A resolution to create a chancellor’s search committee was modified at the Sept. 14 Senate Executive Committee meeting to ensure state standards for underrepresented membership are met.
Senators will vote on the measure at their Sept. 21 meeting.
The search committee rules were first considered at the Aug. 24 SEC meeting.
At that meeting, members decided to eliminate a provision that gave the SEC two selections for the nine faculty members who will serve on the 15-member search committee. The SEC said candidates should be picked through a general senate election from a slate of 12 to 14 candidates selected by the Committee on Committees.
That decision was revisited Sept. 14 after Anita Mixon, an SEC graduate student representative, pointed out that state law pertaining to the chancellor’s search calls for the committee to have at least one member of an underrepresented group, which includes women.
She suggested a general election that did not produce at least one underrepresented committee member could be a violation of the law.
“This is not about balance, it’s impossible to achieve balance,” she said. “But it’s against the law to not have diversity (on the chancellor’s search committee).”
Some senators advocated for returning the two votes to the SEC’s purview, where it could strategically use those votes to ensure the committee was diverse after the final senate vote.
“This is the way it’s been done for many, many searches,” said Nicholas Burbules, the chair of the University Senates Conference and a professor of education policy, organization and leadership. “This is not a new power (the SEC) would be granting itself.”
But the votes were not returned to the SEC after John Hart, an SEC member and a computer science professor, suggested a provision to ensure diversity even if an underrepresented candidate is not selected in the general senate election.
Under Hart’s proposal, which was supported by a majority of SEC members, if no candidates are selected that meet the law’s criteria, then the female and the minority member who get the highest vote totals would be selected first.
Remaining committee membership would include the next-highest vote getters, though no more than two members could be selected from the same college.
Of those elected, the SEC and Committee on Committees would each still retain the right to make two nominations for chair, with senators choosing two from those nominees. The president would choose the chair from the final two nominations.
The senate’s election will be conducted electronically and involves a five-day nomination period, followed by a three-day voting period. Ties will be settled through a two-day runoff vote.
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