Faculty Senate has been at the University for years, but it is still getting organized.
The senate established a list of priorities at a Sept. 10 retreat and chose four to work on for the year and present to the administration.
President Ed De Santis said these are the same issues the senate has been dealing with for a long time. Although they are basic, he said they are critical.
"I don't think we will ever be finished dealing with these issues, because they keep coming up," he said.
The senate chose the priorities from a list of 21. It identified four main priorities:
* Faculty compensation and support
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
* Shared governance, senate committee strength and improvements in administration and branch campus relationships
* Improvements in student retention and success
* Improvements in relations with junior faculty, strengthening the mentoring program and junior faculty evaluations
This list would have kept going had law school Sen. Sherri Burr not made the motion to approve the four.
"I was just listening to comments, and I was feeling that we needed to move along," Burr said. "We can't have 21 priorities."
De Santis said at the last Board of Regents meeting on Sept. 14 that he plans to reorganize some of the committees, many of which still have vacancies and are not led by a chairperson.
A task force led by Amy Wohlert will look at aspects of core curriculum. The recommendation is expected to come to the senate when established.
"We don't need to deal with it now," said Barry Kues.
One senator brought up student retention.
Kues said as the motion proceeded, that seemed to be left out and suggested it replace core curriculum.
The adoption of the main priorities led to a long discussion.
"The discussion quickly identified the things most people are interested in, and those are the things we adopted," Kues said, adding those were the most crucial.
De Santis said he wants the senate to have more of a deciding vote in campus-wide issues.
"If they can make progress in doing this, a good product out of that is the senate will become a more unified body that can act with a strong singular voice," De Santis said.
The senate approved a master's degree in computer engineering that will be taken to the Board of Regents for final approval.
Regent Jaime Koch is expected to attend the next Faculty Senate meeting Oct. 28 to speak about faculty morale.
