Members of the University Assembly announced Wednesday that they have successfully collected enough signatures to call a special legislative session of the University Assembly to discuss the University’s official response to a possible war in Iraq.
Concerned Faculty for Peace and Justice, the group that circulated petitions, has finally collected more than 508 faculty signatures, which represents one third of faculty who are eligible to vote for faculty senators.
Senate President Greg McLauchlan said once Senate Secretary Gwen Steigelman verifies each signature, University President Dave Frohnmayer will set the time and date of the assembly session.
The University’s response to such a war has been an ongoing debate since Professor Emeritus Frank Stahl proposed that the Faculty Senate take a stance on the issue at their regular December meeting. Senators decided that the issue was not something the group had the authority to vote on, and at a January meeting the senate voted to convene a non-binding session of the more than 2,000-member assembly solely for discussion purposes.
However, only about 200 people attended the Jan. 31 assembly meeting, prompting Stahl and others to suggest that most assembly members were done with discussion and were waiting for an assembly session where they could actually vote on something.
Resolutions against a war in Iraq have already been approved by other state universities, including Oregon State University, the University of Montana at Missoula and the University of Wisconsin.

— Brook Reinhard
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