Shared Governance at the College and Department Level

Kim Tanzer, Chair, Faculty Senate

Since last Fall a Joint President-Senate Task Force has been working to develop principles and methods to assure that all colleges and departments at UF practice shared academic governance. Members of the Task Force include current and past administrators and faculty members from all parts of the University. In the course of their work, the Task Force inventoried existing shared governance practices across the university, surveyed faculty members and spoke with administrators. The draft report reflects all of this research, including comments recently received from administrators.

The draft report is available for review on the Senate’s website at http://www.senate.ufl.edu/archives/other/finalReport.pdf.

On Thursday, April 6 from 3:00 to 5:00 the Senate will hold a Special Senate meeting in Room 361-363 at the Reitz Union to discuss the Task Force’s Report and Recommendations. Deans, Directors and Department Heads are particularly encouraged to attend this workshop. In addition all members of the UF Faculty-not just senators-are encouraged to attend.

If you are unable to attend this meeting but would like to comment on the draft you can send your comments directly to the co-chairs, Tony Brennan at abrennan@mse.ufl.edu or Jean Larson at jal@math.ufl.edu . You may also send them to me and I will forward them to the Task Force.

Thank you for reviewing and responding to this important draft document.