SOME SUGGESTED UTMB FACULTY SENATE ISSUES

During the course of her Faculty Senate presentation back in September, the current chair, Charlotte Wisnewski, had this to say on slide #40:

•    Purpose of Faculty Senate—serve as the representative voice of the UTMB Faculty to the UTMB administration and receive and communicate ideas, reviews, and recommendations of policies affecting UTMB as relates to welfare, academic opportunities and responsibilities of the Faculty.
•     Important that Senate leadership keeps lines of communication open between faculty and administration

On the next slide, she went to list the following priorities:

•    Foster Faculty Senate input and involvement at the administrative level by continued regular meetings with President, VP for Education, Dean’s Council and other venues
•    Promote faculty communication with Faculty Senate by survey of Faculty satisfaction/needs/recommendations
•    Integrate Faculty Subcommittees into executive structure to promote Faculty Senate goals and objectives for the year.

All quite laudable, but readers may notice the complete absence of a single, specific issue.  Every bullet essentially says, "Let's talk." 

Ok, let's. 

Just a couple of weeks before Hurricane Ike struck Galveston, blowing away all concerns but survival, former chair Christine Baker sent an e-mail listing three specific issues she wanted the Faculty Senate to pursue after her tenure was completed.  It seems that, among other things, UTMB management was raiding endowments at the end of the fiscal year and "sweeping" up the money.  Baker was also concerned about the treatment of minorities at UTMB, whether on the patient or faculty side of the house, as the last two items in her list detail.  Evidence has already been posted on this blog that females, particularly Asian females, are not treated the same as their colleagues at UTMB.  Although Ike was deadly efficient at destroying homes and lives, Baker's issues survived quite handily like unaddressed problems tend to do. 

UTMB's Faculty Senate has plenty of issues it can tackle, but its largest issue is that of relevance and overcoming the fear administration created after gutting its leadership.  Senators are going to have to do more than hold tea parties to get the job done, and they're going to have say things that administrators don't particularly want to hear.  If the Senate's leadership doesn't have the will or intestinal fortitude to do that, then individual senators need to hold Senate leadership accountable.