Faculty Congress

Somehow I got elected to be on the faculty congress, which is only a few years old.  The first meeting of the year was today. The thing that amazes me is that the faculty went so long without any representational form of governance. Apparently all decisions were made at the administrative level or with the ENTIRE faculty involved. Wow.

The second thing I find amazing is that it has really NO power, but everyone buys into it. Apparently the administration does listen to the issues brought up by the congress, but the congress cannot override any decisions that the administration makes that go against the faculty congress' recommendations.  

Some issues we are tackling

• get REAL tenure (with review) see here
• not stating "tenure track" on job ads eliminates good candidates
• not having a "tenure track position" makes it harder to apply for certain grants 
• make explicit grievance procedures in the case faculty are let go
• policies for faculty personally fired
• policies for faculty grievance in the case of serious institutional financial hardship
• try to get resources for more scholarship (time and money)