Tufts forms faculty senate to encourage discussion of university issues

Tufts is establishing a university-wide faculty senate this semester. The senate, which has been approved by the faculty of all eight of Tufts' branches, will include representatives from each school who will come together to advise the administration, according to The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Professor Jeswald Salacuse.

Salacuse noted that the faculty senate's bylaws, which are the result of a working group that he chaired, were recently adopted by the university's Board of Trustees.

According to the bylaws, the senate will meet at least monthly during the academic year and will assist with forming university-wide policies, advising current policies and discussing other issues that it believes to be important. In particular, it will be consulted on the structure of the administration, the university's budget and university-wide education policy, the bylaws noted.

The senate will consist of a total of 29 faculty members — seven from the School of Arts and Sciences, five from the School of Medicine, three each from the School of Dental Medicine, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, the Fletcher School, the School of Engineering and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and two from the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, according to Salacuse.

Vice Provost Kevin Dunn, who worked with the faculty working group to develop the senate, said that it will benefit both the faculty and the administration to have a cross-school senate.

"The purpose of the senate is for the faculty to bring issues to the administration and for the administration to bring issues to the faculty," Dunn said.

Jillian Dubman, secretary of the faculty for Arts, Sciences and Engineering (AS&E), said the senate will create channels of communication between faculty and administration to help create better understanding between the faculty and the administration. 

"The elected senators will provide an important perspective to the central administration in a way that has not been possible before," Dubman said.

Dunn expressed that the administration is very open to feedback from the faculty.

"Increasingly, we're doing a lot of things across schools and [the faculty] wants to and should have a voice in that," he said.

Dubman agreed that a crucial role of the senate will be to offer a platform for feedback and discussion.

"The senate will provide faculty and the central administration with an opportunity to enhance discussion of important issues affecting faculty members across the university," Dubman said.

Last year, a working group consisting of two representatives from each school was convened by Provost David Harris to find ways to give the administration and the faculty of Tufts' eight schools a direct line of communication, according to Salacuse.

"[We wanted] a vehicle where the faculty of all the university -- that is all eight schools on the three different campuses -- [could] convene to discuss and give their advice to the administration about issues affecting the university," Salacuse said.

Salacuse added that, after considering various models, the working group found that most research universities like Tufts have faculty senates.

During the process of creating the faculty senate, the group was careful not to undermine the autonomy of the different schools, Salacuse noted. For that reason, each school will independently decide how to conduct its elections and who is qualified to serve as a senator.

"Everything's going to depend on the people who are elected [and] how committed they will be to working on university matters," he said.

Faculty input to the administration will also help the university create better solutions to the problems that confront it, according to Salacuse.

"You have a lot of smart people on the faculty with lots of expertise," Salacuse said. "[I hope] that they will mobilize that expertise and … help the university solve its problems."

Dunn similarly stressed that the senate will help the university create policies that are more in touch with the faculty.

"Personally, I spend a lot of my time working on policies that have a deep effect on faculty and I don't want to write those without talking to faculty first," Dunn said. "[They] have a lot of experience and wisdom around all these things that need to be drawn upon."

Further, Dunn explained that the faculty senate is important because of the crucial role the faculty have in the university.

"Universities ... are not like businesses. They can't work top down because … the important work of the university is done by its faculty for its students," Dunn said.