Northeastern’s faculty senate — the university governing body that represents the faculty — will no longer be chaired by the provost, but instead be headed by the chair of the Senate Agenda Committee after a vote during a Feb. 12 meeting.
Dee Spencer, professor of supply chain and information management and secretary of the Senate Agenda Committee, or SAC, said the duties of the chair of the faculty senate are already being executed by the chair of the SAC. The role of SAC chair is currently held by Heidi Kevoe-Feldman, a professor of communication studies. The chair of the faculty senate’s responsibilities include establishing meeting agendas, presiding over meetings and serving as the main point of contact between faculty and administration.
“From my perspective, what this does do is that it gives autonomy to the faculty senate as a governing body, and establishes us as a body that should be consulted in and of itself,” Kevoe-Feldman said of the change.
David Madigan, the university’s outgoing provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, was outspoken about his disagreement with the motion and said the restructuring was “not a step in the right direction.”
“When I became provost, it was deeply impactful on me that I was the chair of the faculty senate, and it bound me to the senate in a way that I think is very good,” Madigan said. “And I view it very positively. So my worry would be that a future provost will simply not come to the Senate.”
Marie Adams, a senator from the College of Arts, Media, and Design, expressed concerns that removing the provost as chair of the senate may have a negative effect on communication between the senate and the provost.
“In the future, if a provost decides not to come to the senate meeting because they’re not the chair, then we’ve got much bigger problems than just the technical designation of who is chair,” said Northeastern School of Law Senator and professor of law and biology Jonathan Kahn.
At many other universities, an elected faculty member is at the helm of the faculty senate as opposed to the provost, including Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Yale University.
The search committee for Madigan’s successor, who will take over the position in June as Madigan assumes a faculty role in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, also sparked discourse at the Feb. 12 meeting. Khoury Senator and professor of computer science Laney Strange raised concerns that the process the university used to create the provost search committee did not align with the process laid out in the Faculty Handbook. The handbook is a document that contains policy information on governance and faculty rights.
When a provost role becomes vacant, SAC forms a Faculty Search Committee, which, as outlined in the handbook, consists of “four full-time faculty members representing different colleges, elected at large by the college’s full-time faculty, and three additional members appointed by the Faculty Senate Agenda Committee of which two should be senior faculty members in associate dean or dean positions,” as well as two student representatives.
In the meeting, Strange said there is a discrepancy in the number of people who were chosen as appointed administrators and who those appointments came from in the handbook, adding that the three names SAC submitted, two of which hold senior leadership titles, as per the handbook, were “ignored, and instead ten [administrators] were chosen.”
The provost search committee is composed of 22 Northeastern faculty and staff members and two students, representing all 10 schools and colleges at Northeastern.
“When the faculty handbook module was written … we were a different university, smaller, not as diverse, not as many colleges, different in many ways,” said Debra Franko, senior vice provost for academic affairs and professor of applied psychology, of how administration interpreted the handbook. “The idea was to broaden the search committee and have wide representation.”
Darcelle Lahr, professor of business practice and Africana studies and member of SAC, said in response to Franko that faculty are not asking to change the handbook, “we’re asking to follow the handbook.”
“Administration cannot choose which parts of the handbook it wants to follow and which parts it doesn’t when it’s convenient for them,” Lahr said. “If we’re going to make a change, we need to make it collaboratively. It cannot be a situation where administration simply tells the faculty, ‘We’re not going to follow the handbook this time, but we expect for you to follow it next time.’ It creates a lack of trust.”
Kevoe-Feldman, who helped form the committee, said she presented the list of faculty and administrators elected to the search committee to Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun, who then added more people he deemed fit. Every search committee list is submitted to the provost, or in this case, the president, she added.
“Everything that we do in SAC is in collaboration with the provost’s office,” Kevoe-Feldman said of the appointment process in an interview with The Huntington News. “We don’t work in isolation.”
In response to concerns from faculty about the process the university followed to form the committee, Kevoe-Feldman pointed out in an interview with The News that in the past, SAC followed the same process for the Provost search as they did for the previous provost search, as well as for several of the university’s deans.
“This is probably, in the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal,” Strange said in an interview with The News. “I’m sure the committee is going to work hard and be thoughtful and find a wonderful provost, and I’m excited to be part of it. But if we’re willing to overlook this part of the handbook for something that’s sort of inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, then when else is the handbook going to be ignored?”
Kevoe-Feldman said she has identified areas in the Faculty Handbook that she will raise to the provost and senior vice provost for clarification. But as for the overall working relationship between the administration and faculty, she said the “tension” is partly a symptom of a divided political climate.
“In terms of repairing or making things better between faculty and administration, we just have to keep working together, right?” Kevoe-Feldman said. “Faculty have to try and see things from the administration side, and administrators have to try and see things from the faculty side. And the faculty side is tough.”
