University of Minnesota. Ad Hoc Committee Reviewing the Senate Committee on Student Affairs

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REPORT OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE REVIEWING THE SENATE 
COMMITTEE ON STUDENT AFFAIRS 
AUGUST 2011 
 
In the summer of 2010, the Faculty Consultative Committee (FCC) initiated and the 
Senate Consultative Committee (SCC) charged a working committee to review the 
structure and charges of University Senate committees.  One recommendation resulting 
from this review was to further evaluate the charge and effectiveness of the Senate 
Committee on Student Affairs (SCSA).  Toward that effort, Professor Kathryn 
VandenBosch, chair, SCC and Aaron Carlson, chair, Student Senate Consultative 
Committee (SSCC) formed an ad hoc committee to further review the SCSA.  Members 
of the committee are:  Vickie Courtney, director, University Senate Office (chair), Gerald 
Rinehart, Vice Provost for Student Affairs (OSA), Amelious Whyte, chief of staff, OSA, 
Silvia Canelon, co-chair SCSA, Joyce Holl, co-chair SCSA, Jane Phillips, P&A member 
of Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP), Carlos Torelli, faculty member of 
SCSA, Bree Dalager, student representative, Takayuki Inukai, student representative, and 
Jonathon Lundberg, student representative.  
 
The ad hoc committee was charged to consider the following issues:  
• Whether the SCSA is appropriately sized and has the right balance of faculty and 
student members. 
• Whether the elements of the charge are appropriate and the extent to which they 
are currently carried out.   
• Whether the elements of the charge, which are not being carried out, should be 
eliminated from the charge to the committee or revised so that the charge can be 
carried out. 
• Whether the language in the charge regarding international students should be 
revised or eliminated, and how the language intersects with the language in the 
charge to SCEP. 
• Whether there is effective interaction between the SCSA and the administrative 
officers who have responsibility for issues that fall within the purview of the 
committee. 
• Whether it is most effective for the SCSA to report to the SCC or the SSCC. 
 
The ad hoc committee met on April 1, 2011, April 28, 2011, and May 31, 2011.  It 
reviewed the SCSA charge, the SCEP charge, a summary of the SCSA’s work in 2010-
11, and the University Senate Organizational chart.  It also discussed at-length the 
membership, work, and functioning of the SCSA with its co-chairs, a faculty member of 
the committee, and its ex officio membership from the OSA.   
 
The ad hoc committee believes that under the leadership of its current co-chairs, the 
SCSA is functioning effectively and serves an important role.  It serves the unique 
purpose of creating an opportunity for students, faculty and administrators to meet and 
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discuss issues.   However, the ad hoc committee did identify some aspects of the charge 
that need to be updated, and has several recommendations it believes will improve the 
function and effectiveness of the SCSA.   
 
Recommendations: 
1.  The ad hoc committee considered whether the SCSA’s charge should continue to 
encompass student affairs issues system-wide, or whether it should be limited to the Twin 
Cities campus.  It concludes that system-wide representation is an important aspect of the 
SCSA.  However, it recommends that steps be taken to:  1) increase participation by 
coordinate campus students and student affairs administrators, and 2) ensure issues 
unique to the coordinate campuses are addressed by the SCSA when appropriate.  The ad 
hoc committee encourages the SCSA to create a work plan that includes regular updates 
from the coordinate campuses’ student affairs administrators and reports from the SCSA 
to the coordinate campuses.  It also encourages the Student Committee on Committees to 
actively seek and appoint student representatives from the coordinate campuses.  
 
2.  The ad hoc committee considered creating ex officio positions on the committee for 
the coordinate campuses’ student affairs administrators; however, it believes this would 
create an imbalance in the committee membership and would not be an effective use of 
administrative resources.  Instead, as indicated above, the ad hoc committee recommends 
that the SCSA be encouraged to create a work plan that includes regular updates from the 
coordinate campuses’ student affairs administrators. 
 
3. After considering the balance between student and non-student-voting members on the 
SCSA, the majority of the ad hoc committee concludes that the number of students on the 
committee should be increased from nine (9) to twelve (12) for the 2011-12 academic-
year.  The increase in student committee members should be evaluated by the SCSA at 
the end of the year to determine if the increased number of students broadens the student 
representation on the committee and increases student participation.  
 
