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Faculty Senate and Council Records

 Collection
Identifier: RG03.0001.001

  • Staff Only
  • Please navigate to collection organization to place requests.

Scope and Contents

The records of the Faculty Senate and Council are arranged into five series: Administrative, Governing Bodies, Committees, Departmental, and Ephemera. The collection relates to all areas of University of Iowa governance, including the state Board of Regents, Board in Control of Athletics, Board of Deans, and AFSCME collective bargaining. Papers include such documents as committee reports, meeting minutes, agendas, correspondence, membership lists, election records, policies, newspaper clippings, speeches and photographs. Patrons may wish to search the same dates in more than one series for completeness. For example, a topic in a 1960 report may correspond to information in the 1960 minutes.

The Faculty Senate and Council papers document the central issues that have shaped administrative policy and the lives of faculty, staff and students since 1948. Examples of matters addressed by this body are:

--the formation of collective bargaining for state of Iowa employees (see Governing Bodies series, Collective Bargaining) --the evolution of a smoking policy on campus (see the Administrative series, within Policies, 1977) --faculty promotion procedures (see the Administrative series, Procedures)

--the history of TIAA/CREF benefits plan (see the Committees series, 1976)

--the reorganization of the Board in Control of Athletics in order to include women?s athletics (see Governing Bodies, Board in Control of Athletics, 1981)

--commissions formed in 1969 and 1975 to address concerns of Black students (see the Departmental series, Reports for those years)

--information about percentages of UI staff by ethnicity and gender in a 1976 report (see the Departmental series, Reports for that year)

--mandatory faculty retirement age (see the Committees series, 1977, for history of UI retirement)

--changing the name of the University (see the Administrative series Minutes dated May 12, 1959, and within the Departmental series, see Reports, 1961)

--correspondence with the University of Tokyo regarding nuclear weapons in 1958 (see the Administrative series, Correspondence, 1958)

--the refusal of a professor to give grades in 1967

--the Selective Service practice of considering student grades in 1966 (see the Administrative series, Procedures, 1966)

Series I, the Administrative records consists of eight sub-series: Correspondence, Minutes, Searches, Committee Members, Member Assignments to Committees, Meeting Announcements and Agenda, Policies, and Procedures. Each sub-series is arranged chronologically. Faculty Senate minutes are inter-filed with Faculty Council minutes. Regular meeting minutes and special meeting minutes are also inter-filed.

Series II, the Governing Bodies records includes the Board of Regents (1972-1975), Board in Control of Athletics (1960-1981), Board of Deans (1955-1979), and AFSCME Collective bargaining (1971-1977). These are organized chronologically within each body.

Series III, the Committees records are organized chronologically and by committee name within each year beginning in 1946. Many committees were ad hoc and therefore produced records intermittently. The Committees series includes advisory councils and boards as well, such as American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the Council on Teaching, the Board of Trustees of Student Publications, and the University Research Council. Some newspaper clippings and magazine articles are dated as early as 1940. Correspondence pertaining to work of the committees is included.

Series IV, the Departmental records consists of five sub-series: Reports Produced by the Senate, Awards Presented by the Senate, Reviews Conducted by the Senate, Speeches, and Studies / Self-Studies. Each of these sub-series is organized chronologically.

Series V, the Ephemera records consists of two sub-series: Newspaper Clippings and Photographs.

Dates

  • Creation: 1902-2003

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research. This collection is stored at an offsite location. When requesting materials, please allow two business days for items to arrive at the Special Collections reading room.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright restrictions may apply; please consult Special Collections staff for further information.

Biographical / Historical

To understand the history of the Faculty Senate at the University of Iowa, it is helpful to know the environment during the twenty years preceding its founding in 1967.

President Virgil M. Hancher appointed the University Committee on Communication between the Faculty and the President on May 14, 1947. The committee was charged with the task of establishing the University Council (later called University Faculty Council) as a means to represent faculty views to the president of the University. After one year of meetings during which members were elected and proposals were drawn up, the first meeting of the Faculty Council was held on May 4, 1948.

