Tarrant County College’s faculty senate will soon be up and running again — under new rules.
Trustees approved a policy change reestablishing the faculty senate in a manner that complies with a Texas law passed earlier this year that introduced restrictions on such representative bodies.
“It really is the language of the bill, so getting the policy piece here was, I don’t want to say an easy lift, but it was something that we didn’t have to spend a lot of time on on the details,” said Shelley Pearson, vice chancellor and provost, at an Oct. 16 board of trustees meeting.
Trustees previously abolished the faculty senate on Aug. 21 before Senate Bill 37 took effect Sept. 1, with plans to reestablish it through the community college’s policy process.
With the law leaving little flexibility, the policy is nearly an exact reiteration of it, said South Campus history professor Lee Snaples, who serves on the college’s Policy Review Committee alongside five other faculty members and members of TCC administration.
“The only real flexibility we had was how many faculty members per campus,” Snaples said.
Under the new policy, the faculty senate may not have more than 60 members representing the college’s six campuses. Each campus will have one senator selected by Chancellor Elva LeBlanc and one or more elected by a campus faculty vote. The chancellor will select a president, vice president and secretary from among the members.
The set number of elected members will likely result in fewer than the maximum allowed 60 members, Snaples said. One reason is because that leaves room for any future changes, such as the addition of a new campus.
Senate members selected by LeBlanc will serve one-year terms and can be reappointed up to six years consecutively. Elected members will serve two-year terms. After those periods, members must wait two years before they can serve again.
All meetings will be open to the public and a quorum is required. The meetings will be livestreamed if more than half of the members are in attendance. Agendas and any curriculum proposals must be posted online at least one week prior to the meeting.
The policy also denotes that the senate is advisory and does not have the authority to make final decisions.
The next step is for the college to adopt rules governing how elections for senate seats will be held, how many members will serve from each campus and the schedule of meetings.
“The college was committed to maintaining a faculty senate,” Snaples said. “It was just figuring out how we could comply with the law.”
McKinnon Rice is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at mckinnon.rice@fortworthreport.org.
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