The Faculty Senate's Student Faculty Interaction Subcommittee is seeking to promote better student-faculty relations at the University through specific proposals that members said they hope to present to administrators this semester.
Robert Davis, environmental science professor and subcommittee chair, said the proposals originated from a Senate-sponsored student and faculty retreat in the fall of 1998 where participants discussed ways to improve faculty-student relations.
At the retreat, participants stated impediments to faculty-student interaction, including incompatible faculty and student schedules, faculty members' perceived inaccessibility, the difficulty of initiating contact between faculty and students outside of class and the size of the University.
"Some of the ideas were photo class lists and [requiring that] every faculty member have a Web page," Academic Affairs Committee Chairman William R. Johnson said. "There was feedback that students would like to know something about the faculty as people."
"There is a standardized Web format at lots of other universities - you click on the professor's name and there is a picture and academic credentials," Davis said.
Other proposed ideas the subcommittee will give to the administration include the expansion of University Seminars to possibly include second-year students, or offering more seminars and encouraging University architects to include more informal meeting spaces in plans for newly built buildings or buildings marked for renovation, Johnson said.
"We are trying to promote informal meeting spaces for faculty-student interaction, since often there are discussions that the students or faculty would like to continue outside of the classroom," he said.
Related to the theme of enhancing communication between faculty and students is the proposition that student groups are requesting more informal faculty speeches.
"This arose out of the idea that students want faculty more involved in their groups - not just formal University committees, but maybe something like dorm groups," Davis said.
He said he believes "faculty are almost always responsive to students if they have the time."
The subcommittee will approach administrators who are involved with each of these specific areas, and arrange meetings to discuss these proposals as possible changes.
Davis said he thinks informal talks by professors for student groups will be the easiest proposal to implement, because it does not require any funds.
"By next fall, we'll have some way to contact all the various student organizations to contact faculty for speaking," Davis said.
The Senate's Research and Scholarship Committee now sponsors a formal Faculty Speakers Bureau through which faculty members speak to community and alumni groups, but there is no similar medium for faculty to speak to University students.
The Senate's Academic Affairs Committee first formed the Student Faculty Interaction Subcommittee one year ago.
These proposals are the result of last year's Committee efforts.
The proposals all are related to the Senate's theme of "intellectual community," begun by former Senate Chairman Jahan Ramazani in an effort to foster a better academic climate at the University.
Davis said the Academic Affairs Committee has reviewed the list of suggestions and are supportive of the subcommittee's ideas.
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