sort of contingency arrangement, specifying that any actions taken by the Executive Committee when the Academic Senate cannot achieve a quorum be subject to ratification by the Senate at its next scheduled meeting.

As to the issue of what is best for Cal Poly Pomona, members of the Elections and Procedures Committee, not unexpectedly, identified two schools of thought emerging from discussions with faculty here.

The first school of thought declares that the role of the Steering Committee is to do just as its name implies, that is direct the flow and processing of information within the Academic Senate administrative framework. For want of a better term, the Elections and Procedures Committee refers to this concept as the “gatekeeper” paradigm. Some faculty interviewed who favor the gatekeeper paradigm would add a corollary, suggesting that the Steering Committee’s directive role as established in the Academic Senate By Laws needs clarification.

The second school of thought respecting an appropriate role for the Steering Committee asserts that the Academic Senate and the University would be better served if the Steering Committee were accorded clearly delineated authority to make policy and procedural recommendations to the University Administration when circumstances preclude the Academic Senate from meeting in a plenary session. The Elections and Procedures Committee refers to this concept as the “in loco corpora” paradigm, as taken from the language of the referral.

As articulated by several faculty interviewed who favor the in-loco-corpora paradigm, the rationale for transforming the Steering Committee to that of an executive committee centers on two assumptions:

First, circumstances sometimes arise that require rapid managerial decision-making at the University. Because the Academic Senate meets in plenary session only once a month during fall, winter, and spring quarters and less frequently during summer, it is not unlikely that the need for such urgent decision-making might occur when it is impractical for the whole Senate to convene. Second, if the Senate administrative body—the present Steering Committee—is not authorized to make a recommendation to University managers on behalf of the Senate during such times then the Senate loses an opportunity to voice a preference respecting changes in policies and procedures that will affect Cal Poly Pomona and its academic mission.

Those who favor the gatekeeper concept and would retain the present Steering Committee in form and function cited the following reasons for maintaining the status quo:

First, the Academic Senate is charged with representing the interests of all the faculty of the University. Given the present campus climate, they argue, many faculty are already suspicious of the Academic Senate’s motives. Granting authority for the 12 senators on the Steering Committee to make recommendations to the senior managers on behalf of all Cal Poly Pomona faculty would only lead to a greater loss of credibility between the Senate and its constituents. Second, an Academic Senate administrative body that is authorized to act as an executive committee will over time and through propinquity become more sympathetic to the political and procedural preferences of the University Administration than would be the case of an Academic Senate casting 35 individual votes. Conversely, such a symbiotic relationship could be used to advantage by management personnel to legitimize claims of general faculty approval for preferred actions and outcomes.

After reviewing the Cal Poly Pomona Academic Senate Constitution and Bylaws, and after considering the written and oral opinions of faculty who addressed the committee about this matter, the Elections & Procedures Committee rejected the notion that the Steering Committee should be transformed into an executive-style committee. Instead, it unanimously endorses the present Steering Committee arrangement. Uppermost in the committee’s thinking is the clearly stated intent in the Constitution (Article 2, Section 2) that “It shall be the responsibility of the Academic Senate to protect the principle of departmental autonomy, compatible with the general welfare of the University. . . . responsibilities not specifically assumed by the Academic Senate shall be reserved to the departments.”

It is the committee’s belief that the concept of “shared Academic governance” cited in the Constitution is one that must be promoted not only between the Academic Senate and University managers but also downward, so to say, between the Senate and the academic departments and units it represents. While an executive-style committee arrangement might promote shared governance between a select Senate body and senior managers in contingency situations, it might do so at the expense of the shared governance exchange between the Academic Senate and the departments.

Further, the Elections & Procedures Committee was not swayed by the argument that an Executive Committee arrangement would expedite the decision-making process on campus. The Academic Senate, by its nature, is a deliberative body. In order for the shared governance concept to work, relevant information about pending issues has to flow from the Senate to the departments and from the departments back to the Senate before recommendations are forwarded to the President. For example, referral recommendations receive a first and a second reading so that academic departments have an opportunity to provide input into the decision-making process before a vote is taken on the Senate floor. Although this is not necessarily an expeditious method, it is one that facilitates participation.