From October 1959 through May 1960, Faculty Council's main focus was to decide whether the establishment of a University Senate would promote understanding between faculty and administration, and provide direction to University policies. Finally, on January 17, 1967, the University Faculty Council, by a vote of 8 to 4, decided to recommend a document to the faculty, which would establish a University Faculty Senate. President Howard Bowen and the Regents approved the constitution of the Senate and the Council on April 4, 1967.

Stow Persons wrote in The University of Iowa in the Twentieth Century (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990) that Bowen gave faculty members a stronger voice in the guidance of the University in order to combat low faculty morale. This gesture did not align faculty opinions with Bowen's, however, as is evident in the first issue to involve large numbers of faculty members: the Senate voted against ROTC presence on campus, a stand which the administration and the State Board of Regents rejected.

The relationship of the Senate to the Council was set in December, 1960, in anticipation of the formation of a Senate: the Senate would be the representative and deliberative organization of the faculty, and the Council would act as the administrative agency of the body, disseminating reports and minutes of the Senate.

As of 2004, the Council considered and amended reports of the Senate, and prepared the agenda for the Senate. To view current Faculty Senate membership, constitution, committees, agenda, and minutes, visit their Web site at http://www.uiowa.edu/~facsen/.

Extent

56.50 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Method of Acquisition

These materials were transferred to the University Archives by Faculty Senate office staff and former Faculty Senate members in numerous accessions, beginning September 1975.

Related Materials

Collections of the Board of Regents records, Board in Control of Athletics minutes, and Student Senate records. Presidential papers, from the Virgil Hancher administration through the present, also include relevant correspondence. These are located in University Archives.

Papers of Philip G. Hubbard (RG99.0248)

Records of the Committee on Student Life (RG05.0003.019)

Records of the Committee on Human Rights (RG05.0003.040)

Papers of Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte, located in Iowa Women's Archives. Related to the Faculty Senate Committee on Budgetary Planning and Review.

Bennett, Mary. "Student Unrest at the University of Iowa, 1967 to 1971." In Historical Papers Collection (RG 01.01.03); also at the State Historical Society of Iowa.

Brownstein, Andrew. "Keeping the Lid On." Iowa Alumni Quarterly 51, no. 1 (spring 1998): 32-36, illus. Student protest, 1969-1971.

Luck, David J. Student Protest at Iowa. Iowa City: Typography Laboratory, University of Iowa School of Journalism, 1969. 10 pp., illus. Photographic essay.

Collier, Paul Stanley. A Study of Housing Conditions in a Small City: Some Phases of the Housing Problem in Iowa City. M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1912. 81 pp. Student rooms, pp. 26-30.

Hubbard, Philip G. New Dawns: A 150-Year Look at Human Rights at the University of Iowa. Iowa City: Sesquicentennial Committee, University of Iowa, 1996. 210 pp., illus., notes.

Hubbard, Philip G. My Iowa Journey: The Life Story of the University of Iowa's First African American Professor. University of Iowa Press, 1999. 193 pp., illus.

Hubbard, Philip G. "UI: The Early Years." In The Iowa State Bystander, 1894-1994: 100 Years of Black Achievement, Robert V. Morris, ed., pp. 17-19. Des Moines, Iowa: Morris Communications Group, 1994.

Clara Oleson's interview in More Strong-Minded Women: Iowa Feminists Tell Their Stories, by Louise R. Noun, page 269, refers to discrimination against married female faculty/staff regarding University benefits, and is related to the following folder title in this collection: Committees, in Funded Retirement and Insurance, 1966.

Author
Denise Anderson, May 2005
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
eng

Repository Details

Part of the University of Iowa Archives Repository

Contact:
100 Main Library
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City IA 52242
319-335-5921