An Oregon State University Faculty Senators session will be held to discuss two new motions in regards to the Search Advocacy Program and Social Justice Education Initiative programs.
The meeting will happen Wednesday at 3 p.m. in the LaSells Stewart Center Construction and Engineering Hall. In a Sept. 17 e-mail from the Faculty Senate Office, OSU Faculty Senators were informed of this session pertaining to the future closings of the SJEI and Search programs.
The first motion to be addressed, proposed by Professor of Agricultural Science and Faculty Senator Gail Langellotto, is to “affirm and sustain institutional commitment to shared governance and transparency” at the university.
The text of the motion states several cases—including the “sunsetting” of Search and SJEI—which “have been made with minimal or no faculty consultation, limited OSU-wide communication; and in some cases, during periods when many faculty are off contract.”
According to Associate Professor of Teaching in Environmental Sciences Jenny Engels, shared governance didn’t take place in the cases of these programs’ closures, and what is happening at OSU is indicative of trends at other universities and in the Federal government of veering away from shared governances and check-and-balance systems in favor of more undemocratic forms of governance.
The motion states that “Faculty Senate shall be formally consulted with sufficient prior notice, during the academic year, before any decision is made by OSU administration to sunset, restructure, or significantly alter programs that support institutional goals and OSU’s foundational values.”
The second motion, proposed by Office of Graduate Education Director of Financial Support and Faculty Senator Nick Fleury, requests the conducting of a formal consultative process for Search Advocate and SJEI.
The motion’s text states that, as the community support for the SA and SJEI programs has been widespread, with hundreds of OSU faculty, staff and students submitting written statements and attending forums and because “community consultation process was not conducted regarding the proposed termination of (Search and SJEI)”, the programs’ cancellations should be retracted and faculty should be given time to “robustly and transparently engage the OSU community in a formal consultative process” for the two programs.
“I’m not sure that everyone wants these programs,” Engels said. “But we weren’t asked.”
Engels said the point of the second motion was to make sure the process for cancelling the programs was done “the right way” and to give faculty sufficient time to “get the decision right.”
Engels said the session is open to the public and there will be an open forum where attendees will be able to ask questions and share their opinions.
For those that can’t attend, the session will also be available on Zoom.
For more information about the session, the Faculty Senate has provided an agenda and an overview of the motions.
The university had no official statement about the session at the time of this article’s publication. Media Relations Director Edgecomb said to expect an updated statement Wednesday.
