A recommendation to the Board of Trustees that requests they do not pass Eastern President Carol Surles’ proposal to not allow executive administrators to receive tenure was unanimously passed at the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday.

“If this is something we feel strongly about, I believe we should pass a recommendation about it,” said senate member Anne Zahlan, professor of English.

Surles’ recommendation, which was presented at the Jan. 22 BOT meeting, if passed at the next meeting will change a BOT regulation that states executive administrators can receive tenure upon employment.

If an administrator is granted tenure in a specific department, they then have the ability to teach as a full tenured professor within the university if their administrative position is terminated. The individual will then also be covered under the unit A faculty salary contract and all its benefits.

Zahlan, Vice Chair Bud Fischer, professor of biological sciences, and senate member Bailey Young, professor of history, said their constituents had raised concern that the proposal would affect Eastern’s recruiting ability.

Currently, three of the four vice president positions are being filled by temporary administrators while new candidates are being sought.

John Best, professor of psychology, said, “Of the four vice presidents of academic affairs that were hired from outside the university in the past 20 or so years, two of them were granted tenure and two were not.”

Faculty Senate Chair James Tidwell, professor of journalism, said the current vice president search committees have not mentioned tenure to the applicants.

Under the current regulation, the president is the only one that can offer tenure to those positions, but the related dean and departments must agree in order for tenure to be granted.

David Radavich, president of Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois, previously said, “I think the regulation change is in response to something that occurred last year, but I’m not sure that was a typical problem which would warranted such a regulation change.”

Teshome Abebe, former vice president of academic affairs, who is currently suing Surles and the university on the basis of racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination was granted tenure in the department of economics upon his employment. He is now a full tenured professor teaching the Eastern’s Economics Department.

“When we appoint someone with tenure we are making a very long-term commitment,” Surles said in a press release, “The practice of not rewarding tenure itself probably would not discourage applicants. I believe well-qualified administrators can move easily to another situation.”

The senate also discussed the three administrative models for technology at Eastern, which were released last week by the Technology Enhanced and Delivered Education steering committee.

“I like to describe the models as one that coordinates, one that moves existing units and one that creates new units,” Bob Augustine, chair of the TEDE committee, previously said.

The first model, model A, would create a director position that would coordinate existing units, which would still report to their current supervisors. The units would include academic computing, hardware/software technicians, faculty development, media services, advertising/marketing programs and instructional support specialists.

“There needs to be a group like faculty and developmental research to distribute grants, which is not offered in A,” Zahlan said.

Under model A, grants would be distributed through the TEDE committee, as is currently done.

Senate member Pat Fewell, professor of secondary education, said, “With the kind of no authority director that would exist in model A, how can that director be put in a responsible position?”

“If you look at other institutions and their models for the administration of campus technology, the ones that always failed were the ones that coordinated,” Fewell said.

“There are parts of models B and C that really work well together but it doesn’t come down to one or the other,” Fewell said.

Model B would create a new administrative position, assistant vice president of academic affairs for technology, who would report to the vice president of academic affairs.

In addition, the six current technology units would be moved under the new position and separated into three units: academic computing, media services/instructional design and faculty development.

Model C would create two units, one to assess needs and one to assist needs, that would report to the new vice president position in model B. All existing technology units would remain the same.

“Model B seems to be everything that we have been talking about in the faculty fall forum and recommendations,’ Fischer said.

“I like Model B except for the fact that faculty development is under technology. There is a lot that has to do with faculty development that does not have to do with technology. It is a touchy issue there,” said Best.

Fewell said, ” I think it is very important to have a vice president position that deals with technology as a whole on campus.”

Augustine has previously said, “The TEDE committee will accept feedback until March 2 and the committee will then analyze the comments and make a recommendation to the provost (Lida Wall) near the end of the month.”