The Faculty Senate Meeting Provided Examples Of Several...

Mark Heider – HIED 7110 Faculty Senate Review – Meeting held 2014-09-09 The Faculty Senate meeting provided examples of several matrix elements, including â€Å"agenda/direction† and â€Å"partnership†. In addition, the structure of the university collegium at BGSU is under consideration for change. Discussions of each of these concepts will be preceded by an overview of the portion of the meeting pertinent to it. The first matrix element to be considered here is â€Å"agenda/direction†. Direction is defined in part as â€Å"†¦ either the philosophy of the organization or its policy.† (Van Wart 2011). For purposes of this paper, direction will simply be defined as â€Å"what will the organization do?† The chair began the meeting by addressing the change in†¦show more content†¦The environment, defined by Duncan (1972) as â€Å"the totality of physical and social factors that are taken directly into consideration in the decision-making behavior of individuals in the organization† has changed for the Senate. Specifically, the collective bargaining agreement put in place has changed the social structure of the relationship between the faculty and the administration. The previously understood purview of the Senate has been altered by this significant environmental change. The process undertaken to brainstorm the issue of Senate direction was an example of the senate working to modify an element of the â€Å"university collegium† in place at BGSU. University collegium is described by Downey (2006) in part as: â€Å"the complex network of assumptions, traditions, protocols, relations and structures which permit the professoriate to control the academic affairs of the institution†. Utilizing general principles of social constructionism, ideas were considered by the senators in an informal peer-to-peer fashion to address the above questions. Working as a community of scholars with a wide variety of specializations, the senators made an effort to collectively define a new role for the Senate. Their ideas were collected and will be synthesized, with the intent of producing a â€Å"sense of the Senate† document to be used to guide further activities. The outcome of this