Dear Editor,

A letter to the editor from Gary Aylesworth and James Conwell (Nov. 5^th) contains six reasons for bringing a confidence/no-confidence petition to the Faculty Senate.  However, the last item states, “Provost Lord allowed to go forward a list of eligible voters in the current referendum that included names of administrators who have faculty titles (including vice-presidents and deans), in clear violation of the intention of the Faculty Senate when it revised its constitution last year.”  This is an inaccurate statement.  Faculty Senate’s revised constitution contained language that opened the door (inadvertently) to allowing administrators who also hold faculty rank to participate in the voting. 

Provost Blair Lord had no role in the process of identifying or approving the list of potential voters.  Rather, the Faculty Senate elections committee chair made the request to Dr. Jeff Cross (Assoc. VPAA) using the exact language of the senate’s constitutional definition of “faculty” (i.e., holding the rank of instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, professor, chair), who then authorized ITS to generate the list of voters.  As a Faculty Senate executive committee, we agreed that we were on safer ground to use the approved constitutional language instead of changing it ourselves without having the power within us to do so. 

When the voting results are made public, the report will include the number of eligible voters who are a part of each voting constituency, including the number of administrators who also hold faculty rank.

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Members:

Jemmie Robertson (Chair)

Jeff Stowell (Vice-Chair)

Jeannie Ludlow (Recorder)