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Faculty leadership ready to tackle important issues

Posted on | October 7, 2009 | 266 views |

The new academic year will see much done on semester conversion, ASC reorganization

By Jeff McCallister

There have been few times in Ohio State’s history during which the university went through as much change, especially in an academic sense, as it is today.

The transition from a quarter-based calendar to one based on semesters (and all the curricular upheaval that entails) and the reorganization of the arts and sciences colleges are only the most obvious of the opportunities for reinvention currently happening at the nation’s largest university.

Along with that, university governance has never been more visible than it is now; the initiative for all of that change must, by rule, begin in University Senate.

It makes for a challenging, yet exciting, time to be among the faculty leadership in the senate, and Tim Gerber is confident he and the rest of the leadership team are up to the task.

“I think the rest of the faculty would say, ‘We’re in good hands’ — at least I think they would,” said Gerber, the new chairman of the Faculty Council, which holds 70 seats on the 137-member body.

“I would hope that all the members of the faculty would agree that we’re giving it 100 percent, that we’re deeply and richly experienced and that we’re well informed,” he said. “As the chair, I’ve done my job if everyone, inside and outside of the senate, is thinking critically about these very important issues so that we can come to the best conclusions possible.”

“For many of the people who will deliberate and decide these issues, they know they won’t even be around when their work comes to fruition,” he said. “They know this work is for the material improvement of the university, especially academically, for future generations. To me, that’s a real marker of the professional dedication of everyone involved.”

Broad, diverse experience

Tim Gerber was on his way to a position of leadership from his very first quarter as a music education professor in 1984 when he was asked to serve on the College of the Arts Curriculum Committee.

He had served in faculty government in his stints at two institutions before arriving at OSU and was intrigued to get involved here as well.

“I learned right from the start that there was an important level of decision-making here that went well beyond my own department,” he said. “I understood there were increasingly wider spheres of influence and I got to see it right from the start.”

Gerber has been involved in one committee or another, at both the college and university level, ever since. Gerber served as a non-senate member on several senate committees, and chaired the Council on Enrollment and Student Progress when that committee made the then-controversial recommendation to switch commencement from Friday mornings to Sunday afternoons.

He eventually ran for and was elected to senate and served as vice-chair of the Faculty Council under Dick Gunther last year. “I had the great fortune to get my on-the-job training from one of the most esteemed political scientists in the world,” Gerber said.

History of Art Professor Myroslava Mudrak, the newly elected vice-chairman of the Faculty Council, is used to taking on big issues; she was chair of the Arts and Sciences Faculty Council during the year-long review that has resulted in the current reorganization. She’s also been a department chair and served on numerous committees through the years.

“I have had a close-up view of the way that implementation of administrative decisions can positively or negatively affect the morale of faculty, depending on the degree to which faculty consensus is taken into account,” Mudrak said. “So as vice chair, I just want to make sure things stay on track, make sure that faculty are not excluded from these discussions, make sure we’re not just creating mechanisms for the sake of creating mechanisms. Our time is too valuable for that.”

Jim Rathman, the newly elected chairman of the senate’s Steering Committee and a professor of chemical engineering, said he “didn’t know much” about university governance when he was elected to senate two years ago. “I don’t have near the experience that a lot of others do,” he said. “But I am surrounded by people who have been there and are able to guide and advise me when I need it. I’m excited to take on the job of keeping these inititives moving and on schedule.”

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