Texas A&M’s faculty senate passed a resolution at their March meeting…with 96 percent support…in opposition to the president’s decision telling 82 librarians who are faculty members to either become a staff employee or take a teaching assignment in another department.
Click HERE to read and download the faculty senate resolution.
Before the resolution was discussed, faculty senate speaker Dale Rice said he visited with president Katherine Banks last week, “and I told her that I thought what was happening to the libraries was generating more widespread concern on campus than any other single other proposal out of that group”…the group being a reference to the MGT report recommendations used by Dr. Banks.
Rice also said that faculty librarians who choose to continue faculty positions will move to departments where “many of which won’t be welcoming them with open arms if at all.”
Before the vote on the resolution, there was more than 40 minutes of comments and questions. Several comments from faculty senate members were directed at the only representative of the Texas A&M administration who spoke at the meeting, interim provost Tim Scott.
Dr. Scott said he has “had a department from (the college of) liberal arts that is open to ten (librarians)”, and he has “had a one on one conversation with the dean of the college of education and human development that is also interested in some librarians as well.”
He also said “this is not just isolated to libraries, but it is also for those colleagues that are in health that moving to public health or performance studies that may be moving to visual and performing arts.”
Scott said also said the resolution was “very sound”, adding “I haven’t heard one reason yet not to support that resolution, but I’m hearing it…I’m just letting you know that I can’t take an opposite approach.”
Click below for some of the comments from the March 21, 2022 Texas A&M faculty senate meeting.