Fac
ty Senate: Its Plac
By Joan Kaatz and Peter Dawson
NINETY YEARS ago the Univer-
sity Senate had social and
literary meetings in professors'
homes every fortnight.
Now it has 1500 members, 200 of
whom come to meetings held twice
a year, and committees do most of
its work.
Today questions arise about the
Senate: Is it effective, or is it too
big? Should it be replaced with a
smaller group? And, more gener-
ally, does the faculty have enough
voice in University policy?
FIND some of the answers to
these questions, a dozen pro-
fessors, most of whom are active
in Senate affairs were interviewed.
Some of them are now members
of the Senate Advisory Commit-
tee, some are past members, and
others are on its subcommittees.
Still others are too busy with re-
search and departmental business
to participate at all.
Most of the professors seemed to
believe the Senate and faculty in-
fluence on policy in general is
good. They seemed to think the
administration is very much inter-
ested in faculty opinion.
Many thought the channels for
faculty expression are not being-
used fully-that the Senate and its
committees could be more active.
Two thought it needs real reor-
ganization; others took more con-
servative attitudes toward this.
THE SENATE, whose regular
meetings are held twice a year,
has a membership of all Univer-
sity professors, the deans, and the
executive and central administra-
tive officers. Its executive commit-
tee, the Senate Advisory Commit-
tee on University Affairs, has 17
voting members elected by the fac-
ulty from the Senate membership
and meets every month.
The SAC, in turn, has 15 sub-
committees, each concerned with
a specific subject-for example,
tenure, athletic policy, medical in-
surance, campus planning. These
subcommittees make continuing
investigations of their subjects,
and submit reports and recom-
mendations to the SAC, which
takes them to the larger Senate
meetings.
Senate committees have worked
actively in several areas. After the
Nickerson-Davis dismissal cases in
1954, the Senate subcommittee on
faculty tenure recommended sev-
eral gvisions in tenure procedures
and severance-pay policy, which
the Regents have accepted.
ANOTHER subcommittee of the
SAC recently developed a new
faculty medical - insurance plan
that will go into effect soon. And
the Educational Policies subcom-
mittee provides chairmen for four
subcommittees that are studying
four areas of major concern: main-
tenance of student quality, main-
tenance of staff excellence, im-
provement of instruction, and
proper role of the University of
Michigan in the educational sys-
'e in 'U'
tem of the state. These committees'
started work last fall.
THE SENATE Advisory Com-
mittee itself seems to be re-
spected and often consulted by the
Administration. Several people
spoke highly of the cooperation
between it and the Administration.
Prof. Wesley Maurer, chairman of
the journalism department, who
served on the SAC for two years,
commented:
"The Administration considers
the Senate a vital arm of the Uni-
versity and draws heavily upon
faculty opinion and interest. If
this experience of cooperation
could be shared more widely with
the faculty as a whole, many fears
and misunderstandings would 'be
dissipated."
Prof. Howard McClusky of the
education school also praised the
cooperation, as did Prof. J. Philip
Wernette of the business adminis-
tration school and departing
chairman of the SAC.
Some Senate committees are
quite active, Prof. Arthur Eastman
of the English department said,
and others rarely meet. He is a
member of the SAC, and is chair-
man of its Educational Policies
committee.
The major criticism seems to be
that committee members are just
too busy to devote time to Senate
work; : the important committee
work then suffers.
About 100 professors serve on
Senate committees, and attend-
ance at Senate meetings is usually
about 200 out of 1,500.
SEVERAL REASONS seem to ac-
count for this small attend-
ance. For one thing, Senate busi-
Affairs
ness is limited primarily to policies
and decisions involving the whole
University. Decisions close to
schools and departments are often
made by the units themselves,
making it unnecessary for Senate
to participate in them.
Departmental and college com-
mittee work takes a lot of time,
"but we all do it since it has to
be done," one professor said.
"We're first of all department-cen-
tered, then college-centered, then
last of all University-centered."
This work, together with duties
of research and teaching, makes
it impossible for some people to
go to Senate meetings regularly
or to work on Senate committees.
If the University were not being
run well, several people said, at-
tendance at Senate meetings would
soar. People would come to, pro-
test about budget decisions, tenure,
athletics-whatever they thought
had gone wrong.
