The Faculty Senate will meet for the first time this school year Sept. 21 in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. Michael Owen, professor of agronomy, will serve as this year’s president, replacing Arnold van der Valk, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology.

Owen said he is excited but anxious about his new position, which entails running all the meetings and representing the Senate in meetings with the administration and the provost.

“There’s no course I can take about being a Faculty Senate president,” Owen said. “I want to make sure I represent the faculty and I do so in an objective fashion.”

Van der Valk, who will remain on the Senate for one more year as president, said his roles this year include serving on a number of university and academic boards, including the University Budget Advisory Committee and the council of Resource Policies Allocation. Both committees meet with the provost regularly and deal with projecting next year’s budget.

Steve Freeman, associate director in the department of agricultural and biosystems engineering, will serve as president-elect.

“Both Steve and I ran unopposed, which is a bit concerning to me, but even running unopposed, I was not elected unanimously,” Owen said. “There was a vote for Donald Duck, and I know there was a vote for Donald Duck because I cast that vote.”

Owen said the agenda for the first meeting will be finalized at the executive meeting Sept. 14 and will include an address from Tom Hill, vice president of student affairs. Hill is slated to review the importance of the recruitment and retention of students, “given the importance of tuition to the general budget,” Owen said.

Owen said the Senate may also discuss the post-tenure review task force, a committee which he served as chairman last year, that analyzes the effectiveness of tenure and provides feedback to faculty members and the university.

“We already have a procedure to some extent in place for post-tenure review, as mandated by the Board of Regents, but it is not a particularly well-understood process, so we’re looking at what can be done to make it a more useful process,” van der Valk said.

Some of Owen’s goals as president this year include increasing participation in Faculty Senate by encouraging each department to elect the best representatives to serve on the Senate. He would also like to prevent what he calls “curriculum rustling,” or “a clear and simple strategy to take students from one college and put them in [another] department” in order to gain more funding.

However, his major goal as president is to be an objective leader and representative of the Senate.

“As president I need to make sure all ideas are given a fair opportunity,” Owen said.

Owen said in order to do this, he will discuss ideas with the appropriate councils or executive board and potentially assign task force committees to the issues.

As the outgoing president, van der Valk’s advice matches Owen’s goals.

“Ultimately I think any president of the Faculty Senate has to constantly keep in mind who he’s representing, which is obviously in this case the faculty … and you have to constantly keep in mind the interests of the students, which is why we’re all here,” van der Valk said.