University Senate’s first session of the academic year lasted less than two minutes Wednesday. But the committees’ real work began after the formal meeting ended, with more than 100 members sitting down in small groups to discuss what to accomplish in the coming year.

Eileen Schell, chair of USen’s agenda committee, presided over the meeting. She filled in for both Chancellor Nancy Cantor and Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina, who usually lead the meetings but were out of town.

The official session consisted of the assembly unanimously approving new faculty members to USen’s 17 committees. After formal business ended, each of the committees scattered across rooms in Maxwell and Eggers Halls to conduct their own business.

The Administrative Operations Committee worked around department meetings and classes to schedule its four meeting dates for the semester. The Honorary Degrees Committee passed around letters for soliciting honorary degree nominations, selected its chair and discussed the confidential nature of the committee. Arthur Jensen, associate dean and professor at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, was reappointed the committee chair.

Jerry Mager, chair of the Administrative Operations Committee and associate dean of the School of Education, led his committee through a discussion of the potential effects of swine flu at Syracuse University. The committee will ask Health Services to be present at its first meeting, so members can help evaluate the campus response plan and alert Health Services to issues that still need consideration.

In light of the three students who were robbed last week, Mager said his committee also plans to meet with Department of Public Safety officials to discuss what else can be done about student safety.

Martha Hanson, co-chair of the Women’s Concerns Committee, said her committee is still working on surveying campus interest and the need for a women’s center. The initiative, which began more than five years ago, is waiting for analysis of student and faculty surveys from SU’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. The committee received results from the faculty and staff survey last October and expects to receive analysis of the student survey – conducted last semester – in a few weeks.

Hanson said it’s apparent that there is confusion about the purpose of the center, and that the committee wants the surveyed faculty and students to decide what the end result will be.

‘The questionnaire was clear, but in people’s minds they’re not sure what is meant by a women’s center,’ Hanson said. ‘Which was really helpful to find out. So we have a sense that we need to dig into some focus groups, some education, about what it is that we’re talking about.’

The Women’s Concerns Committee also plans to evaluate a ‘staff complaint process,’ which the group helped write and launched three years ago. The process provides protection to employees who don’t have tenure but want to bring up a problem at their job.

‘It’s so important for staff to know there’s someplace they can go that will air a grievance that is honest and fair and due process,’ Hanson said. ‘We want to revisit, to assess where that is.’

Giovanna Albaroni, SU’s business process manager for registration and co-chair of the senate’s LGBT Concerns Committee, said her group would continue work on a database of LGBT-related events.

‘It is a database that will include information about a lot of things that are happening on campus,’ Albaroni said, ‘That people who are LGBT need to know about and care about: symposiums, speaker series, other events like that on campus.’

The committee plans to improve networking techniques so it can learn about events on campus and enter them into the database with enough time to publicize them.

‘Everybody needs to know about it, not just people who are LGBT,’ Albaroni said. ‘On this campus, we don’t play favorites. Everybody’s the same. Everybody is equal here. We want people to know that and feel comfortable with that.’

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Published on September 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm