Members of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate have expressed defiance and shock after being held accountable by the university’s Board of Regents.
On November 7, the regents of the Texas A&M University System pushed back against “shared governance” with TAMU’s woke faculty. The regents voted unanimously to end 52 “low-performing” programs—including an LGBTQ minor.
Four days later, members of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate spoke against the regents’ actions.
The senate is an advisory body that represents the faculty of Texas A&M (TAMU), the Health Sciences Center, the School of Law, the Galveston campus, and the scheduled-for-closure Qatar campus.
“I think there’s a lot of concern about what took place on Thursday,” said Andrew Klein, the faculty senate’s speaker-elect and a TAMU geography professor.
Others were more direct.
“I was astounded at the arrogance of who it was from the board of regents,” shared Clint Magill, a professor in Plant Pathology and Microbiology at TAMU. He believed the regents were acting on “ignorance” in thinking “they knew better than we [the faculty] did.”
“If the board of regents [are] now in charge of curricular instruction of the university, then what is the purpose of the faculty?” asked Raymundo Arroyave, the associate department head for Research, Materials Science & Engineering at TAMU.
Arroyave further emphasized the advisory role of the senate. “If the administration thinks they are better equipped than us to make these decisions, why do we provide all these advisory services to the university?” he asked. “If the administration really wants to handle all these curricular [decisions], that’s fine with me. There are less committees to attend.” He later tried to point out how necessary he believes the faculty senate is.
Outgoing Faculty Speaker Angie Hill Price, an associate dean for undergraduate programs at the Department of Engineering & Industrial Distribution, claimed the senate’s opposition to the regents’ decision was about process. “This was about a process that was poorly planned, poorly developed, [and] had no real faculty input.”
She had just returned from speaking at a committee hearing earlier that day, where state senators had questioned the presidents of TAMU and the University of Texas. Hill Price said she spoke as a private citizen during the hearing. She repeated her previous remarks to state senators about “shared governance” to the faculty senate.
“[The faculty senate] serve[s] as a sounding board for the president on any initiatives for the university. That is shared governance,” she said. “We don’t offer anything that has not been approved by our president.”
TAMU’s website defined “shared governance” as faculty “serving in titled leadership positions” and participating “in the governance of the university … by serving on the Faculty Senate.”
“Where do we go next?” Arroyave asked while praising Price Hill. “The board of regents implicitly stated that they knew better.”
“I don’t know where we go next,” Price Hill replied.
Texas A&M was asked for comment about the November 11 faculty senate meeting. Texas Scorecard asked the Texas A&M University System, the parent of TAMU, for comment as well. Neither replied before publication.
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