The Year Ahead: University Governance Updates - May 23, 2022

Dear colleagues and students,

We write to introduce ourselves as your new University, Faculty, Staff, and Student Senate Presidents. Congratulations on finishing the 2021-22 academic year!

We have been consistently impressed by the many contributions our colleagues have made in governance this year. We invite you to see the reports of committees that worked on different aspects of university life this year, including athletics, faculty rights, libraries, retiree rights and benefits, and many other important campus topics.

We extend our sincere thanks to Rémy Lequesne, Niya McAdoo, Hossein Saiedian, and Tim Spencer, for their dedicated service as Faculty, Student, University, and Staff Senate Presidents, respectively, this past year.

Senate leaders recently had a productive discussion on shared governance with the Chancellor, the Provost, and other university leaders. We appreciated the opportunity to discuss the issues outlined in the “Resolution to Restore Shared Governance” and look forward to continuing these conversations in the coming months.

Because we consider our roles to be representational and community-facing, and because dialogue and direct engagement constitute a foundational principle of shared governance, this coming year we also plan to expand our outreach. Please be on the lookout for a call for volunteers for an ad hoc committee to work toward broadening communication and outreach from governance to campus, inclusive of staff, faculty, and students. We also plan to host a discussion on governance in The Commons in early Fall 2022, outlining the work of our different senates, as well as how we understand shared governance. In the meantime, we invite you to send any thoughts and feedback to govern@ku.edu. We can also receive feedback anonymously and confidentially here.

Finally, we want to share that Kathy Reed, our Executive Assistant for University Governance, who has worked at KU for 26 years, is retiring on July 1, 2022. We consider Kathy an outright institution in governance, and will sorely miss her expertise in university policy and procedures, as well as her good cheer and sense of humor. Many former senate presidents and senators have relied on her depth of knowledge to carry out their duties over the years. We invite all of you who have worked with and know Kathy to share your memories, well-wishes, and stories with us. Please email them to the University Governance Administrative Associate, Tessa Maclean (tessa.maclean@ku.edu), by June 20, 2022. We will compile these for Kathy so she can remember her many ties to KU while she enjoys her well-deserved retirement.

Thank you for all you do,

Jessica Chilcoat, Staff Senate President

Ani Kokobobo, University Senate President

Nick Syrett, Faculty Senate President

Sadie Williams, Student Senate President