1975 The Faculty Council is established.

By 1974 the faculty was back to where it had been in 1956 with Charles Browning and his group. Bill Hobbs, a man of quiet demeanor but smooth and savvy persuasion, opened discussions with Brown about agreement in principle to the concept of a Faculty Council. Brown was ambivalent, wanting a strong faculty, yet possessing a churchman's fear of faculty strength. Hobbs continued efforts to convince Brown that a strong faculty had to be a professional faculty, and a Faculty Council was necessary to insure high quality at the core of faculty deliberations and action.

Brown saw the logic of the argument, was convinced the organization being discussed could not operate as a union, and gave his approval over Dean Gresham's misgivings. The Faculty Council structure was adopted on May 13, 1975. The five-member council, each elected by majority vote of the faculty at large, was to stay informed and reflect faculty opinion, act as a liaison between the faculty, administration, and trustees, conduct that portion of faculty meetings that dealt with items brought to the faculty from the council, and investigate and make recommendations on nonacademic matters of faculty concern and welfare.

As a further part of the reorganization, the voting membership of faculty meetings was defined, and an agenda committee created. The Agenda Committee, composed of the president and the dean, and the chair of the Faculty Council and faculty secretary, set the agenda for faculty meetings. Normally the dean and the two faculty representatives met together. The president could meet with the group and could vote to deadlock the group if he and the dean did not want an issue to come to the faculty, but Brown did not play that role, insuring thereby that issues of faculty concern were actually docketed for faculty meetings.

Creation of the council was a significant development in the history of the college. It did not replace the dean, the administrative structure, or the faculty committee system, but it ended the power of the president and dean to ignore formal consideration of issues or to prevent them from coming to the floor of faculty meetings. It did so by institutionalized procedures, so personalities and conflicts of interest did not determine the decisions on academic and personnel issues. By so doing, it also raised faculty concerns to a new level of priority in the institution.

From For Zion's Sake, by Ron Kirkemo


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