Faculty Senate
With the start of a new school year comes a fresh Faculty Senate, and this year’s chair, Ronald Brosemer, is feeling positive about the year ahead. In this time of tight budgets, he said, everyone must work together in order to reach goals and better the Washington State University climate.
The Faculty Senate has four points that need to be closely examined this academic year, he said:
1. Revision of the Academic Program Review Committee and its procedures. Reviews are not always done in a timely fashion due to how time consuming they are to complete, said Brosemer. “Now we need to see what is needed to improve the process”, he said.
2. Governance at urban campuses. “The point is to illustrate the evolving nature of the statewide commitment of WSU,” he said. “We also need to look at the relationships between all three urban campuses.”
3. Student academic integrity needs to be taken into account. This will be done with the help of Charlene Jaeger, vice-president of Student Affairs, said Brosemer. The goal is to understand what academic dishonesty is, when it occurs and how to respond to it, he said.
4. Strong faculty and staff participation in the implementation of the university’s strategic plan. Brosemer said faculty needs to be involved because actions based upon the strategic plan affect them.
“The vision I have for my year as chair is that every faculty and staff member looks forward to coming to work in the morning and leaves with a smile on their face in the evening,” Brosemer said.
The first Faculty Senate meeting of this year will be 3-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25. Meetings will be in Food Science Health Nutrition T101 and are open to the public.
A.P. Advisory Committee
Elissa Keim is the new chair of the Administrative Professional Advisory Committee. With the start of the new school year, she and other members of the committee have two main areas of concern.
1. The Work Life Advisory Committee is coming into its first year, based on recommendations to the A.P. Advisory Committee to begin such a group. As a new committee, it faces many pressing issues including elder care and child care.
2. Revision of the employee complaint policy is needed, Keim said, to smooth out some quirks and make it more user friendly. The employee complaint policy deals with concerns other than sexual harassment or racial discrimination.
The A.P. Advisory Committee will meet for the first time this year during an upcoming retreat. The committee will meet monthly and will post meeting notes via WSU Announcements. The meetings will be open to the public, but a time and place have yet to be set.
Meanwhile, Keim said, “if employees have concerns, they should feel free to contact me or other members of the council and let us know.”
