Next school year, Tim Day, professor of biomedical sciences, will become the president of Faculty Senate and the representative of all Iowa State faculty.

The president-elect of the Faculty Senate is currently on Iowa State’s Athletic Council and has a record of working for student-athletes. Current Faculty Senate President Jonathan Sturm sought out Day to lead the Student Evaluations of Teaching Task Force.

Faculty Sen. Veronica Dark has worked with Day for many years on the Athletic Council and had a lot of input on his character and actions on the Athletic Council.

As members of the Athletic Council, Dark and Day have worked together with different types of issues. Dark mentioned a bill they worked on together to help Iowa State student-athletes get excused absences for representing the school.

“Professor Day at the time was the faculty athletics representative to the NCAA,” Dark said. “… There were some faculty who were saying that missing my class for something like a game is unacceptable they weren’t supposed to so we clarified that.”

Dark also mentioned that she and Day had to visit with the head of English 150 and 250 courses to clarify that some student-athletes were being impacted.

“He’s very much student-athlete focused, and that actually makes him student focused,” Dark said.

“Over the couple of years in the NCAA, we have found that student-athletes’ voices were not heard as much as they should be,” Day said. “I want to make sure that student voices are heard on campus, and that faculty and students work together to help steer the direction of this great university.”

His current work on Faculty Senate through the Student Evaluations of Teaching Task Force is important to Sturm. Sturm has put Day to the test as chair of the task force.

“We want to look into the student evaluations of teaching to make sure that they are fair […] and inclusive.” Sturm said. “I think that and the implementation of those is one of the things this task force is going to do and he’s chairing that task force. I think that’s important work.”

Both Day and Sturm made comments on the shared governance at Iowa State. Day made a comment about how the faculty has a lot of say and it provides a great opportunity to help shape the university.

“I think we have a great group of faculty senators that are willing to work hard to make things better for the rest of the faculty,” Day said.

Day also addressed that as a faculty senator, this can be difficult at times.

“The heavy workload on most of our faculty can make it difficult to engage with them at times on issues that are important but have a longer time horizon,” Day said. “As a faculty senator, you have to ask yourself, ‘Is this the right time?’”