The ad hoc committee believes it is important to note that it initially considered 
increasing the number of students on the SCSA from nine (9) to fifteen (15) in order to 
address concerns about poor student attendance and participation at meetings, and 
providing a broader representation of students.  However, after considerable discussion, 
the majority of committee members agreed that increasing the number of students to 
fifteen (15) would make it more difficult to attain a quorum for committee business, 
might negatively impact consistent student attendance, and would cause an imbalance in 
the committee structure.  Therefore, although some student members preferred increasing 
the number of students to fifteen (15), and one felt strongly about increasing the number 
to more than thirteen (13), the majority of the ad hoc committee members agreed that 
increasing the number to twelve (12) would broaden the group of students participating 
with little impact on the ability to achieve a quorum, would likely increase student 
involvement, and would maintain an appropriate balance between student and non-
student-voting members on the SCSA. 
 
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4.  The ad hoc committee recommends that the SCSA co-chairs Joyce Holl and Silvia 
Canelon meet with the Student Committee on Committees to discuss the ad hoc 
committee’s concerns regarding: 1) the timing of student appointments and 2) ensuring 
that there is diverse student representation on the SCSA.  The ad hoc committee also 
recommends that the process of appointing students to the University Senate committees 
be completed by early September.  When the appointments process is not completed until 
mid-October, it impacts students’ ability to meaningfully participate in governance 
committees particularly when committees begin meeting in September.  Additionally, the 
ad hoc committee recommends that the Committee on Committees work to ensure that 
the appointments to the SCSA are diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, collegiate 
affiliation, and other governance affiliations such as the Minnesota Student Association 
and the Graduate and Professional Student Association.  This will help increase 
reciprocal communication between the SCSA and as broad a group of students as 
possible.   
 
5.  The ad hoc committee considered revising the SCSA charge to add ex officio 
members in the areas of housing and residential life, student advising, and international 
student services.  It determined, however, that the current SCSA ex-officio membership 
is sufficient to provide perspectives on these areas of student life and to allow the 
committee to fulfill its charge.  Additionally, the ad hoc committee recommends 
including in the work plan regular communication with the appropriate administrators in 
the areas of housing and residential life, student advising, and international student 
services.   
 
6.  The ad hoc committee considered revising the SCSA charge to include paragraphs 
specifically defining its duties regarding residential housing and student advising.  After 
careful consideration, it concludes that the broad language of the SCSA charge allows the 
SCSA to be most effective, and that specifying particular areas of student life in the 
charge may inadvertently be viewed as excluding others.  The ad hoc committee, 
therefore, recommends against revising the charge to include paragraphs defining its 
duties regarding residential housing and student advising.  
 
7.  The ad hoc committee believes it is appropriate to leave issues of international student 
life in the SCSA charge because they are not duplicative of the issues covered by the 
SCEP charge.  The issues in the SCEP charge apply only to educational policies and the 
SCSA charge focuses on issues of international student welfare and services.  
 
8.  The ad hoc committee recommends that the SCSA charge be updated to remove 
obsolete language in paragraph “b” referring to the SCSA’s relationship with Student 
Organizations.  First, there is not a Policy on Registration and Classification of Student 
Groups; therefore, this language should be eliminated.  Second, there are too many 
student groups (over 800) for the SCSA to fulfill its charge to act as a comprehensive link 
to them.  In order to assist the SCSA in fulfilling this aspect of its charge, the ad hoc 
committee recommends that the OSA look into methods for notifying student 
organizations of the existence of the SCSA, and informing these organizations that they 
may bring policy issues to the SCSA.   
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9.  The ad hoc committee recommends that the SCSA continue reporting to the SSCC.   If 
at the end of the 2011-12 academic year, the SCSA determines this line of reporting is 
ineffective, it can raise that issue with the SSC and SSCC leadership. 
 
 
Approved:   
 


Report of the Ad Hoc Committee Reviewing the Senate Committee on Student Affairs, August 2011

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Report of the Ad Hoc Committee Reviewing the Senate Committee on Student Affairs, August 2011

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