University of South Florida Campus Update

September 2, 2005

The Senate Executive Committee met three times during the summer semester, although that has not been the practice. Our reasons were to deal with some pressing issues and to develop an agenda for the coming year. The issues we are dealing with are as follows:

1. Shared Governance. During 04-05, an ad hoc committee on departmental governance developed a very comprehensive examination of how USF departments are governed, and the extent to which faculty participate in major decisions. They collected documents from all departments that have them, noted which have none, analyzed the structure and content of documents, surveyed the faculty about their practices and perceptions, and reviewed literature on departmental governance. Their report will be submitted to the Senate on September 21, our first meeting of the semester.

Governance concerns originated with Senate documents that were written, approved, and seemed to go nowhere thereafter. Our present concern is to re-center the discussion of how the principles we articulated are actually implemented at the department level. We have developed sample documents, with appropriate flexibility. There is growing pressure from the Provost for chairs to adopt formal documents; our efforts are designed to facilitate that process. In the coming term, we are planning to move to the college level.

2. System Development. The ambiguously autonomous branch campuses of USF, including the pending SACS visit to accredit St. Petersburg as a separate institution, has given rise to a large scale effort to define what constitutes the USF “system.” The Senate has voted to include two of its officers on the committee that will write the system document. The University of Houston has many similarities to our situation, and is being put forth as a potential model that we can follow. We are planning a visit by their Senate president, and possibly a visit by our Senators on the committee to Houston, as part of our deliberations.

3. Senate relations with USF faculty. We have a very large faculty, fragmented among branch campuses, and between those who are covered by the CBA and those who are not. There is presently a great deal of apathy and apparent lack of interest in the Senate by many faculty at USF. We are planning several measures to alter that condition. We want to improve the quality and regularity of communications from the Senate to the faculty at large; we are seeking better ways to facilitate participation by branch campus faculty; and we are looking for ways to improve relations between health sciences and the other academic departments.

4. Academic freedom. The Senate is very concerned about the proposed legislation that did not pass last session, and we are equally concerned about the recent request by OPPAGA for what appears to be data to support a renewed legislative effort to interfere with curriculum and teaching in Florida higher education.