LU Faculty Senate seeks more input

'No confidence' vote on Sewell suggested, but not among four resolutions

Lincoln University
Lincoln University

In a specially called meeting Wednesday, Lincoln University's Faculty Senate unanimously approved four resolutions seeking more input in school operations.

Lincoln's Shared Governance policy says the school's faculty, staff and students "shall share a role in the governance of the institution."

LU's Rules and Regulations also say the Faculty Senate "shall serve as a major advisory body to the president."

But many of the more than 150 members believe administrators regularly ignore their input.

Administrators haven't responded to the roughly half-dozen resolutions the group has passed this academic year.

"Not directly," Faculty Senate President Bryan Salmons said after Wednesday's meeting, "and certainly not in a way that makes them accountable to a specific position. "And I think it's a matter of professional courtesy - when you're operating under a system of shared governance - when a duly appointed body like this takes an official position, you come to the table and take an official position, too."

That's how negotiations are done, Salmons said, but that hasn't happened - adding to frustrations many faculty already have with LU's administration, especially with the way Said Sewell, LU's provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, has run programs and communicated with the faculty.

Some had suggested Wednesday's meeting would include a "no confidence" vote on Sewell's leadership, but that issue wasn't even discussed.

"I think a lot of faculty are reluctant to place such an item on the agenda and have it hanging out there for all week," Salmons said. "Because of the way our by-laws are written, we almost have no choice or no option but to announce ahead of time that we're going to have such a vote. And a lot of people feel like that's counter-productive, to telegraph a move in that way."

With no dissent in the final voice votes, LU's Faculty Senate on Wednesday approved resolutions:

Thanking President Kevin Rome, other administrators and the Board of Curators for approving a 3 percent cost-of-living increase effective July 1, but asking the school develop a long-term salaries plan and use other Missouri schools for the comparisons.

Several faculty noted Lincoln's Rules and Regulations already require such a plan, saying: "Base annual salaries shall be adjusted each year upon recommendation of the Employee Compensation and Benefits Committee and approval of the president and Board of Curators as funds allow.

"The committee will make an annual recommendation for salary adjustments (based upon the methodology in the rules) and will submit that recommendation to the president."

One teacher noted part of the problem is faculty no longer are part of budget discussions.

Another teacher said from the back of the meeting room: "If we have to live by the rules and regulations, why doesn't Young Hall," where the administrative offices are located.

Requesting assurances of continued faculty leadership positions as LU administrators launch another reorganization of the Academic Affairs division, a reorganization Sewell announced last month.

Seeking an administration rationale for the proposed reorganization.

Making sure new LU deans (Sewell said they would be hired in the next year) will have input in any reorganization that actually occurs.

LU faculty members attending Wednesday's meeting also spent 35 minutes hearing a presentation from two Missouri National Education Association representatives, about the possibility of creating a union bargaining unit at the school.

The representatives were invited after some faculty at an Oct. 28 meeting noted the faculty at Harris-Stowe State University, St. Louis, had seen improvements in their salaries and working conditions after forming a union group a couple years ago.

No commitments were made on that idea Wednesday.