FAQs
How would a Faculty Senate benefit OSU?

1. Why reorganize OSU Faculty Council (FC)?

• When established in 1953, OSU’s FC had 24 councilors, representing 580 tenured/tenure-track faculty members.
• With the admission of Career-Track Faculty in December of 2023, OSU FC now represents more than 1,800 General Faculty members, a greater than threefold increase, but with just 26 councilors. The shortage of councilors leads to multiple organizational issues:
  (1) All councilors must attend monthly FC meetings (in person or on Zoom) while many also serve on two of the thirteen FC committees.
  (2) Given FC’s present apportionment, OSU’s colleges and academic units remain unevenly and inequitably represented; most departments lack representation entirely, while others have multiple councilors on FC.
  (3) OSU is one of two Big XII universities with a Faculty Council; all others have Faculty Senates. The Faculty Senate at the University of Oklahoma has been active since 1942 and recently grew to include 60 Faculty Senators.
  (4) While Career-Track Faculty contribute significantly to OSU, FC has no provisions guaranteeing participation in governance, or apportioning seats between Career-Track and Tenure-Track Faculty.
  (5) Communication between current councilors and their college-based constituents is difficult to impossible since councilors represent multiple departments at the same time.

2. How will OSU's proposed Faculty Senate (FS) be more equitable in representing the General Faculty?

• The issue of Tenure/Tenure-Track (TT) and Career Track (CT) Faculty: The Special Committee on Faculty Governance followed two general principles in apportioning the 58 Senate seats that will represent the General Faculty.
  (1) TT Faculty remain central in fulfilling OSU’s mission as a Land Grant and Research 1 institution. With certain exceptions, TT Faculty serve in faculty leadership positions across OSU, most notably as Department Heads, frequently as departmental committee chairs, and in other leadership capacities. A reorganized Faculty Senate recognizes the centrality of TT Faculty in the apportionment of Senate seats.
  (2) CT Faculty members have increasingly contributed to the success of the University. As members of OSU’s General Faculty, they fulfill the needs of university teaching, research, extension, and outreach. In 2023-24, OSU FC recognized CT members' significance by unanimously opening membership to them. Yet, CT Faculty remain marginal to the membership of OSU FC given that there are no designated seats for CT faculty. Apportionment of designated CT Faculty seats in a reorganized Faculty Senate is essential, including the possibility of CT in leadership positions.
• TT faculty will retain the majority of seats in the new Senate, just as they currently do in Faculty Council. The proposed FS will be responsible for any revisions of the university’s RPT (Review, Promotion, and Tenure) document (Charter Art. II, Sec. 5). The FS also forms hearing committees for faculty disputes and terminations (Bylaws Art. VII, Secs. 4–5). These questions must still be resolved by TT faculty with tenure. An even balance between the number of TT and CT senators would make these mandates difficult to fulfill.
• Apportionment between TT and CT Faculty Senate seats: To effectively institutionalize these principles, the Special Committee on Faculty Governance reserved Senate seats in each College as either TT Senate Seats, or CT Senate Seats. See Question 4 below for the proposed reapportionment, or Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 4.

3. What are the "Pillars" in the Faculty Senate Bylaws?

• Pillars represent voting blocs and senate seats. Most Pillars align with OSU’s academic colleges except for the three Pillars of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS).
• Seven Pillars match one college or unit: Agriculture (FCA), Business (SSB), Education and Human Sciences (CEHS), Engineering, Architecture and Technology (CEAT), Veterinary Medicine (CVM), Edmon Low Library, and OSU-Tulsa.
• CAS will be divided into three Pillars: Arts and Humanities, Math and Sciences, and Social Sciences. Each of these Pillars has its separate electorate and allocated senators to ensure equitable representation across the CAS departments. Appendix A of the Senate Bylaws lists the departments in each, and question 5 below tabulates the Senate Pillars.
• Departments will not be required to supply Senators in their assigned Pillar. General Faculty will be represented by Pillar, not unit, to ensure there is no undue burden on smaller departments, who may not have many tenure-track faculty in comparison with larger units. Counting Senate seats by Pillars, rather than by department, alleviates these issues.
• Pillars are large enough to hold contested elections. The Rules & Nominations Committee will be charged with encouraging an equitable spread of nominations across departments to minimize duplication of members from any one department (Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 3). But each department and its faculty will decide if they wish to participate.
• The number of Senators allotted to each Pillar will be reviewed every six years (Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 4). Six-year review and reapportionment will ensure that if changes in the composition of the faculty per Pillar changes, changes can be made in the number of Senate seats.

4. How were the Senate seats per Pillar decided?

• Seats are apportioned by the number of faculty in each Pillar (Charter Art. II, Sec. 1), at around one Senator for every 20 to 30 faculty. The Senate will take a census of the faculty every six years and reapportion seats as Pillars grow or shrink (Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 4). The breakdown in pillars and TT and CT faculty is listed in the table below.

5. Why does OSU-Tulsa have only one seat allocated? Why do OSU-CHS, OSUIT, and OSU-OKC have non-voting liaisons rather than Senators?