"FOUR OR six hundred mem-
bers wouldn't be surprising if
there was a really controversial
issue," said Prof. Ferrel Heady of
the Institute of Public Adminis-
tration, present secretary of the
Senate. But, as Prof. Wernette
said, "This is a well-run Univer-
sity."
And, finally, not everybody
seems to know what the Senate's
Continued on Page Thirteen
Joan Kaatz is Daily maga.
zine editor and a journalism
major. Peter Dawson is a his-
tory major and outgoing Daily
associate city editor. Both are
seniors in the literary collegf.
Duties of he University Pre
A Changing Concept of Administration
Continued from Page Nine
the daily functionings of all facets
of the University which enabled a
President Angell to exert such a
powerful force in activating the
University.
None of this is intended to say
that those in the University who
deal with administration are una-
ware of this problem. They are
worried about it and have taken
steps to try to solve it, but their
efforts are faced with a continual-
ly expanding University and the
physical limitations of the human
being. But no one man, unless a
genius both as a thinker and as a
man of action, can now handle
effectively all the demands made
upon the University President.
T H E R E F OR E the important
question becomes: How can the
President's job be defined such
that the necessary functions of a
modern president are assured, yet
such that the intellectual and
moral leadership which the Uni-
versity needs so badly is not sacri-
ficed.
In answer to this question, the
University has embarked on a
"decentralization program," in
which many of the responsibilities
once historically associated with a
President are delegated to the
deans of the several schools and
colleges. For example, the deans
are largely responsible (with the
advice of their faculties) for the
selection of new faculty members.
They usually make their request
for money to the President, but
once they receive the allocation,
they are largely free to do with it
as they wish.-
And most important, today
much of the moral and intellectual
leadership in the University, once
entirely the preserve of the Presi-
dent, is now largely to be taken
over by the various deans.
IS IS not to mean that now1
there is no overall, University-
wide leadership. For the President
meets continually with the deans,
both as individuals and as a
group, and there he can exert the
not inconsiderable force of his
personality, position and outlook
to give the deans collectively a
fluence on the deans and in over-
all policy formation, evidences of
it-in definite statements or pro-
grams-are infrequent.
ALL THIS leaves the University
still in a real quandary: how to
obtain the overall leadership need-
ed to energize the entire University
to an awareness of its goals and
a committment to them, in an in-
stitution 'which is becoming so
large and intricate that such lead-
ership may be impossible to attain.
One possible solution is to de-
velop a method by which the, deans
could address or meet informally
the students in their schools. Ad-
dresses to an individual school by
its dean have not, except for the
more rigidly professional schools,
been much explored at the Uni-
versity. Such direct, personal con-
tact might well be the first step
toward a more pervasive guidance
and leadership than the deans are
presently showing.
Unless there is considerable
change in the near futur'e, it ap-
pears that decentralization offers
at best only a partial solution to
the problems of the University's
Presidency. It might even lead to
increased fragmentation of leader-
ship if the deans continue to limit
their functioning to the more nar-
rowly defined spheres of adminis-
trative leadership and do not more
fully reflect to the students and
faculty the pressures of the Presi-
dent's overall leadership.
IN ANY case, it is clear that the
problem of leadership in a het-
erogeneous and large University
community is still far from solu-
tion. The existence of the prob-
lem is the fault of no one save
time and the passage of events.
Its solution may well be a neces-
nity for continued excellence at
the University, and rests directly
in the laps of the present adminis-
I tration.
. . . and then there is always publicity
UI
general orientation which they in
turn should pass on to the stu-
dents and faculty.
"The President must multiply
himself by means of the deans,"
according to President Hatcher.
"The President can't be the only
educational leader in the Univer-
sity, because the job is just too
complex. I see myself as a sort of
presiding director over a board of
presidents (deans) of each of the
separate schools and colleges."
Generally, University-wide poli-
cy is determined by the President,
in communication with the deans.
Then it is the deans' function to
give to their separate schools the
leadership once characteristic of
the University president. Only in
such a way, is it asserted, can any
direct leadership be extended to
the average student or faculty
member, while stome degree of
University-wide continuity of goals
is retained.
IN THEORY, this system sounds
fine. But in practice certain
problems appear.
