Faculty Senate to populate Review Committee

Chrissy Miller, News Editor

Provost Jay Gatrell’s review committee for Workgroups no. 8 and 9’s recommendations during the vitalization project will be populated tomorrow at 2 p.m. Tuesday during a Faculty Senate meeting.

Workgroup no. 8 looked at developing programs that could increase Eastern’s enrollment and Workgroup no. 9 analyzed the organization of the university’s academic colleges, schools and departments. It also looked at different learning platforms and tuition models that could be used, Jon Oliver said in an email that faculty were able self-nominate until 11:59 p.m. Monday.

The first committee meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday in the Paris room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Faculty Senate vice chair Jeff Stowell said he does not expect there to be a strong response to being on the committee, as faculty are often rewarded more for doing work in their own departments.

He also cited there being less faculty on campus as a reason for this lack of interest.

The committee will be composed of two deans, one associate dean, two chairs, a representative from each of the four colleges and Booth Library.

“I hope we get to the point where we have to think about this and not just accept whoever volunteers, if they do,” Stowell said. “But assuming we get to that point, I can’t speak for the provost but personally I’d love to see somebody who has had a lot of experience outside of their own department, somebody who can have a broader university perspective than someone who has only previously served in their own department, and we have those people on campus.”

Faculty candidates so far include institutional repository librarian Todd Bruns representing the library, business professor Darlene Greathouse-Riedemann and business professor Michael Dobbs representing the Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, English professor Jeannie Ludlow and philosophy professor Grant Sterling representing the College of Arts and Humanities and Vernon Woodley, sociology and anthropology professor and Rebecca Throneburg, communication disorders and sciences professor, representing the College of Sciences, according to an email Oliver sent.

Stowell, who served as the chair of Workgroup no. 8 said when the recommendations begin to be applied it will be rewarding.

“We’ll know we’ve been successful when we see the implementation of our ideas, recognizing that it might take some time to see fruition of others, but that’s where the reward is,” Stowell said. “We’ve spent a lot of time and effort on this and would love to see something come out of it.”

The committee’s timeline requires committee members to submit a summary of their work, including proposed priorities and other feedback, to the Provost for further discussion at the President’s Council no later than Jan. 15.

The Faculty Senate meeting will be in room 4440 of Booth Library.

Chrissy Miller can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].