Inside Higher Ed: RPI profs want senate back
Professors at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute voted this week to ask their provost to restore their Faculty Senate and to recognize it as legitimate. The vote was overwhelming: 200 in favor, 21 opposed, and 7 abstentions. (The tenured and tenure-track faculty that voted has 359 members, and with one in seven on sabbatical, faculty organizers said that the vote was not only decisive, but represented strong faculty interest.) Robert E. Palazzo, the provost, announced in August that the university would no longer recognize the Faculty Senate because it had amended its rules to grant voting rights to faculty members who are not on the tenure track. The faculty held elections under those revised rules, rejecting a policy change mandated by the board, which did not want non-tenure track faculty to vote. The move by the provost infuriated many professors, whose relations with RPI’s administration have been rocky for years. Palazzo has said that he would respect faculty rights to come up with a new governance system as long as the board’s directives are followed. But Larry Kagan, a professor of art and president of the Faculty Senate that the provost abolished, said that such limits did not amount to “serious conversation” that professors feel is needed with administrators and the board. Following the faculty vote, William N. Walker, vice president for strategic communications and external relations, issued a statement: “The information from this unofficial faculty referendum will be discussed with the academic leadership of Rensselaer and shared with the Faculty Governance Review Committee. That group will review it along with the many other factors relating to faculty governance it will study as it considers its recommendations. Meanwhile, we are continuing under a Board of Trustees resolution that approved the establishment of the transitional faculty governance structure, including a temporary suspension of the Faculty Senate.”
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