Note: The following was written by four UMD faculty who are members of UEA, but this is not an official document of UEA itself.
Dear colleagues,
Last year we won an important victory: the creation of a Faculty Assembly and Faculty Council within the new campus governance system. We did not previously have a governance mechanism that allowed us to express our collective views as UMD faculty. We now do. This is cause for celebration. But rather than rest on our laurels, we must now use it. While the administration has not yet rolled out the new governance system, there are urgent issues before us that cannot wait.
Most obviously, over the summer break -- at a time when most faculty were not on contract -- the chancellor introduced and commenced a budget-driven "prioritization" process that has serious implications for all of us. Some programs may even face elimination. How should faculty respond? If cuts are necessary, where should they be made? Should they come from the academic programs that fulfill the University's teaching and research mission? Or should they come from administration and those programs and services that are peripheral to our academic mission? What do you think, and what should we, as faculty, do?
We have scheduled an all-faculty meeting on Wednesday, September 11, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in Kirby Rafters on the 3rd floor of Kirby Student Center to address this urgent concern. Faculty members serving on the Program Prioritization Committee will be in attendance to listen and answer questions. We also would like to begin a discussion of the proposed constitution and bylaws, which can be found at <http://www.d.umn.edu/
Please come -- and be sure to bring your colleagues with you. It is imperative that we speak up as faculty. Our futures, and the futures of our students, are at stake.
David Gore, Scott Laderman, Michael Pfau, and Jennifer Schultz