Explaining USen’s reimagined committee layout
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When the 2024-25 academic year begins in August, Syracuse University’s Senate will operate within a new format. As part of the “committee reimagining” process, which began in 2021, the Senate passed its first resolution to officially merge multiple committees during its Feb. 21 meeting.
On Nov. 30, 2021 — after an audit of the Senate was completed in the spring of 2021 — a Bylaws Ad Hoc Committee was created to “conduct an overall review of Senate committee structure” and consider a consolidation, according to the Ad Hoc Committee’s website.
The Senate initiated the process to reduce the number of committees because it was unable to fill its seats, Agenda Committee Chair Kira Reed said during the Senate’s 2024 annual open forum.
Currently, the Senate operates with 19 committees, according to the Senate committee website. During Senate meetings this year, various committees have discussed common themes in their charges or overlapping responsibilities with other committees to see if they could be combined. The Senate also asked Senators for feedback during meetings and ran surveys this school year to determine which committees could merge.
Not all discussed merges were finalized in the February motion. A potential merger between Athletic Policy and Student Life was confirmed to not be moving forward during the Senate’s Feb. 21 meeting following conversations between the two committees which determined no “clear overlap.”
Following discussion on the newly proposed committees during the Senate’s Dec. 13 and Jan. 24 meetings and an open forum, the Senate voted to pass the motion to make the changes official in its February meeting. Below are the committees which the Senate made official in that vote, according to an agenda motion sent to The Daily Orange:
- “Curriculum and Instruction” — which merged the Curricula and Instruction committees
- “Employee Services, Fiscal Affairs, and Operations” — which merged the Budget and Fiscal Affairs, Administrative Operations, Services to Faculty and Staff and Computing Services committees
- “Research and Creative Scholarship” — which merged the Research and Library committees
- “Intersectional Equity for Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender, and Disability” — which merged the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Asexual (LGBTQA) Justice and Advocacy and Race, Ethnicity, Equity, and Inclusion committees
- Honorary Degree — which remains a stand-alone committee
The Honorary Degrees committee, will consist of seven Senate members who also serve on other committees, according to the amended agenda motion from January sent to The D.O. In both awarding and revoking honorary degrees, the committee will make recommendations to the Agenda committee, and the final decision will be made by the Board of Trustees and the chancellor.
The remaining committees are in “friendly conversation” to merge, though no final decision on whether or not they will be merged has been made, a member of the Senate confirmed with The D.O.
The Women’s Concerns committee, for instance, intends to join the newly merged Intersectional Equity for Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender and Disability Committee. The Agenda Committee plans to hold a vote on the motion during the Senate’s upcoming March meeting, Reed said during the Feb. 21 meeting.
The Senate will meet next on March 20.
