The University Senate will go into next year without a vice president after one of its most outspoken members announced his intention to run.
Biology professor Nathan Tublitz, a frequent critic of the University administration, announced his candidacy during the meeting, to the surprise of the Senate’s new president, math professor Peter Gilkey, and the only nominee on the table, assistant law professor Andrea Coles-Bjerre.
When the Senate voted to elect a vice president, however, Senate leadership announced that too few senators were present to make the decision – 25, one member below quorum in the 50-member Senate. Outgoing Senate President Paul van Donkelaar announced that the vote would be postponed to the first Senate meeting of fall term, despite Gilkey’s advice that it would be a bad idea.
Under University Senate rules, the vice president serves for a year before taking the presidency at the end of his or her term. Gilkey and van Donkelaar had asked Coles-Bjerre to take the role. Van Donkelaar said other Senate members turned down requests.
Van Donkelaar, presiding over the meeting, announced that Coles-Bjerre was the only candidate to Senate and the meeting prepared to move into voting.
However, classified staff representative Carla McNelly moved to nominate Tublitz. The nomination brought a hush to the room, followed by a wave of murmurs.
Tublitz, who was the Senate’s president for the 2001-02 year, said in a prepared statement that he wanted the position so he could deal with the fiscal difficulties facing the University. He also said he was running to change perceptions about the University among faculty.
“Many of these people, many of them my friends, think that we are a large corporation run by a CEO and management team,” Tublitz said.
Van Donkelaar said he had chosen Coles-Bjerre because of her experience as a bankruptcy lawyer. Speaking in favor of her candidacy, Coles-Bjerre also drew on her legal experience. “I can’t believe that there are problems at this university that are so intractable that they can’t be solved through respectful dialogue,” she said.
Coles-Bjerre, who called Tublitz’s nomination “unexpected,” did not prepare a speech for the occasion and senators said they would like the election postponed to give her a chance to do so.
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Surprise candidate, need for quorum postpones VP pick
Daily Emerald
May 27, 2009
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