University Senate President Jeanne Wagenknecht opened her first meeting Wednesday, the initial meeting of the school year, with her resignation.
“My summer began with a cancer diagnosis,” she said, explaining her decision to step down.
The parliamentary body, composed of University faculty and student officials, needed to elect a replacement because there was no Vice President to succeed her. In cases such as her own, she said “time takes on new dimensions of urgency.”
“Perhaps if energy is used wisely, the diagnosis actually becomes a gift. I hope to beat it and be with you for a long time,” she said.
The Senate unanimously approved Art History Professor Jeffrey Hurwit as Wagenknecht’s replacement and also installed English Professor Gordon Sayre as Vice President.
Only one of the five ASUO Student Senators with seats in the assembly, Nate Gulley, was on hand to hear a “State of the University Address” by University President Dave Frohnmayer, Senior Vice President and Provost Linda Brady, Vice President Allan Price and Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Charles Martinez. The ASUO Senators are the only student representatives with voting power in the University Senate.
Frohnmayer thanked the Senators for their commitment and gave the governing body an overview of the numerous successes of the past year and near future. He also emphasized the importance of the upcoming election, calling attention to the “extraordinary importance” of measures 41 and 48, and noted that the State Board of Higher Education would be taking a more proactive approach to securing the necessary funds from the state legislature.
“I wish also to report on a positive note that incrementalism is indeed no longer considered a viable strategy,” he said. “The board will be asking for something on the order of a 26-percent increase in the Oregon University System budget.”
Brady, Price and Martinez all gave updates on their areas of expertise.
Professor John Nicols, representative to the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate, reported that numerous other institutions were having difficulties with a national program known as “College Now” that allows high school students to gain college credit. Nicols said there had been very little consistency in the skills and curricula that students were being taught and as a result many schools were having to force students to retake introductory courses.
Debate became heated late in the meeting when Senator Peng Lu submitted a motion to amend the wording of a passage in the University Diversity Plan.
The motion proposed substituting the word “all” for “underrepresented” on page 33 of the plan, modifying the sentence: “The Strategic Action Plans developed by each school, college, and administrative unit should address the hiring and retention of high-quality persons from underrepresented groups as officers of administration and classified staff,” and two other similar sentences.
Lu made an impassioned case for the motion, saying that the language had the potential to frighten away potential faculty members with the specter of racially-based hiring.
“Frankly, I just find it an offensive word,” he said. “You create a hostile environment by constantly reminding people that you are ‘overrepresented’ or ‘underrepresented.’ It is very clear that it has a racial meaning.”
Student Senator Gulley, who was pointedly skeptical and critical of Lu’s motion, said that “reverse racism arguments” don’t “hold water in this case.”
Vice President Sayre faulted the logic of correcting a single passage that dealt solely with hiring administrative staff when other instances were more prominent and criticized the wisdom of ever changing what has been an extremely contentious document. Martinez, too, echoed that sentiment. Ultimately, the motion failed.
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