Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: April 21, 2008, 08:29:38 AM »Report on Student Senate business in the Herald.
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Other business
Student senators voted for a resolution advocating for student members on all university hiring committees, at their regular meeting Sunday.
The resolution failed twice to win majority support from senators, with 10 in support, seven in opposition and three abstaining. Student Body Vice President Mike Crenshaw cast the deciding vote in support.
A group of UND School of Communication students recently protested the lack of student membership on a committee charged with hiring four new professors in that department, saying they were shut out of the process.
UND Arts and Sciences Dean Martha Potvin said she didn’t include students on that panel because she thought it was important all of the school’s full faculty members serve on it, and she didn’t want students to be forced to take sides in faculty disagreements.
The committee, co-chaired by Herald Publisher-Editor Mike Jacobs, also included faculty from outside SComm.
“We made it clear that there were multiple occasions to meet with candidates, including two formal occasions for students” Potvin said. “There was an offer not made because of student comments, so clearly, that was a part of the decision-making.”
Potvin said Sunday she still doesn’t know if she would change anything about the process and committee she used, after the controversy it stirred up on campus and in the community.
“I don’t regret anything I’ve done or the order I did it in,” said Jackie DeMolee, one of several SComm students who sent a letter to the editor of the Dakota Student, the university paper, calling for a change. “All I want is student representation on hiring committees on this campus.”
That letter set off a war of words between DeMolee’s group of mostly undergraduate students and another group, of mostly graduate students, which supported the hiring committee’s composition.
Those four letters, including one sent to the Herald last week, are on the Web site, www.grandforksherald.com.
DeMolee made it clear she is not refuting anything the committee decided, or saying it did a bad job in the process, just that students should be included in such decisions.
Some senators thought it should not push for a voting student member on all committees, but instead, ask that student feedback be taken into account. The amendment was not made.
“The importance of this is that students came to us with this,” said Sen. Kyle Wanner, co-author of the resolution. “They want representation on committees, and it’s our responsibility as senators to do this.”