University of Virginia Library

Report On Student Presence At Faculty Meetings

Ed.

The Committee on the Presence
of Students at Faculty Meetings
was created by Dean Shannon in
accordance with the faculty's resolution
of October 23, 1969. That
resolution was introduced partly in
response to a Student Council
resolution of September 23. This
Committee also addressed itself to a
more detailed resolution of the
Student Council dated October 21.
This latter resolution made three
proposals by the faculty:

1. That resolutions of the
faculty affecting students be submitted
to the Student Council for
advice and consent. If the Student
Council were not to consent the
resolution could be reconsidered at
the next faculty meeting, where a
simple majority would suffice to
pass it:

2. That students from the
general student body be permitted
to speak, without vote, at faculty
meetings:

3. That meetings of the faculty
be open to all students who wish to
attend as spectators.

In the course of considering
these proposals, the committee has
had one open meeting with the
students, and one with the faculty.
We have met with the By-Laws
Committee and of course have met
frequently in closed session to
consider what we wish to recommend
to this faculty. Individually
and collectively we have solicited as
much information concerning these
issues as we could, from other
schools, from our colleagues, and
from our students.

We should like it understood at
the outset that in making our
recommendations we have not been
governed by some common shibboleths
about students and student
behavior. We do not consider
students inherently irresponsible,
we do not think then desire for
increased participation in the affairs
of the University necessary dangerous
or absurd; we do not see any
reason to believe that individually
they would be more obstructive at
faculty meetings than some of our
colleagues are. That the students
want something does not make it
right, but their wanting it, surely,
does not also make it wrong. We
must try to judge these issues on
their merits. We ourselves believe in
the good faith of the students, as
we hope they believe in ours.

We have been guided by two
basic premises. The first is that in
making decisions which affect students,
it is in our mutual interest
that the faculty really be informed
about and understand student
needs and desires, and that therefore
we should allow for, and
indeed encourage, as much student
contribution as possible in the
processes by which we come to
decisions. The second premise is
that it is ultimately the responsibility
of the faculty as a whole to
make final decisions while meeting
as a plenary body and that
therefore we must be careful to
preserve the capacity of that body
not only to make decisions but to
make them both effectively and
wisely.

The recommendations that we
are presenting to the faculty represent
our attempt to hold true to
both these premises, and to mediate
between them when they conflict
with each other, as unfortunately
they can. In general terms, we are
urging that we increase the range
and effectiveness of student attendance
and participation in committees
at the same time that we limit
such participation and attendance
at plenary faculty meetings.

B. Arguments in Support of our
Recommendations

1. "That student members of
faculty committees be entitled to
be present and to speak, without
vote, at plenary meetings of the
faculty of the College of Arts and
Sciences."

There are at least two good
reasons for supporting this recommendation.
(1) The student committee
members can inform the
faculty about student opinion and
make a positive contribution to our
discussions. Instead of speculating
about what students believe and
why, we can hear it from those
students who have undertaken the
work and responsibility of serving
on our committees. Moreover,
though it might seem desirable to
allow student committee members
to speak only on matters considered
by their committee, in
practice it would be very difficult
for the Dean to decide when their
remarks were, or were not, relevant,
and obviously impossible to do so
before they actually spoke. (2) If
student participation on committees
is not to be a fiction, if it is to
be genuinely constructive and responsible,
then the student who
serve on the committees must have
some understanding of how the
faculty as a whole works and
thinks. Faculty members of
committees do not function in a
vacuum. They usually have an
awareness, drawn at least in part
from their experience of plenary
faculty meetings, of the feasibility
and value of possible solutions to
particular issues. To deny this
experience to student members of
faculty committees is in effect to
diminish their capacity to understand
the context in which problems
must be considered and
solved.

We should note that we are not
advocating that student committee
members be given the right to vote
in the plenary faculty meetings,
even though they have the right to
vote on committees. In the last
analysis, it is the faculty's responsibility
to make the final decisions;
the committees are advisory
members only.

2. "That special committees
have student membership wherever
appropriate, and that these members
also be entitled to be present
and to speak, without vote, at
plenary meetings of the faculty of
Arts and Sciences held during the
life of their committees."