Several faculty who favored an executive-style committee cited instances in which the Academic Senate has not had an opportunity to provide input respecting budgetary issues, managerial appointments, and decisions about instructional technology. An executive committee, they suggested, could be authorized to represent the Academic Senate concerning such issues. The Elections & Procedures Committee, however, believes that a structural remedy might be sufficient to improve the Senate’s position for participating in such actions.

In its investigation of this referral, the Elections & Procedures Committee also considered the clarity issue, the complaint that the jurisdiction of the Steering Committee is ambiguous. The committee does not find that to be the case. The Steering Committee’s duties are described quite precisely in Section 2, items (A) through (O) of Article III of the Academic Senate Bylaws. Most of these relate to routine-operational activities that are required for orderly administration of the Academic Senate.

Some provisions do require the Steering Committee to make judgments, such as deciding if an ad hoc committee should be formed to investigate an issue beyond the purview of the Senate’s standing committees or dismissing referrals that the committee believes lack merit. In another provision, the Steering Committee is given the authority to appoint standing committee chairs to one-year terms; curiously, however, the Steering Committee recently sent to the Elections and Procedures Committee a referral (EP-004-034) asking to investigate if mandatory rotation of standing committee chairs after a defined period of time is in order. This is a prerogative that is already granted to the Steering Committee by the Academic Senate Bylaws.

The Steering Committee is also empowered to decide if recommendations to the Academic Senate are within the scope of the Constitution and the Bylaws. But the Constitution and the Bylaws do not indicate that the Steering Committee is authorized to recommend to the President on behalf of an inabsentia Senate, which, in light of recent commentary on the Academic Senate floor, might account for the uncertainty that has been voiced about the Steering Committee’s jurisdiction. Comments made by some Steering Committee members indicated that the committee in fact had been placed in situations between plenary sessions when it was required to make recommendations to senior managers on behalf of the Academic Senate. In such cases, one could reason, the jurisdictional boundaries might begin to blur a bit. The first time the hand goes in the cookie jar, one knows its wrong; the second time it doesn’t seem so bad; the third time it’s the natural thing to do.

Finally, the Elections & Procedures Committee believes that Academic Senate officers could significantly improve the effectiveness of Senate operations through improved internal communication and through improved external communication, that is, with University managers. This would help all parties develop mutually acceptable expectations. Specific recommendations are included below.

Recommendation

The Elections and Procedures Committee makes two types of recommendations—policy and procedural--respecting this referral.

Policy Recommendations:

  1. The Steering Committee should more rigorously use its agenda-setting authority to put before the Senate only those action items that give Senators adequate time to consider the consequences of possible choices.
  1. The Steering Committee should avail itself of the authority vested in it by Article III, Section 2, subsection (B) of the Senate Bylaws to declare an emergency meeting of the Academic Senate when expeditious decision-making at the University is a priority and Senate input is requested.
  1. The Academic Senate should convene an ad hoc committee to review the Senate’s present subcommittee structure. The ad hoc committee should make recommendations for changes deemed necessary to create a committee plan that ensures Senators will receive comprehensive information about University operations that affect its academic mission, including budgetary, managerial, and technological aspects.

Procedural Recommendations:

The following items should be amended to Article II, Section 1, of the Bylaws of the Academic Senate pertaining to the duties of the Senate chair, which begins with the words “The Chair shall:”

(K) Conduct an orientation session for all newly seated Senators before the Senate’s first regular meeting of the Fall Quarter. Topics shall include Academic Senate authority, constraints, and responsibilities, Senate organization, committee structure,

resources, and basic parliamentary procedures.

(L) Conduct a review of the Steering Committee’s authority, constraints, and responsibilities with the committee’s current membership before the Senate’s first regular meeting of the Fall Quarter.

(M) Communicate in writing an annual greeting to the University President that reiterates the precise role of the Steering Committee in Academic Senate operations and encourages the president and his or her representatives to work cooperatively with the Senate to foster a decision-making process faithful to the principle of shared governance.