The Fainsod Report

ulty must face them. The caucuses, which have sought to deal with them, contain a potential for divisiveness and sharp conflict, but also for mutual accommodation and consensus. Up to this point the potential for conflict has been tempered and held in check by the responsible way in which the leaders of both caucuses have approached their tasks and by their joint determination to try, where possible, to compromise their differences. Should the caucuses persist, much of the initiative in the Faculty may well pass to their leaders. But regardless of whether the caucuses continue, the experience of the last year or two would suggest that the processes of preparing business for Faculty action and ensuring careful debate and discussion on the Faculty floor stand in need of re-examination.

The Alternative of a Faculty Senate

At one stage in its deliberations, the Committee gave serious consideration to the possibility of recommending the creation of an elected Faculty Senate of some 120 members to which the powers of the Faculty might be delegated. Those Committee members who supported the proposal argued that the unwieldy size of the Faculty, its fluctuating patterns of attendance at meetings, and the difficulty of ensuring orderly debate and continuity of action under these conditions pointed to the need for a much smaller body, representative of the Faculty, pledged to regular attendance, and able to function in a much more deliberative manner. Those Committee members opposed to the establishment of a Faculty Senate took the position that the election of Senate members would accentuate the politicization of the Faculty, would deny many younger members an introduction to the corporate life of the Faculty, would deprive others of a prerogative on which they place great store, and risked posing an issue of legitimacy if a newly created Senate ceased to reflect the views of the Faculty at large. The present system, it was also stressed, not only preserved the right of all members of the Faculty to participate in its deliberations, but to bring issues which concerned them before the whole Faculty. Since a number of Committee members felt strongly that they preferred to concentrate their recommendations on means to improve the existing organization and procedures of the Faculty, the Committee decided not to press the case for the creation of a Senate. even though some of its members continue to find the proposal attractive and believe that the Faculty will be forced to turn to some variant of it as it expands in size.

In framing our recommendations we have, therefore, limited ourselves to the organizational problems of the Faculty as it is now constituted. We have tried to devise more effective machinery for the direction of the Faculty's business, better ways of preparing questions for faculty consideration, more orderly means to regulate debate and discussion in Faculty meetings, more effective means of communication between the Faculty and the Administration, and improved arrangements for faculty-student cooperation which do not impair the Faculty's primary responsibility for appointments, degree requirements, and courses....

The Proposal for a Faculty Council

In order to provide for more effective direction of the Faculty's business and greater participation of Faculty members in sharing in such direction, we recommend the creation of a twenty-member Faculty Council which would replace the CEP and which would function explicitly as a combined Dean's cabinet and steering committee of the Faculty. In addition to overseeing educational policy, the Council would operate as a clearing house for legislation to come before the Faculty, would make recommendations to the Faculty on legislation to be considered by it, would exercise a general oversight over the committee structure of the Faculty, would serve as an advisory body on decimal and committee appointments, and would also advise the Dean and the Faculty on allocations of space, building programs, and plans and priorities for Faculty growth and development. As Part IV of this report will make clear, we also provide for student members in a series of joint student-faculty committees and for their participation in the deliberations of the Faculty Council when it is considering matters within the jurisdiction of the joint student-faculty committees.

We turn first to the composition of the Faculty Council. We recommend that it be chaired by the Dean of the Faculty, that the Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences serve as vice-chairman, and that the remaining eighteen members be chosen in equal numbers from the three areas of the Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities. We suggest that tenure and non-tenure members of the Faculty be represented on the Council is a two-to-one ratio, and that the term of service be three years, with a third of the group of eighteen to be renewable annually. Initially, however, a third of the group would be similarly chosen for a two-year term, and the remaining third of a full term of three years.

A difficult question which we have to resolve was whether to recommend an appointed or an elected Council. Until the election of the Committee of Fifteen, it was the traditional practice in the Faculty for the President to make appointments to committees on the recommendation of the Dean of the Faculty. On the whole, those approached by the Dean tended to be members of the Faculty who commanded his confidence and who accepted committee service as a normal part of their university duties. In the absence of issues giving rise to sharp controversies, this system operated to the apparent general satisfaction of the Faculty.

