2025 Budget Address to the University Senate
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Perhaps some of you will want to glance at the text of President Holloway's budget speech yesterday to the University Senate.
https://www.rutgers.edu/president/2025-Budget-Address-to-the-University-Senate
https://www.rutgers.edu/president/2025-Budget-Address-to-the-University-Senate
I originally posted this on the football board because I thought it would be of general interest, but the moderators moved it here to the thread that @Tango Two had already established.
Budget details were published in September 2024 so the details have been public for half a year.
Wonder how many university senators turned up to the address. Shouldn't be too difficult for senators because meetings are held on Zoom.
At least Holloway turned up for his own address. He was zero for seven on meeting attendance during 2024-2025 Senate year, now one for eight.
Forty six percent of senators have missed a majority of meetings this senate year.
Given how ineffectual the Senate is -- and I speak as someone who served for nine years and commuted from Camden every month for meetings -- it's not surprising that attendance is low. BTW, for those who don't know, the Senate is comprised of students, administrators and staff in addition to faculty. Its only power is to make the University Calendar (I, unfortunately, became an expert on that even though the law school, where I taught, does not follow the same calendar.) All of its other actions are just recommendations to the administration, which usually rejects them with a few sentences of explanation.
Thank you for your service to Rutgers.
Why does Rutgers University require a 200+ member senate to create a calendar?
Last year, I saw the senators formed a compensation committee that recommended senators be paid. Holloway smacked it down in a 1-page letter.
Many universities have faculty Academic Senates that do things. For instance, in the University of California system, the campus Academic Senates play a major role in assessing candidates for tenure and promotion. Today's Senate, with representation from students and administrators (and, these days, staff) was created by President Bloustein. It is hard to avoid the thought that he deliberately set out to create a body that would be a talk shop only. No doubt giving the Senate the power to create the calendar was a token.
BTW, a lot of the student members love to hear themselves talk -- at least that was true during my time. They were also impossible to work with. The reason is that the student "caucus" felt it had the power to force changes in any agreement that had been made between students on a committee and other members.
Similar threads