If proposal (1) is accepted, then
this recommendation would seem
to follow logically. Special committees
dealing purely with faculty
business should not have student
members and those members
should have the same privileges and
responsibilities as their counterparts
on standing committees.

3. "That all committees of the
faculty considering matters that are
of interest to students hold at least
one meeting that is open to the
attendance and participation of the
general student body of the
College."

Open meetings with students are
a useful and manageable way of
allowing interested students to
express themselves and to become a
part of our legislative process. A
number of committees have already
found that such meetings can be
very successful; our own open
meetings with students was exceedingly
constructive and illuminating.

4. "That the faculty delegate to
the Student Council the responsibility
for selecting students who
are to serve on faculty committees,
the faculty itself designating the
committees and the number of
students per committee."

From the students' point of
view as well as ours, it is important
that student members of faculty
committees be truly representative,
and there seems to us no better way
of securing such representation
than by entrusting the essential
responsibility to choice to the Arts
and Sciences of the Student
Council. We hope that the Council
caucus will consult with the Nominations
Committee and we hope that
the Council caucus will do its best
to select students who represent a
diversity of opinion, but the responsibility
should ultimately be
theirs, and the faculty should trust
their choices.

5. "That two Student Council
representatives from the College,
designated by the Arts and Sciences
representatives on the Council to
serve for an entire year, be entitled
to be present and to speak, without
vote, at plenary meetings of the
faculty of Arts and Sciences."

Since the two Student Council
representatives would not be members
of any faculty committees, it
may be argued that they would
have no business either being
present or heard at plenary faculty
meetings. There is already a precedent,
however, established under
Dean Bowers in 1968-69, for
allowing a Student Council member
to address the faculty, and our
proposal simply seeks to regularize
the means by which the Student
Council can bring issues to the
attention of the faculty. Moreover,
since the Student Council represents
the student body as a whole,
it seems clearly desirable that the
Council should have this means of
bringing issues to our attention.
Arguments for proposal (1) then
apply to these students as well,
since if they are to inform us
effectively, they must be informed
themselves.

D. Discussion of Student Council
Proposals

The committee feels that our
recommendations represent a real
response to the spirit, if not the
letter, of the Student Council
resolution of 21 October 1969. For
the reasons which follow, however,
we cannot recommend that the
faculty adopt the actual proposals
of that resolution.

1. "That resolutions of the
faculty affecting students be submitted
to the Council for advice
and consent."

If even only a portion of our
recommendations are enacted by
this faculty, we will be giving
Student Council members as well as
the student body as a whole ample
opportunity to register objections
to proposed legislation and to
suggest alternatives. No useful purpose
would be served by having the
Student Council reconsider our
final resolutions. Moreover, though
this committee believes unquestionably
that the faculty must be
responsive to students and can learn
from them in many ways, we also
believe that it is ultimately the
faculty's responsibility to make
decisions in faculty meetings.

2. "That students from the
general student body be permitted
to speak, without vote, at faculty
meetings."

In our meetings and discussions
with students we have been convinced
that in wishing to speak at
faculty meetings they are motivated
by a general desire for a more open
academic community and a particular
need to make the governing
processes of the College itself a part
of their education. We sympathize
with this desire for community,
because it is what we all wish for,
and we have tried to promote it in
our recommendations, but what we
cannot grant is that the plenary
faculty meeting itself must in effect
become a constituent of the undergraduate
curriculum of the College.
The primary purpose of the plenary
faculty meetings is not to educate
the student body about the processes
by which we come to
decisions, but to engage in debate
and make decisions, and when the
students' desire to learn about these
processes inhibits our capacity to
make decisions rationally, then we
must insist upon preserving the
conditions under which we can
exercise our responsibilities effectively.
This committee has advocated
as much student participation
as possible through representation
on committees because such representation
will increase our ability to
act justly; but in our judgment the
result of general student participation
at plenary meetings
would be to impair this ability. The
crux of the problem is numbers:
plenary meetings of the faculty are
even now often barely manageable,
and with the faculty's projected
expansion in the next decade, it
will be even more difficult to have
meetings that permit, let alone
encourage, meaningful discussion.
The general admission of students
as participants would inevitably so
severely limit debate that the very
phenomenon in which the students
wish to participate would effectively
cease to exist.

