Academic Senate

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

SP.08.13
November 3, 2008

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN SENATE

Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures
(First Reading;Information)

SP.08.13    Addition of Academic Professionals to the Senate Electorate:  Constitution and Bylaws Amendments

BACKGROUND

On the Urbana-Champaign campus, the statutory Professional Advisory Committee is known as the Council of Academic Professionals (CAP).  In 2001, CAP requested that the Senate Executive Committee and then Chancellor Aiken consider a mechanism for the greater involvement of academic professionals with the UIUC Senate.  Since the 1980’s, CAP had provided liaisons to six Senate committees.  CAP requested a more formal role on these committees than that of liaison.  In 2002, the UIUC Senate Bylaws were amended to allow ten Senate committees to have one academic professional as a regular member.  The amendment also allowed academic professionals to be elected to these committees through the same process as is currently used for faculty and student members.  Those elected serve 2-year terms, have vote as well as voice on the committees, and automatically have Senate floor privileges on matters relating to the committee on which they serve.  The Bylaws were also amended so that academic professional membership on the Senate Executive Committee would be limited to a liaison role for the chair of CAP or the chair’s designee.

The Sixth Senate Review Commission (2007) recommended adding academic professionals to the Senate electorate.  This requires changes in both the UIUC Senate Constitution and Bylaws. 

These changes are presented in one document because they are linked. 

Report of the Sixth Senate Review Commission Regarding Academic Professional Senators

The Sixth Senate Review Commission Final Report recommended

Academic professionals have been non-voting members of many Senate standing committees since the early 1980's.  In 2002, academic professionals were given voting membership on ten of nineteen Senate standing committees, as well as approval for the Council of Academic Professionals (CAP) chair to act as a liaison for academic professionals to the Senate Executive Committee (SEC).  In 2006, the UIUC Senate Bylaws were changed to allow an academic professional to serve on the Committee on Committees in order to provide a conduit from CAP for nominations to Senate committees.  Academic professionals have also served on many campus-wide (e.g., the recent Chancellor Search Committee) and University-wide (e.g., the Presidential Search Committee) committees. 

The University of Illinois at Chicago Senate added representation by three academic professional senators to their assembly in 2005.  The University of Illinois at Springfield Senate has included representation by one academic professional senator since the campus joined the University.
From the Campus Facts 2007 database, there are 2083 faculty (both tenured/tenure track faculty as of Fall 2006) and 3419 academic professionals (this does not include those academic professionals working in University Administration units, which would be another ~1,000 academic professionals). 

Academic professionals bring a unique, distinctive prospective [sic] to all their service that complements the faculty perspective.  Given the increasing role that academic professionals play in delivering instruction and participating in the academic mission of the University, we recommend that they be given voting representation in the Senate.  Current CAP practice is to divide the campus into ten districts of roughly equal size and elect their members by district.  We recommend that the number of academic professional senators added be ten to conform with this practice.

Statutory Role of Academic Professionals

The Illinois faculty created a non-traditional, flexible workforce in the early 1960s with the establishment of the academic professional employee group.  The employment requirements for academic professionals are stated in Article IX of the University of Illinois Statutes, including notice of nonreappointment and other benefits.  Article II, Section 5 of the Statutes defines the role of the Professional Advisory Committee on each campus.  The Statutes direct the Committee to

. . . provide for the orderly voicing of suggestions for the good of the University, afford added recourse for the consideration of grievances, and furnish a channel for direct and concerted communication between the academic professional staff and the administrative officers of the University, its colleges, schools, institutes, divisions, and other administrative units on matters of interest or concern to the academic professional staff or any member of it.

Since that time, academic professionals have served on Senate committees and contributed to the work of those committees.  The current amendment would take their involvement one step further, by allowing academic professionals to be elected to the UIUC Senate.  This change will offer academic professionals a legitimate way to more effectively represent the academic professional constituency on the UIUC campus.

General University Policy Recommendation
The Senate General University Policy (GUP) committee reviewed the recommendations from the Sixth Senate Review Commission Final Report and supported the recommendation that academic professionals be given voting representation in the Senate, that one academic professional senator be elected from each of the ten CAP districts, and that the electorates for academic professional senators be the same as those for CAP.  Article I, Section 1 of the CAP Bylaws reads:

Section 1. The Electorates. The academic professional staff whose appointments as academic professionals require at least fifty percent of full-time shall elect the Council. The academic professional staff, as defined in the University of Illinois Statutes, Article II, Section 5, consists of those employees whose positions have been designated by the President and Chancellor as meeting specialized administrative, professional, or technical needs. Members of the Central Administration academic professional staff whose principal offices are on the Urbana-Champaign campus shall be members of the electorate.  Any person with an active tenure-system record, even if currently on a 0% faculty appointment, is excluded from the electorate.  Any person with any appointment 1% or more on an “other academic” line (e.g., lecturers, instructors, teaching associates, modified professorial titles (e.g., visiting professor, adjunct professor, research professor)) is excluded from the electorate.  NOTE:  A person with a 0% appointment in one of these “other academic” ranks who also holds a 50% or more academic professional appointment would be included in the CAP electorate.  Unless otherwise specified, the President, Vice-Presidents, the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellors, the deans of the colleges, and the chief executive officers of the academic units shall not be members of the electorate. The Chancellor (or the President in the case of Central Administration academic professional staff) may, after consultation with the Council, identify additional senior administrative officers to be excluded from the electorate.

The units comprising the current CAP districts are found in appendix A.  The district designations are shown below.  Also indicated is District 11, since the State Surveys were transferred to the University in July 2008. 

District 1:  University Administration
District 2:  College of Engineering, CITES
District 3:  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Intensive English Institute
District 4:  Graduate College, VC-Research, Environmental Council, Beckman Institute
District 5:  Colleges of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences (ACES), Applied Health Sciences
District 6:  University of Illinois Extension
District 7:  Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, VC-Student Affairs
District 8:  Colleges of Business, Law, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine, Labor & Employment Relations, Institutes of Aviation, Fire Service, Government and Public Affairs, and Police Training
District 9:  Colleges of Education, Media, Fine & Applied Arts; Schools of Library and Information Science, Social Work; Office of  International Studies; University Library; University Press
District 10:  Chancellor, Provost, VC-Academic Affairs, VC-Public Engagement, VC-Institutional Relations
District 11:  Institute for Natural Sciences and Sustainability

The UIUC Senate is charged with oversight of educational policy on the UIUC campus.  This oversight has evolved into consideration of more than what might be considered educational policy, if one considers the charges associated with standing Senate committees such as Faculty Benefits, General University Policy , Equal Opportunity, Public Engagement, Budget, Campus Operations, and Information Technology. Since many of the decisions and activities of the UIUC Senate affect Academic Professionals, it seems reasonable that Academic professionals in all CAP districts are in a position to contribute to broad areas of the Senate of the Urbana-Champaign campus (UIUC Senate).  Decisions relative to the terms of AP employment (length of contract, notice of nonreappointment, grievances) have been discussed and decided during Senate meetings.  It would seem that academic professional participation and voting on such decisions should follow.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The Senate Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures recommends approval of the following revisions to the Constitution and the Bylaws.  Text to be deleted is in [square brackets] and text to be added is underscored.


PROPOSED REVISIONS TO THE CONSTITUTION


Article I — Basic Structure

  • Section 2. The Senate shall consist of persons who are members of the faculty, academic professional, and student electorates, elected in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Elected members shall have full floor and voting privileges on all matters before the Senate except as provided in Article V, Section 11. Ex officio members shall have full floor privileges on all matters before the Senate, but shall not vote except as provided in Article V, Section 7.

Article III — Academic Professional Representation

  • Section 1.  The academic professional electorate are those members of the academic staff as defined in the University Statutes, Article II, Section 5. 
  • Section 2. All persons included in the academic professional electorate shall be eligible for election to the Senate, without distinction on the basis of rank or other criteria. Each member of the electorate shall be entitled to cast one vote for each open senatorial position in the member’s electoral unit.
  • Section 3. Elections shall be held on the basis of academic professional voting units.  These shall be the same as the voting units for the Professional Advisory Committee.  They shall be as nearly equal in size as is practicable.  There shall be no more than eleven units.  Each unit shall elect one senator.
  • Section 4. Those eligible to vote in each academic professional voting unit shall be notified that an election is to be held.  Any member of the academic professional electorate who desires to run for election from the academic professional's electorate unit shall submit a statement to that effect and a short biography to the appropriate academic professional voting unit elections and credentials committee.  The nominee receiving the highest number of votes shall be deemed elected.

 

  • Section 5. Voting on the election of senators shall be by secret ballot.
  • Section 6. Senators shall be elected for two-year terms commencing at the beginning of the next academic year. Provision shall be made for staggered terms so that approximately half the academic professional senators will be elected each year.

 

  • Section 7. Vacancies shall be filled by election of a member of the voting unit for the remainder of the vacant term in accordance with the nomination and election procedures prescribed in this Article.
  • Section 8. No senator shall be elected for more than three consecutive full terms.

