Tuesday night’s Faculty Senate meeting was dominated by two agenda items: a continued discussion on how the university plans to handle state appropriation cuts, and proposed changes to a section — 3.4 — of the Faculty Handbook, which governs the nonrenewal and termination of appointed faculty members at Iowa State, in order to accommodate for the size of the cuts we face.

For those of us unfamiliar with Faculty Senate policies and procedures, which we were, two points raised in the discussion were particularly interesting.

First, “good-faith efforts” will be expected to be used in securing tenured faculty positions elsewhere in the university, should the Board of Regents declare the university to be in a state of financial exigency. The open forum revealed that the “good-faith efforts” would apply to tenured faculty exclusively, because cutting tenure-track faculty is an option the university would pursue in times of financial crisis.

Second, the appointment of lecturers and clinicians in various departments have been and will continue to be performed on a year-by-year basis.

It is our hope that the leadership of both the Faculty Senate and the university administration pursue financial solutions that are clear and straightforward. It’s true that cuts this drastic are unprecedented in recent history, and plans and strategies are generally best assembled with ample time and energy to formulate them — both of which we’re quickly running out of.

Over the next few months, as data becomes available and decisions are made regarding the cuts for fiscal year 2011, the President, deans and department chairs will make the difficult recommendations on who, what, where and how to cut majors, programs and departments.

One senator raised the question of what criteria would be used to determine a program’s excellence, which, subsequently, would determine whether it would be worth keeping.

Our hope is that the answers to questions like these are available in the additions and amendments proposed for the Faculty Handbook. A well-informed staff should be able to see their cuts coming months in advance, if they’re aware of the fact that they might not measure up to the faculty around them — either in their own department or in departments elsewhere on campus.

In stringent financial times, students can only hope that clarity on the part of university leadership would lead to a more excellent educational community for students and research, alike.