The demand for elected committees may be viewed as an outgrowth of the recent crisis and of the strains which developed between the Administration and a substantial part of the Faculty. Some of us who advocate the elective system see it as a way of guaranteeing that committee membership and activities will reflect the dominant sentiments of the Faculty. Others of us who prefer the appointive system believe that it is more likely to produce committees that will work together effectively and fear that many members qualified for committee service will be unwilling to run for office. After discussing various alternatives with proponents of both the appointive and elective systems, our disposition is to suggest a compromise which we hope will win general approval.

During the first year we recommend that eighteen members of the Faculty Council be selected as follows:

(1) After consultation with a wide a range of faculty opinion as possible, the Dean of the Faculty will nominate eighteen candidates, to be equally divided among the three areas of the Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities, with each area represented by four tenure members and two non-tenure members of the Faculty.

(2) The Dean will then circulate this list to all Faculty members and invite them to submit supplementary nominations within a fifteen-day period. Supplementary nominations of one or more candidates will be made by petition of ten Faculty members and deposited with the Secretary of the Faculty. All those nominated by the Dean or by supplementary nominations will be required to signify their willingness to serve on the Faculty Council before their names are placed before the Faculty.

(3) If there are no supplementary nominations, the list submitted by the Dean will be declared elected. If there are supplementary nominations, a special Faculty election will be held by mail ballot. Each voter will choose a list of eighteen from the Dean's nominees and the supplementary nominations. The nominees will be listed on the ballot under the three areas of the Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities, and the four tenure and two non-tenure candidates in each area receiving the highest number of votes will be declared elected.

During the second year of the life of the Council and annually there- after the Dean of the Faculty will after consultation with as wide a range of faculty opinion as possible nominate six or more members of the Faculty to replace members whose terms expire and to fill such other vacancies as may occur. He will circulate this list to all Faculty members and invite them to submit supplementary nominations within a fifteen-day period. As during the first year, supplementary nominations of one or more candidates will be made by petition of ten Faculty members and deposited with the Secretary of the Faculty. Assurances of willingness to serve will be required from all nominees. If there are no supplementary nominations, the list submitted by the Dean will be declared elected. If there are supplementary nominations, a special Faculty election will be held in the manner previously outlined to choose a list of six from among the Dean's nominees and the supplementary nominations. Any vacancies in the Council which occur between elections will be temporarily filled by the Dean, acting with the consent of the Faculty Council.

In offering these recommendations, we are aware that they are unlikely to satisfy strong proponents of either an appointive or an elective system. We have searched for a combination of the appointive and elective system which provides the Dean with an area of initiative while reserving the final power of decision in the hands of the Faculty. We realize that there are many possible ways of combining an appointive and elective system, and we are not so wedded to this system that we would foreclose the consideration of others. Without claiming any exclusive merits for our proposals, we do believe that they are workable, that they will build necessary collaborative links between the Dean of the Faculty and the Faculty Council, and that they will provide a machinery of central guidance in which both the Dean and the Faculty can have confidence.

We have not undertaken to review in detail the committee structure of the Faculty. We hope that the Faculty Council will do so. Nor have we attempted any detailed blueprint of its future organization or operations. We would not wish to bind its hand too rigidly, and we believe it important that the Council be left as free as possible to develop its own substructure and procedures, including additional provisions for student participation in its deliberations beyond those specified in Part IV of this report. We do, however, in the next section. recommend the establishment of a Docket Committee to be composed of three members of the Faculty Council to be chosen by the Council, with the Dean of the Faculty serving ex officio as its formal chairman. We think it necessary that the Docket Committee be linked with the Faculty Council because of the Council's role as a clearing house for Faculty legislation. We also suggest that the Council may wish to give serious consideration to the establishment of a subcommittee on Plans and Resources, composed of five of its members, with the explicit mandate of addressing itself to problems, choices, and priorities in Faculty development. We do this because we think that there is a very real danger that the very important function of long-range planning may be completely eclipsed by the press of current Council business. At a later point in this report. we also suggest the establishment of a series of joint student-faculty committees in which members of-the Faculty Council would be represented. We shall discuss these committees and their relations to the Faculty Council in much greater detail when we examine the student role in the decision-making processes of the Faculty.

We also recognize that service on the Faculty Council will be time-consuming and entail a heavy burden for its members. We would therefore strongly urge that those serving on the Council be relieved of some part of their teaching obligations or be released from all other Faculty or departmental administrative duties, with specific arrangements in individual cases to be worked out by the Dean and the Faculty Council member concerned....