PLAY iT CooL-"
PLAY IT SMART
In cool, Smart
Today it seems that either the
deans are generally unaware of
their functions in this sphere of
moral and intellectual leadership
or they have not selected the most
effective ways to exert it on the
students and faculty. For students
almost universally have very little
personal contact with their deans.
When asked whether he felt his
dean offered any of the personal
leadership t h e decentralization
plan was expected to provide, one
student answered, "Personal lead-
ership, hell. I don't even know the
guy's name."
Such a comment appears to get
to the real crux of the matter of
deans, for the average student sees
the dean of his particular school
not at all during his academic ca-
reer. The only time he goes into
the dean's office-and then usual-
ly to see an assistant dean-is
when he gets into some sort of
trouble. And the degree of lead-
ership a dean can give to the stu-
dent body through such means is
limited.
Rare indeed is the dean who
makes a direct effort to make per-
sonal contact with the students of
his school. Instead, the deans seem
more content to act like small
scale University presidents, busy-
ing themselves in administrativ
duties that are often impersona
(except where the faculty is con-
cerned), and which, because of
pressures of time or lack of inter-
est, make the normal and intellec-
tual leadership the deans are sup-
posed to exert largely non-existent
And if there is to be any degre
of University-wide orientatior
emerging from the President's in-
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The Faculty Senate's Place
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Continued from Page Four
activities are. One professor said
with a grin, "You're writing about
the Senate? I'd love to know what
it does!"
To get more professors involved
in Senate affairs, many means
can be tried. Prof. Edward L. Page
of the engineering school made a
suggestion in the December issue
of Senate Affairs, a newsletter de-
voted to discussion rather than
news.
PROF. PAGE suggested that no
classes be scheduled between
4 and 6 p.m. on Wednesdays. Then,
he said, there could be committee
meetings one week, college faculty
meetings another week, Senate
meetings a third, and so on. This
would probably help reduce peo-
ple's conflicts with meeting times,
but there are some professors who
would still use this time for aca-
demic and departmental work.
More frequent use of marl vot-
ing has been suggested as a way
to get a better representation of
faculty opinion. It would be well
to supplement this plan, perhaps
with debates .at college faculty
meetings, since debate at Senate
meetings" often changes people's
minds.
Another professor said he wished
there was a really good, "spirited"
faculty club. With a pleasant fac-
ulty club and real interest in it
on the part of professors, informal
I
communication would probably in-
crease considerably.
The Administration has shown
a willingness to cooperate in es-
tablishment of this club if the
professors would indicate they'd
invest in bonds to build the club
and then support it with dues.
Continued on Page Fifteen
Continued from Page Twelve
alumnus wants the boy on his
block, or his son, to attend the
University and lobbies for him.
These requests for admission are
turned over to the Admissions Of-
fice and are handled along with
all the other cases. No alumnus
can get or keep a bad candidate in
the University,,it is claimed.
But, at the same time, this does
not keep them from trying. Rec-
ommendations from well-known
alumni can be the deciding factor
in admitting a student, one ad-
ministrator said. It is expected
that alumni pressure in admis-
slions will rise if enrollment, es-
pecially out-of-state enrollment,
is further limited. As fewer stu-
dents, proportionately, are ac-
cepted at the University, children
of alumni, or the kid down the.
block, will be among those to
suffer.
Alumni pressure in athletics is
also claimed to be small. Crisler
said. he is given much help and-
little trouble by alumni. There are
few attempts made by alumni to
force coaches to play certain men
on their teams. Extra-legal foot-
ball player payola is unknown.
WHAT CAN happen when alum-
ni are allowed to get out of
hand in the athletic realm is shown
in the recent turmoil at Indiana.
The school received a four year
penalty from the National Colle-
giate Athletic Association. This
was partially caused by over-zeal-
ous alumni who illegally boarded
or transported athletes, against
KCAA rules. Alumni at the Uni-
versity are either poorer, nicer, or
Continued on Page Fourteen
';1
The Place of the Alumni
At an Expanding School
I . 1i
I
State Street on the Campus
(SEE OUR FLOOR DIsPLAY EACH NIGHT)
I
THE MICHIGAN. DAILY MAGAZINE
WEDNESDAY, MAY2, 1960