3. "That meetings of the faculty
be open to all students who wish to
attend as spectators."

Though this proposal is indeed
different from the proposal to
allow general student participation
in faculty meetings, the arguments
against allowing participation apply
almost equally well here. Once
again, the primary purpose of a
plenary faculty meeting is to
conduct its business as rationally as
possible and once again also, the
crux of the problem is numbers.
Even if we allow only a limited
gallery of observers, that space
could conceivably deprive faculty
members of seats unless the Dean
moved the meeting to a larger
auditorium, and if seems inevitable
that with a succession of volatile
issues, the pressures upon the Dean
to allow more and more observers
would become intense; and although
it may appear to be a banal
point, the larger the room in which
we meet, the less able we will be to
talk to, not to mention hear, each
other.

We might add that in our
judgment the recommendations of
our committee would promote
much of the openness which
students desire in faculty meetings.
Student press and representatives
are heads present at our
meetings. If enacted, our proposals
would provide for the presence and
a real degree of participation at
these meetings of student members
of faculty committees and
representatives from the Student
Council Moreover, it seems to us
that the basic issue, in any case,
not student attendance in the
proceedings of university government
but effective voice in these
proceedings. On a wide scale, such
voice can probably be more appropriately
effected in a realized
University Senate.

Supplementary Statement

During the deliberations of our
committee and the formulation of
the majority report the committee
members were unanimous in supporting
the five resolutions calling
for increased participation in
faculty meetings by students serving
on faculty meetings by students
serving on faculty committees. We
were also unanimously opposed to
active participation in faculty meetings
by students other than those
on faculty committees or representing
the Student Council.

Differences of opinion did develop
around one issue, namely the
question of whether the disadvantages
of general student presence at
faculty meetings outweigh the advantages
inherent in permitting
them to attend. I disagree with my
colleagues on this committee who
oppose open student attendance. I
would argue instead for meetings
open to student observers. In
section 3 of part D of the majority
report the committee points out
that the management of such
meetings, especially when they
become large, is the basis of their
opposition to opening meetings to
students. The size of the room
which would be required to accommodate
large numbers of faculty and
students and the manageability of
the meetings are certainly real
issues to consider. Yet, it would
seem that these obstacles are not
insurmountable and that the opportunity
to increase faculty-student
understanding and to make the
governing of the college part of our
students' educational experience,
warrants the effort required to
resolve any difficulties. Our common
goal is effective education in an
open academic community. Therefore,
it would seem reasonable to
allow interested students to obtain
first hand knowledge of how the
decisions which are made by this
faculty are reached.

Cabell Hall might be considered
as one possible site for open
meetings. There is ample space in
that hall for faculty and observers
and yet it is small enough so that
free exchange of ideas among the
faculty members would be uninhibited.
All or part of the space
beyond that needed for the faculty
could be allotted to student observers.
To avoid possible interruptions
o disruptions of the
meetings by observers, which is
certainly a possibility at any open
meeting of any body, we might
stipulate that the Student Council
through their representatives to the
faculty meeting would be responsible
for maintaining proper order.
Needless to say, if student actions
should ever become disruptive the
faculty could withdraw their invitation.
The presuppositions to
which I appeal in advocating open
meetings are the same as those
behind all of the proposals submitted
in the majority report.
Namely, "We do not consider
students inherently irresponsible;
we do not think their desire for
increased participation in the affairs
of the University necessarily dangerous
or absurd; we do not see any
reason to believe that individually
they would be more obstructive at
faculty meetings than some of our
colleagues are." If we can assume
that this degree of trust on our part
is matched by equal trust from the
students, then certainly any problems
which arise from having
student observers present at our
meetings can be solved without
difficulty.

In summary, I am in complete
agreement with and support the
five recommendations made by our
committee. However, I would like
to add the following resolution:

We resolve that certain sections of
the faculty meeting hall be reserved
for any college students who may
wish to attend the meetings and are
willing to maintain proper decorum
during the meetings. The Arts and
Sciences representatives on the
Student Council or their designated
representatives shall be responsible
for seating the observers and for
guaranteeing their good conduct
during the meetings.