The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate passed a motion Monday recommending any change to university policy regarding the suspension of faculty members without pay be limited to those who have been "charged with a felony in a criminal proceeding."

The senate's recommendation comes more than a month after the body rejected a proposal drafted by the UW System Board of Regents that would have allowed the university to suspend faculty members without pay if they engaged in "serious criminal conduct" or "felonious conduct."

Faculty senate members called the language in the regents' initial proposal "too vague" and said it could potentially violate faculty members' rights to due process.

The senate approved a motion Monday which representatives said would "limit the scope" of the proposed changes to the dismissal policy in a way that was more fair to the faculty.

"Any broadening creates a very slippery slope," said History of Science Department Chair Eric Schatzberg, who was one of the representatives that proposed the motion eventually passed by the senate. "We have a need for clarity."

Schatzberg continued to outline the motion, which called for "limit[ing] the scope" of Chapter Seven of the UW System policy — which pertains to procedures for dismissing faculty — to faculty members who have been "charged with a felony in a criminal proceeding."

The motion also recommended that faculty members who have not been charged with a felony, but are "subject to dismissal or disciplinary proceedings … for alleged criminal behavior" be dealt with "more expeditiously."

Additionally, he said any changes would only be legitimate if UW faculty and regents "jointly and actively" agree on them.

The impetus to amend university policy for dismissing faculty members came in the wake of an external audit that discovered 40 employees currently under UW payroll system-wide were convicted felons. The audit was commissioned after the highly publicized cases of three UW-Madison professors convicted of felonies.

Feeling pressure from the Wisconsin Legislature and the public to respond, the Board of Regents drafted an amended policy and presented it to the Faculty Senate March 6.

However, the proposal was met with strong criticism, with faculty members claiming it violated their constitutional rights.

Yesterday, however, the Faculty Senate took the first steps toward collectively remedying their chief issues with the regents' proposal.

"Everyone we talked to is interested in coming up with a common ground," said political science professor Donald Downs, who also helped propose the motion to the senate with Schatzberg.

Downs added it was important for the Faculty Senate to act on this issue.

"It's a very important moment for shared governance," Downs said. "If we don't have it over this issue, we don't really have it."

Though the Faculty Senate passed the proposed motion, not all of its representatives were pleased with its intent.

Medical school professor Mary Carnes, a member of the university committee that helped draft the initial proposal presented to the senate last month, criticized the motion for only addressing faculty who were charged with a felony.

"We felt that it was very important to include 'felonious behavior,'" Carnes said, adding that such language would include serious misconduct that did not result in any formal charges. "We don't want to be in that box."