Vol. 38, No. 18

2-19-2008
By: Jeff McCallister

Clinical track faculty may gain eligibility for University Senate

After a vigorous debate, the University Senate has decided to accept clinical track faculty into its ranks.

When the senate and Board of Trustees established the clinical track in 2002, those faculty were given governance rights at the college and unit levels, but had been excluded from senate membership.

At its February meeting, the senate passed a resolution that described that policy as “unfair, unwise and outmoded” and allowed tenure track faculty from each individual college to decide for themselves whether to seat clinical track faculty among the college’s delegation.

A few further changes in the rules will be needed (as well as approval by the Board of Trustees) before the rule can go into effect, according to John Davidson, chair of the senate’s Rules Committee.

The topic had been debated in the senate since last spring quarter, when members from the College of Medicine requested a review of the policy that excluded clinical track faculty from being members. The College of Medicine employed 337 clinical track faculty in 2007, compared to 537 tenure track.

The colleges of Nursing, Optometry, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Business and Law also employ clinical track faculty, though all combined are less than half of the number at the medical college.

The senate formed an ad hoc committee in May to study the issue, and the committee sent back a strongly worded report that recommended the changes.

“Their exclusion is particularly troubling because it wrongly signals that their stake in the university’s mission is less than that of the rest of us,” wrote the committee, chaired by David Goldberger from the College of Law.

The committee also noted that the policy was likely to hamper recruitment and retention of high-quality clinical track faculty members.

The committee looked at several potential ways of getting clinical track faculty onto the senate before making the recommendation, finally deciding to allow them to serve as one of their college’s or academic unit’s current delegation rather than creating a new class of senators.

The tenure track faculty in each college will be authorized under the measure to allow up to 45 percent of its senate delegation to be clinical track faculty.

A few senators spoke against the resolution. But Tom Rosol, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said he took offense at the notion of clinical track professors as second-rate faculty.

President Gordon Gee also spoke for the measure, reiterating the ad hoc committee’s stance.

The resolution passed resoundingly, but not unanimously.

In other business, the senate:

Moved its elections for committee chairs from autumn to spring quarter.

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