If you could measure which words have been uttered most in the past few years on the U. of I. campus, "shared governance" would rank at the top.
But beyond the high ideals attributed to it, the myriad conversations about it and the challenges to its existence past and present, is the current state of campus shared governance as strong as it should be?
Senate Executive Committee leaders at their Feb. 11 meeting discussed answering that question with a proposed online campus faculty survey designed to measure shared government's strength from the college down to the department level.
"We need to get a big-picture overview," said Sen. Nicholas Burbules, a professor of education policy, organization and leadership, and the chair of the General University Policy Committee. "I don't know if it's ever been done."
Questions on the survey, answered anonymously, would ask about local-level administrative, budgeting and hiring practices, how included faculty members feel in local decision-making processes, and whether communication between faculty and local administrators is effective and accepted respectfully.
Burbules said the survey idea arose after some campus faculty members had expressed concerns that shared governance on campus is "not as strong at the unit level as it is at the campus level."
It is still undecided which senate committee officially would sponsor the survey, and Burbules said his committee will continue to discuss the issue so it can refine and present a final recommendation to the SEC at an upcoming meeting.
He said results of the survey could be used to consider "corrective mechanisms" for any newly discovered governance problems. Since the names of respondents and units would not be sought in the preliminary survey, he said that anonymity could empower anyone who is in a situation where adopted processes are not being followed to report problems.
Sen. John Kindt, an emeritus professor of business administration and the chair of the benefits committee, said the high number of new faculty members makes re-emphasizing shared government tenets as important as ever. He said some faculty members may not even be aware that colleges are required to follow their own established bylaws.
"There are quite a few (faculty members) who are unaware there are these bylaws," Kindt said.
Burbules said even some longtime faculty members were less aware of the rules than they should be.
"The bylaws might exist, but that's a variable term," he said, noting senators should continually communicate the importance of following established guidelines to constituents.
In other business:
• Senators discussed broadening the charge of the Educational Policy Committee to include consideration of a new program's impact on other courses and colleges.
Sen. Gay Miller, a professor of pathobiology and the committee's chair, said the "broader conversation" started during the approval process for the College of Engineering's new professional master's program.
The recent process revealed that expanding engineering's programs would affect business and math course enrollment - leading to capacity pressures and no new resources to address them.
"We thought we would benefit from a larger campus discussion of these issues," she said.
While no official campus policy exists to address the impact on others by a new program, Sen. Abbas Aminmansour, a professor of architecture, said that traditionally, those problems have been avoided because the creators of the new program sought consent from the affected program. He said if that method failed, the next step has been seeking resolution in the Office of the Provost.
Burbules said ongoing discussion of the issue should also consider technology's impact on new and existing programs.
• Ben McCall, a professor of chemistry and the chair of the Campus Operations Committee, asked senators to consider changing senate bylaws to add campus sustainability to his committee's list of oversight responsibilities.
He said committee members had discussed the idea in the context of the Illinois Climate Action Plan, formulated after Illinois signed on to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment initiative in 2008. The agreement sets emissions and energy reduction goals for member campuses through 2050.
"A large fraction of putting (iCAP) into action involves campus operations," McCall said.
Any proposed changes in the bylaws that alter committee responsibilities would first go through the University Statutes and Senate Procedures Committee and then to the senate for a vote.