Shared Governance in Colleges 2001-2002

In late August, 2002, a survey entitled College Annual Activities Report on Shared Governance in 2001-2002 (see Appendix A below) was sent to all the colleges and major units with Faculty Senate allocations, and to the Graduate School. In each case, one copy of the survey was sent to the Dean or Director and another copy to a faculty member in the unit. Both were alerted that the survey was sent to a Dean and a faculty member in the unit, and that the survey responses would be used to make a report to President Young, Provost Colburn, and the Faculty Senate. This report is based largely on the responses to this survey.

Who responded? Administrators from ten of the sixteen colleges responded, and faculty from all units responded. A table with details of the responses is attached. Dean Emihovich, new this year, did not send in a response, but the information about the College of Education is displayed on the college website. Interim Dean Terry Nolan of Dentistry, Dean Frank of Health Professions, Dean Hynes of Journalism, Dean Mills of Law, Dean Long of Nursing, and Director Canelas of the University Libraries did not respond.

Which colleges have constitutions? The Senate and President Young have called for all colleges to have a constitution, so each unit was asked to report on a Governance Document (Constitution/Bylaws/Operating Principles). The College of Education Constitution was recommended as a model for those colleges lacking a governance document, or considering updating one. The following table summarizes the faculty responses, and includes links to online versions where they are know. The Faculty Senate would like to establish a collection of college constitutions, and paper copies were sent by Engineering, Liberal Arts & Sciences, and Nursing.

Which colleges have a curriculum committee? All the colleges have curriculum committees, most are appointed. In addition, the Graduate School also has a curriculum committee. College Curriculum Committees play an important role in new degree program proposals that come before the Faculty Senate, and in keeping the curricula of the university lively.

Which colleges have a nominating committee? The survey asked about a nominating committee, since that would be the natural group to oversee elections to the Faculty Senate. Faculty reported nominating committees in the Colleges of Education, Liberal Arts & Science, Medicine, Nursing, and Veterinary Medicine. In Liberal Arts & Science, faculty are divided into three electoral groups for the purpose of nomination and election: humanities, natural and mathematical sciences, behavioral and social sciences. Medicine is considering changing their Bylaws to have senators apportioned to departments, and then elected within a department. The latter approach may be useful to some colleges without constitutions and without nominating committees.

Which other committees were in the survey? The survey asked about Constitution Committees and Executive/Steering Committees. Among colleges with constitutions, about half have constitution committees. No college lacking a constitution reported the existence of a committee to draft one.

The goal of the question on Executive/Steering Committees was to determine whether or not there was a formal mechanism for faculty input into the development and implementation of policy. The language chosen for this question was not sufficiently precise to make this determination, since a number of respondents reported on administrative councils. This question should be reworded. However, the prevalence of appointed committees suggests that in many colleges there are few official mechanisms for faculty input into college decisions.

How many College Faculty Meetings were held last year? The Graduate School held no meetings of the Graduate Faculty in 2001-2002. Many colleges reported three or more faculty meetings. The variation between the faculty and administrator reports suggests that this item was also open to broad interpretation; some administrators may have thought that this item referred to department faculty meetings.

Did the administrator and faculty member agree? Generally the administrator and faculty member reported the same information, although some variation was inevitable because of the imprecision of the survey. It is notable that the administrator for Pharmacy reported a ratified governance document, while the faculty member reported no governance document. Also, the administrator for Design, Construction and Planning report six or more Faculty Meetings/Assemblies, while the faculty member reported none.

What other information was received? Colleges were asked to list URLs of governance documents, committee lists, assembly schedule. provided on the web, please visit the following site: http://www.senate.ufl.edu/resources/constitution/. Hard copies of college constitutions were noted above. The following colleges providing other paper documentation: Fine Arts (overview letter); Health and Human Performance (committee list); Graduate School (committee information, references to University Constitution).

Conclusions: Because of the prevalence of appointed committees and the apparent lack of faculty policy/advisory committees, it appears that in many colleges there are few mechanisms for faculty input into college decisions. Faculty comments indicate inadequacy of informal mechanisms as well. The current level of faculty participation needs to be enhanced to implement Vision 10/20. Thus the survey will be repeated next year to see if progress has been made, and may be refined to determine, for example, whether or not the governance document is followed.

This report was prepared by Jean A. Larson (jal@math.ufl.edu), Chair of the Faculty Senate on October 23, 2002, and last updated on November 1, 2002.

Appendix A: Survey (pdf)
Appendix B: Deans and Directors to whom it was sent (pdf)
Appendix C: Table of survey responses