• In the OSU-System, faculty are governed by the policies associated with the Senate of their home institution.
• OSU-Tulsa lacks a Senate. OSU-Tulsa faculty work under the same University policies as Stillwater faculty, so a Senate recommendation on those policies affects them directly. OSU-Tulsa faculty affiliated with Colleges and Departments on the OSU-Stillwater have the right to participate as Senators from their respective Pillars.
• Faculty whose primary assignment is on the OSU-Tulsa campus form their own Pillar with one seat (Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 1.H) to ensure that at least one Senator from OSU-Tulsa will always be represented on OSU’s FS.
• OSU-CHS, OSUIT, and OSU-OKC each have independent Faculty Senates. Each one consists of senators elected from its academic departments. Policies passed by those senates pertain only to those campuses. Likewise, policies passed by OSU FC do not apply to those campuses. The new OSU FS will be no different.
• OSU-System Institutions will send a non-voting liaison to report at Senate meetings and to serve on a standing committee. Liaisons can cast votes in their assigned committee but not on the Senate floor (Bylaws Art. III, Sec. 7). The Senate's University System Committee will coordinate with the Chairs of System Senates on system-wide matters (Bylaws Art. VII, Sec. 1.C).

6. Won't these changes increase the service obligation of OSU's General Faculty?

• No, service requirements will not increase. Right now, 12 committees require 4 non-elected General Faculty to serve alongside elected Faculty Councilors. Moreover, about 1/3 of the 26 Faculty Councilors must serve on multiple Faculty Council committees. With 58 senators, the Faculty Senate will use only Senators on committees, eliminating the need for 48 outside General Faculty members and 8 Councilors serving double duty on committees. By centralizing service for members elected as Senators, we will decrease the amount of service needed, rather than increase it.

7. What responsibilities does the Faculty Senate have in the shared governance of Oklahoma State?

• As an advisory body, it recommends University policy but does not set it, which is the same advisory role the Faculty Council has now. Legal authority to approve University policies rests with the OSU/A&M Board of Regents and the Oklahoma State Regents (Bylaws Art. I, Sec. 3).
• The body studies and makes recommendations on university-wide matters, including curriculum and academic standards, research, promotion and tenure, workload, salaries and benefits, budgets, academic freedom, and long-range planning (Charter Art. II, Sec. 5).
• Faculty Senate, like the Faculty Council before it, has inherent oversight responsibilities in that its committees can initiate investigations and/or bring issues of significance to the wider attention of the General Faculty and to the administration for deliberation. In the past, such issues have included salary inequities; university contributions to faculty retirement; proposed program developments; and other issues impacting all or a portion of the General Faculty.
• Senate committees make recommendations. If approved by the Senate, recommendations go to the Provost, and through the Provost to the President and then to the Regents for approval when necessary.
• The President and upper administration are encouraged to bring significant proposals to the Senate for study before they go to the Regents (Bylaws Art. I, Sec. 3).
• Standing committees will have an increased role with a reorganized Senate, since committees will have new specific charges directly connected with responsible administrators, such as the Budget Committee with the Senior Vice President of Finance (Bylaws Art. VII, Sec. 1.C).
• In a few areas, the Senate acts with its own authority. It governs its own bylaws, committees, elections, and membership. It forms faculty dispute resolution and termination hearing committees provided for in the University's appointments and tenure policy (Bylaws Art. VII, Secs. 4–5). It can also propose Charter amendments, which take effect only after the General Faculty and the Regents approve them (Charter Art. III).

8. How are elections conducted? What candidates will I be eligible to vote for?

• In their Pillar of primary assignment (Charter Art. II, Sec. 1) General Faculty members will vote for both Tenure-Track and Career-Track seats. Faculty whose primary assignment is on the OSU-Tulsa campus vote in the OSU-Tulsa Pillar.
• Each Pillar's seats are divided into three classes: One class is elected each year to a three-year term. Each spring, General Faculty members will vote for a third of their Pillar's seats, while the Pillar’s other two classes serve out the remainder of their terms.
• Each class has a designated allotment of TT and CT seats. TT faculty run on the TT ballot and CT faculty on the CT ballot. But every General Faculty member in the Pillar votes on both ballots, whatever their own track. On each ballot, the candidates with the most votes win, up to the number of open seats, and ties are broken by lot (Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 2; Art. V, Secs. 3–4).
• Any General Faculty member with at least three years of service who does not hold an administrative position of assistant dean or above is eligible to run in an election. Senators may serve two consecutive three-year terms and then must sit out a year.

9. Will OSU’s college-level faculty councils be affected by a reorganized Faculty Senate

• No, college-level faculty councils, like those in CAS, CEAT, CEHS, CVM, or FCA, have fundamentally different tasks and responsibilities specific to their college faculty. Reorganization into a Faculty Senate will not impact those councils. No changes made will infringe on any of the activities undertaken by those important entities.

10. What other questions can we answer?

Please leave your input and suggestions on the Google form associated with the Faculty Council’s link.

Or email one of the following with your comments or suggestions:

Heather Yates, Chair, OSU Faculty Council
heather.yates@okstate.edu

Merle Eisenberg, Vice Chair, OSU Faculty Council
merle.eisenberg@okstate.edu

Clarke Iakovakis, Secretary, OSU Faculty Council
clarke.iakovakis@okstate.edu

Stephen Perkins, Past Chair and Chair of the Special Committee on Faculty Governance
stephen.perkins@okstate.edu