Developing Technology Solutions to Facilitate Faculty Governance

Ray Guydosh  &  Karen Volkman
 Plattsburgh State University of New York

CIT 2003,  May 2003,  Potsdam NY

Faculty can make use of computer technology not only for teaching, but also in supporting functions such as faculty governance.  The presenters discuss and demonstrate examples of how such uses have facilitated local and system-wide faculty governance.

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 Many faculty assume that the application of technology in the academic environment is limited primarily to teaching.  Faculty may use PowerPoint presentations in the classroom, use Internet resources in a course to supplement the text, design online courses, or use spreadsheets to keep grade data.  Faculty involved with department administration and advising might use database systems for student records management.

 However, an application of technology in the academic environment which is seldom thought about is the use of technology to create greater avenues for communication and input by the faculty.  This presentation will discuss the use of technology infrastructure to augment the faculty governance process.

 The authors have participated in faculty governance both at a campus level and at the SUNY system-wide level.  During this service they have had the opportunity to discover firsthand some of the growing uses of technology to facilitate the process of faculty governance.  Email lists can inform campus faculty of time sensitive governance issues.  Web based response forms allow campus governance leaders to survey faculty opinion on a wide range of current issues of debate in an efficient and economical fashion.  Data from the surveys can easily be sorted and imported into spreadsheets or databases to demonstrate faculty concerns to campus administration.  Campus Faculty Senate and University Faculty Senate web sites can promote communication and increase access to governance information such as meeting agendas and minutes, governance election results, or links to detailed information about governance issues in an inexpensive and efficient manner which facilitates participation in the governance process.  For example, many Faculty Senate task force or committee reports are simply too lengthy to distribute to all faculty in a paper format.  Web technology can also allow governance leaders to set up secure web sites whose access is limited to constituents from their campus only by using enhancements such as the secure MS FrontPage server or the EZProxy server available on many SUNY campuses.

 This presentation will take an Internet tour of how some campus governance groups, statewide governance committees, and faculty participants in the SUNY University Senate are using technology to facilitate the process of faculty governance in the SUNY system.

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