 

  • Section 9. An academic professional senator can be recalled by a vote of two-thirds of those voting in the recall election.

Note: Renumber Articles III and IV as Articles IV and V.
Article [V]VI — General Provisions


  • Section 11. When the Senate selects members of a search committee, faculty senators shall nominate and elect faculty members of the committee, academic professional senators shall nominate and elect academic professional members of the committee, and student senators shall nominate and elect student members of the committee in separate votes.

Following adoption of the Constitutional amendment, above, at the second reading, the Bylaws language that appears below will be submitted for consideration to handle the specifics of the implementation of the change.
PROPOSED REVISIONS TO THE Bylaws


Part C - Elections

  1. Elections of senators shall take place during the spring semester, but not later than the eighth week of classes, under rules and procedures established by the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures and subject to approval by the Senate. The Senate may, however, delegate to the organization [which] that conducts elections on behalf of the governing organization of the student body and/or the academic professional body the authority to conduct [student] Senate elections concurrently with other elections [which] that it administers. Should the Senate choose to exercise this option, the election of student and/or academic professional senators will take place in accordance with the timetable specified in the bylaws of the associated governing organization [of the student body] pursuant to rules established by the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures and subject to approval by the Senate.
  2. Each college or other analogous educational division shall establish an elections and credentials committee to assist the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures in the conduct of nominations and elections of faculty and student senators in that college or division.  The Professional Advisory Committee shall be the elections and credentials committee for the academic professional voting units.  This committee shall assist the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures in the conduct of nominations and elections of academic professional senators in each academic professional voting unit.  The Senate Committee may delegate to [the college or division] these committees such functions as it deems appropriate. Actions of [the college or division] these committees shall be subject to review by the Senate Committee. 
  3. A member of the faculty electorate who has a joint appointment in two or more voting units may vote in and be elected from only one such unit, and shall designate the unit of choice in a signed statement submitted to the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures. Such designation shall remain in effect until such time as a change is approved by the Committee.
  4. The procedure for nomination and election of senators elected by the student electorate shall be as follows:
    • Any member of the student electorate who desires to run for election from the student's electorate unit shall submit a statement to that effect to the appropriate college or division elections and credentials committee.
    • If found to be eligible, the student shall be deemed nominated, and the college or division committee shall have the student's name placed on the appropriate election ballot.
    • Seats available in each election unit will be filled by ranking the number of votes received. The candidate or candidates receiving the highest number of votes will be elected first, then the candidate or candidates receiving the second highest number, and so on, until all available seats are filled.
    • If for any one voting unit there are fewer than four candidates for a seat, no run-off election need be held; a plurality shall be sufficient for election.
  5. The procedure for nomination and election of senators elected by the academic professional electorate shall be as follows:
    • Any member of the academic professional electorate who desires to run for election from the academic professional's electorate unit shall submit a statement to that effect and a short biography to the academic professional elections and credentials committee.
    • If found to be eligible, the academic professional shall be deemed nominated, and the academic professional elections and credentials committee shall have the academic professional's name placed on the appropriate election ballot.
    • The seat available in each election unit will be filled by the candidate receiving the highest number of votes.  Ties will be decided by flipping a coin.

[5] 6.    When a seat becomes vacant, it shall be filled in accordance with procedures established by the Senate Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures.

[6] 7.    A recall election shall be held by a college or division or academic professional voting unit committee promptly upon receipt of an appropriate petition. For recall of a faculty senator, the petition shall bear valid signatures of at least one-third of the members of the election unit. For recall of a student senator, the petition shall bear valid signatures of at least one-third of the members of the election unit or of at least one-half as many members of the election unit as voted in the election in which the student senator was last elected, whichever is smaller. For recall of an academic professional senator, the petition shall bear valid signatures of at least one-third of the members of the election unit or of at least one-half as many members of the election unit as voted in the election in which the academic professional senator was last elected, whichever is smaller. The result of the recall election shall be promptly reported to the Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures and by it to the Senate at its next regular meeting. When the report is accepted by the Senate, the seat of a recalled senator shall be declared vacant and the senator's name shall be forthwith removed from the list of members of the Senate.


University Statutes and Senate Procedures
William Maher, Chair
Arthur Bohleber
H. George Friedman
Peter Loeb
Patrick Lynch
Vera Mainz
Anna-Maria Marshall
Ann Reisner
Elyne Cole, ex officio (designee)
Robert C. Damrau, ex officio
Larry Mann, Observer