President Glassman Meets with Faculty Senate for vitalization discussion

Justin Brown

Eastern President David Glassman attended the weekly Faculty Senate meeting to discuss the vitalization recommendations that were posted online last week.

Chrissy Miller, Administration Reporter

In the Faculty Senate meeting, Eastern President David Glassman clarified the roles of the Council on Academic Affairs and Faculty Senate, as well as how the administration plans to move forward with program consolidations and deletions.

There were originally seven programs Workgroup no. 7 put forward to be considered for deletion. However, after administration meetings that Glassman said discussed the information given by the Workgroups, the departments and the deans, the master’s degree in Chemistry and the Pre-Engineering programs are no longer on this list.

The master’s degree in Special Education as well as the bachelor’s degrees in Africana Studies, career and technical education, adult and community education, and philosophy are still being considered for consolidation or deletion.

“Because of the (EIU-UPI) contractual agreement that I am being very mindful of, because I don’t want to step over any agreement that we have, this January 20th is a firm date. We have some flexibility in other areas but not in that date,” Glassman said. “That’s why we will have simultaneous reviews: Faculty Senate, CAA, as well as the committee if anything goes to that level.”

Glassman said the departmental responses will be made available to the senate to help aid them in assessment of Workgroup no. 7 and the assessment of the general condition of these programs.

“Ultimately, on March 15th, instead of giving one report, we would be giving three reports: one from the CAA, one from the Faculty Senate, and one from the committee, at which point we make the determination if any or all would then move forward with a recommendation to the board of trustees for elimination.”

Glassman said as far as this part of the vitalization project goes, the Staff Senate or the Council on University Planning and Budget will not be involved. Rather, he said, just the academic areas will do the review on this particular area of the project.

Senate member Ellen Corrigan responded with a reminder that the CAA and Faculty Senate are not the only ones who need a say in this process.

“It sounds like (Faculty Senate and CAA are) going to be looped back in now that the recommendations have come forth. I just want to make one point: On the Council on Graduate Studies and the Council on Teacher Education, (they) have imperatives that are parallel to CAA, so they should be involved as well,” Corrigan said.

Glassman said he agreed that since at least one of each of the programs up for the possibility of consolidation or elimination are from the Graduate Studies and Teacher Education Programs, it may be a good idea to get these groups involved.

Senate member Stefan Eckert said that while the meeting was informative in some aspects, central questions went unanswered.

Eckert said he thought the fact that the Academic Program Elimination and Reorganization Review Committee was being called for the first time meant they had a clear plan of action.

“What we understand now from the president is that the charge will only be directed towards eliminating that degree program,” Eckert said. “If that’s going to have implications for the existence of the department or the faculty lines, all that is left open. It does complicate in my view the responses.”

 

Justin Brown contributed to this article.

Chrissy Miller can be reached at 581-2812 or clmiller9@eiu.edu