The bell has been tolled for the Search Advocate Program and the Social Justice Education Initiative as the Faculty Consultative Group has declined to review the cancellations of these programs.

On July 8, Oregon State University faculty members were sent e-mails stating the Search Advocacy program and the Social Justice Education Initiative would be “sunsetted” Oct. 16. 

A public forum was held on July 23, hosted by University Human Resources to explain how the two programs were to be integrated into HR. The forum featured impassioned speeches from many attendees in defense of the programs, and HR promised to take their comments into consideration. 

On Sept. 24, a special session was held by the OSU Faculty Senate in which two motions asking for more time to deliberate on the two programs were passed.

At the Oct. 9 Faculty Senate meeting, Provost Roy Haggerty pledged to look into the matter in a now deleted response on the Faculty Senate website. 

In an Oct. 24 email, Faculty Senate President Andrew Valls explained that though many members of the FCG are Search Advocates and many regret the cancellation of SJEI, the FCG is governed by “Institutional Policy and Procedures for Program Reorganization or Elimination,” which the group must adhere to.

Valls said working through the 37-page petition to review the “sunsetting” of the programs has heightened the group’s awareness of “the ambiguities and flaws” of the policy.

“We will work on a revision that will address some of its problems,” Valls said in the email. “In the meantime, however, we are bound by it in its current form. We must interpret the policy as it is now and must decide how it applies to this case.”

Valls said one of the ambiguities in the policy relates to the “scope of the programs to which it applies.”

According to Valls, Appendix A of the policy is intended to apply primarily to academic programs.

“This interpretation is supported by the fact that the policy states that its guidelines ‘are designed primarily for actions that result in reduction or elimination of a tenured or tenure-track faculty member’s position,’” Valls said.

The FCG concluded that on the most reasonable interpretation of the policy, it did not apply to Search or SJEI, therefore the group declined to review the petition to review the cancellations of the groups. 

However, Valls said that there was a silver lining to all of this.

“The special meeting of the Faculty Senate on September 24 made clear the faculty’s sentiments on these cancelations,” Valls said. “The two motions that passed expressed the faculty’s disapproval of these decisions and reaffirmed our expectation of consultation on such matters in the spirit of shared governance. I believe that the administration has received this message, and recent discussions on similar issues have been different—and in my view, better.”

According to Associate Professor of Teaching in Environmental Sciences Jenny Engels, these contested program closures seem antithetical to OSU’s values, and to statements by President Murthy on the role of OSU:

“I always see OSU’s role as being the truth tellers, the data gatherers, the creators of theory, providing the information that our society needs to make good decisions. … We want to tell the whole story — the economic, sociological and other consequences that flow from these decisions. There are positive things you’re trying to do, and there are fallouts as a result. You have to tell that story truthfully, using data. I also want to recognize another responsibility we have, to Tribal nations and Indigenous communities — taking responsibility for some of the decisions that our country made in the past and trying to set things right.”

Engels said the OSU community has come together “by the hundreds” since the first news of these programs’ cancellations to attempt to do what President Murthy recommended. 

“You all have inspired me by being truth tellers and trying to do positive things, despite the potential fallout,” Engels said.

Engels asked that people join her at a special celebration on Nov. 13 in honor of Anne Gillies and the Search Advocate Program.