As a grad student at UMass-Amherst, I receive a lot of UMass communications. This one is from the Graduate Student Senate. I don’t blame the governor for the UMass Board of Trustees since Romney appointed most of them, but the Board is something he could and should fix. Here’s a letter the GSS sent out:
As many of you may know, there is an invitation to a discussion session with members of the UMass Chancellor’s Search Committee (who will take office in Fall 2008).
However, what most people do not know is that representation from the Graduate Student Senate was rejected from having a seat on the search committee,in violation of the Board of Trustee’s own policy (Trustee Document T73-098).
University regulations were broken in order to prevent roughly 6,000 grad students from having representation in this process. Furthermore, the rules that explicitly require such representation have been blatantly violated. The
GSS traditionally nominates grad students to serve on such committees. The Committee called for nominations, and the GSS nominee was rejected with no satisfactory explanation. This is a violation of Trustee policy.
This is only the latest action by a Board of Trustees that has repeatedly shown it has no respect for the rights and perspectives of students. This is the same board who awarded Andrew Card (former Chief of Staff to George Bush) an honorary degree last year; the same board who refuses to address issues of recruitment and retention for students of color within the University (supposedly a “pillar”
of their mission), and which – against the vocal opposition of students – raises fees year after year.
Aside from the lack of graduate student representation on the search committee, the composition of the committee is skewed in other ways. It has no representation from UMass staff. The few faculty and students on the committee (a total of 6) are outnumbered and outvoted by the other 18 members. While we
applaud solicitation of feedback, the fact that the only University stakeholders are either given a token role or excluded altogether belies the real character
of this search.
voted after joining Sept 18 appointees
In years past undergrad and grad students (as well as a faculty rep and, I think administrative employye rep) were on the committe with a bunch of trustees.
Is the Gov. settling for the makeup plus the rulings of this appointed board? If so why? Would he not want his own choices?
…is there any indication that the “official” search committee is not going to take input from 3d parties, such as the grad student council? If the committee will take input from 3d parties, I’m not sure what the problem is.
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BTW, I’m not sure how it is with state government, but as far as I can tell, there is a difference between a “policy” and a “regulation.” There certainly is with the federal government. An agency regulation has the force of law until it is modified or revoked via a legislatively mandated process. A policy does not.
which I think is why the GSS memo mentions violating policy. The question isn’t input, it’s participation in the decision or at least deliberations, I think. Grad students are generally grown-up’s, adding them to the mix is a good and democratic idea.
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Mark
Grad students are generally grown-up’s…
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(which is true) you didn’t answer the question in my first paragraph. That (taking input from 3d parties) would have consituted adding them to the mix.
in the form of public forums.
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Adding comments to the mix, however, isn’t adding them into the decision-making process. I think public forums sometimes serve to reduce input. The “town meeting-style meetings” popularized by Clinton give the appearance of input; I’m not sure that’s always the case. Decision-making can take criticisms into account and then talk around them when actual proposals are made.
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I’m not saying this is the case here. Just saying there’s a difference between “taking input” and “making decisions.”
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Mark