A member of administration will now be serving on faculty senate.
Judy Smrha, assistant dean for institutional effectiveness, was voted into the faculty senate as the representative for the department of business and economics by a simple majority vote of 10-9 during Tuesday’s meeting of faculty senate.
Smrha said the department ran into some difficulty finding a representative because department chair Kevin McCarthy is at Harlaxton College this semester, while Professor of Business and Economics Martha Harris will be on sabbatical next semester. Gary Irick, assistant professor of business and economics, is a senate representative already.
“Basically, everybody else is ineligible,” Smrha, who teaches courses within the business and economics department, said.
Irick said it was a matter of who was willing and able to serve.
“She’s a member of the administration who teaches,” he said.
Susan Emel, professor of mass media and communication, voiced her concerns about having an administrator on the faculty senate.
“I’ve been at Baker long enough to remember when a dean decided they would like to be chair of faculty senate,” she said during the meeting. “It’s about having an administrator serving on faculty senate with full voting rights. It blurs the line between faculty and administration in the governing body.”
Other items of new business during the semester’s first meeting were the elections of a new faculty senate chair and a new at-large representative to the Senate Executive Committee.
Emel was nominated for senate chair but unable to accept due to her position as a Baker University Board of Trustees representative. Assistant Professor of Psychology Wendi Born was also nominated but did not accept. At the meeting’s close, there was still no new chair.
Associate Professor of Theater Bruce Woodruff and Joe Watson, assistant professor of mass media and communication, were both nominated for the one-year term of at-large representative to the Senate Executive Committee, with Watson winning 10-9.