Senate invades GF meeting

A handful of students tried to turn Tuesday's General Faculty meeting into a student senate function. With a group of senators on hand, student concerns were aired out over the appointment of Peter Goldsmith as the new dean of students.

President Nancy Dye almost dodged the issue that riveted the entire campus' attention last week and gained local media coverage. Dye sandwiched her offer to openly discuss the recent protest between two other items on the agenda.

After a brief announcement of the graduating class of 1999 by Associate Registrar Ken Gilson and approval of the 664 graduates by the general faculty, Dye offered to discuss the recent dean of students problem. Before any attendants could take up the offer, Dye quickly turned the floor over to Professor of History Heather Hogan.

Hogan presented the athletic department's proposal to add softball as a varsity sport (see related story pg. 1). Even though the general faculty had appeared to move past the dean of students issue, first-year senator Chris Anton broke form and asked Dye to revisit the discussion later on in the meeting. "I feel like I am beating a dead horse..." said Anton as he began the discussion on the controversial dean search process.

Dye usually acts as chair of the General Faculty meeting, but she stepped down and offered Dean of the College Clayton Koppes the chair in order to participate freely in the discussion. Anton expressed some confusion on the role of the three student representatives on the dean search committee. Dye asked Senate to pick three students to serve on the committee as full-fledged members, with as much responsibility as faculty and staff representatives.

Anton was under the impression that the students would serve more as liaisons between the student voice and the committee, rather than individual members of the committee. Due to this misunderstanding, Anton felt that the students did not represent popular student opinion, namely that assistant dean of student Bill Stackman and interim dean of students Deb McNish were favored candidates.

Dye said, "If I misled you, I certainly did not intend to."

Associate professor of Politics Eve Sandberg, a faculty representative on the committee, also responded to Anton's comments. "They had a lot more information than you do. The search had to be confidential," said Sandberg. She asserted that two of the student representatives were active in the search process, and stopped the process at several key points.

First-year Senator Kate Davoli said, "The job of the student was to pick the best candidate, and also to poll student opinion. That's where they failed." Davoli noted the storied LGBTU letter, signed by 60 LGBTU members, which supported Stackman and raised concerns over Goldsmith and his relationship with the LGBT community.

Sandberg addressed the confusion over the LGBTU letter. According to Sandberg, only three of the members of LGBTU that signed the letter had actually attended any open discussion forums for the dean candidates. These three students then reported their findings back to a larger group, and the decision to support Stackman came out of this meeting.

Even though 60 people supported Stackman and not Goldsmith, the search committee also received multiple letters from individuals in the LGBT community supporting other candidates. "It was very hard to take seriously when they had other members of the community saying they liked the candidate," said Sandberg.

Dye backed up Sandberg, describing an email sent by 20 members of the LGBT community at the same time as the LGBTU letter that both criticized the letter and supported another candidate.

The meeting ended on a more uplifting note, when associate professor of African American studies Booker Peek said, "The committee needs to be congratulated on presenting us with four good candidates. I hope we will be more welcoming to the new dean and his family."

Hand jive: Former senator Chris Anton addresses the General Faculty at Tuesday's meeting. (photo by Jake Schlesinger)