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Faculty seek deal on disciplinary process
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by Joanna Pliner
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate discussed proposed changes to the disciplinary process for felonious faculty at their first meeting of the academic year Monday.
UW Provost Patrick Farrell said the Faculty Senate generally agrees with concepts in the "serious criminal misconduct" process, written by the UW System Board of Regents, but had qualms with the wording of the document.
Yet Lawrence Kahan, a Faculty Senate member and professor of biomolecular chemistry, said the language in the document was not the most important thing to keep in mind. The most important thing, according to Kahan, is ensuring the regents follow state law in the revised faculty disciplinary process.
"The regents and the faculty of UW-Madison, UW-Stevens Point … will work together to promulgate rules," Kahan said. "The regents started out in this process saying, 'We're going to make some rules,' the regents by themselves, and they proceeded down that path until there were substantial faculty objections."
Kahan added the Faculty Senate is making an effort to collaborate with the Board of Regents to perfect the disciplinary process for faculty members in egregious situations — especially when there are serious felony charges, as was the case with three UW-Madison professors in 2005.
But the UW System needs new rules, Kahan said, because their lawyers did a poor job drafting the process in the first place.
"Everybody here realizes that having convicted felons at the university interacting with students is bad," he said.
Senate member and political science professor Donald Downs said the checks and balances the regents and Faculty Senate provide for one another leads to better resolutions, and allowed the proposal to improve.
"There are two ways of looking at things: how close you are to something perfect, and how far you've come from the first place," Downs said. "And if you look at how far we've come, we've come a long ways. It's not going to be perfect, but we're closer than we would have been otherwise."
Farrell said he expects the regents to discuss the language changes the Faculty Senate voted into the resolution at their November meeting.
Student Regent Chris Semenas did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Monday night.
Anonymous (September 26, 2006 @ 1:03pm):
so "Faculty Seek Deal on Disciplinary Process" is the wrong headline on the story under it?
