Steve Freeman was recently elected to Facult Senate President and will be be taking on the role for this academic year. He has also been promoted to professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and was willing to sit down tith the Iowa State daily for some Q&A.

Why you have been elected as Fac Sen president?

Part of it was timing, and part of it was the desire to make a difference and part of it was that I have worked with some very good faculty in the senate and wanted to keep things moving forward in a way I thought was supportive of shared governance for the faculty and administration.

What do you hope to bring to the Senate floor?

This year, I’m hoping it is going to be a quieter year than last year. Last year we had some tough policy issues that we had been working on for quite a while that we didn’t get through and this year, one of the things the senate will to is to monitor the implementation of those. The other really critical issues for the senate is the budget model review so we’ll be working really hard on that.

What are some of the biggest issues?

Not only working on the university-wide review, but we have a Senate task force that will also be working on that. We’re also reviewing the office of the vice president and provost and we are finishing up the review of the vice president of student affair’s office. We’ve got some important reviews that are happening this year. We’ll have some policy changes, there will be curriculum issues that come up, but not at the same level that we had last year.

We’ve also got some academic reorganizations that we’ll be dealing with. The first one will be introduced as new business at the September meeting that is the proposal to create a school of education. So we’ll be working that through the system. We’ve got a couple other departments in different stages of reorganizations. Of course, those are always things that are of importance to the senate. Currently, the reorganizations that are underway don’t include curriculum changes.

What do you want to improve on from last year?

There’s a need for the senate to explain to the general faculty what the senate does and the role it plays within the university. There are pockets of faculty that feel that the senate doesn’t really have any power or influence and we just need to remind them that that’s not true. I think the faculty understand that curricular issues are faculty controlled. That’s a mindset that they don’t really think about the senate in that role because they know that faculty control the curriculum. Of course, the senate is the way we move those things through the system and ultimately get the board of regents’ approval for new programs and those sorts of things.

Why is the Senate important to faculty?

What the faculty could get is that the senate is also the policy making body for the faculty, so we set promotion and tenure guidelines. It’s the administration and te faculty that implement them, but it’s the faculty that decide what it’s ultimatel going to be.

Why is the faculty senate important to students?

The faculty senate is the body that really oversees and safeguards academic integrity and academic quality. So not only from directly what courses are offered, from what curriculum to what required classes, electives, all of those things go through the faculty senate. So it’s really the faculty senate through the academic programs that have the biggest impact on students.