After much debate, the University Senate voted Wednesday to make university committee meetings open to the public. However, the legislation included an amendment that leaves room for an oversight body to exempt some committees from the rule and allow confidentiality.

The legislation would make all university standing committees, senate internal committees, and ad hoc committees open to the public, despite concerns expressed by some senators that opening advisory groups, like the Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC), would hinder the president and other administrators’ ability to seek candid advice and counsel.

The motion sponsor, Professor Jennifer Freyd, said opening committee meetings would increase transparency and provide unfettered access to information.

Some senators expressed concern about the motion. In an open letter to the senate, more than 30 current or former FAC members argued banning confidentiality would hinder the effectiveness of the advisory group and have a chilling effect on accountability because the faculty would no longer feel free to advise the president candidly.  

Critics of the motion expressed hope that the amendment to allow the Committee on Committee to establish guidelines for openness, by October 2014, would allow some advisory, budget or personnel committees to continue to operate with confidentiality.

Later, during open discussion, Professor Randy Sullivan brought the recent report from the chair of the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee (IAC) to the senate’s attention for discussion. The report is highly critical of the effectiveness of the IAC, calling it hostile and broken.

President-Elect Robert Kyr concurred and said, “We need to come to some resolution on the IAC. It is broken and we all know that.”

In other business:

• The senate voted to change the finals schedule to remove potential conflicts among evening classes. The motion extends evening finals by 15 minutes to 9:15 p.m., removes an early evening break, and eliminates overlap of finals between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.
• The senate voted to allow nominations for senate offices from the senate floor the day of elections.
• The senate president announced that the ad hoc committee on the delegation of authority policy would present their draft of the policy to campus for comment next Monday, April 28, 2014.

The senate did not have time to address all of the items on their agenda, and added a new meeting to the schedule for April 30, 2014 at 3 p.m. in 175 Knight Law Center.