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University Senate

Posted August 28, 2024.

TL;DR

  • Columbia’s University Senate is a unicameral legislative body established in 1969, including faculty, students, administrators, staff, librarians, research officers, and alumni, with a structure that ensures faculty majority and presidential leadership.
  • The University Senate has 111 seats, allocated across various university constituencies, and operates through committees. The President of the University serves as the presiding officer, though day-to-day work is overseen by an Executive Committee.
  • On paper, the University Senate has broad policymaking authority over university-wide concerns, including academic offerings, physical development, student welfare, and others, with decisions becoming final unless Trustee concurrence is required.
  • However, in reality this is often not the case. Recent presidents have reduced engagement, weakening the University Senate’s role and shifting it from a part of the university leadership to sometimes acting as a “counterweight” or even as “opposition” to university leadership
  • Unless and until it is reformed, the University Senate cannot be ignored or wished away. It is a crucial part of Columbia’s leadership structure. This is the moment for it to fulfill its intended purpose.

What is the University Senate?

The University Senate is Columbia’s unicameral legislative body. The University Senate was established in 1969 in the wake of the post-1968 governance reforms. The organization of the University Senate was influenced by the post-1968 restructuring (led by then-Professor Michael Sovern, CC ‘53, CLS ‘55) that successfully involved faculty, students, administration, and Trustees. Prominent University Senators have included the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, CLS ‘59, who as a University Senator in 1972 worked on an equal-pay salary review.

How is the University Senate Organized?

Columbia’s University Senate is unique in several ways. To begin with it has seats for all members of the community, including faculty, students, administrators, staff, librarians, and even alumni. This was intentional—as a recognition that a separate “student assembly” would be ineffective while the majority of seats being faculty ensured that no policy would be passed that would be “repugnant to the senior faculty”. Most of our peer institutions have only a faculty senate. Some, like Harvard, don’t even have a senate of any form. And unlike faculty senates, our University Senate’s presiding officer is the President of the University. 

Specifically, the allocation of seats is as follows:

  • 65 faculty (elected)
  • 25 students (elected)
  • 6 research officers (elected)
  • 2 libraries (elected)
  • 2 administrative staff (elected)
  • 2 alumni (appointed by the Columbia Alumni Association board)
  • 9 administration (appointed by the President)

The Senate is further organized into committees that do the bulk of its work. The Senate is led by an Executive Committee that comprises the President, Provost, 6 tenured faculty, 2 tenure-track and off-track faculty, 3 students. While the President is the presiding officer of the University Senate, this Executive Committee elects a chair, who oversees the day-to-day work of the University Senate.

During the academic year, the University Senate meets monthly in plenary sessions, which are open to all CUID holders. During the plenary sessions, the University Senate considers and votes on resolutions, which are carefully prepared, vetted, and syndicated before they are brought to the floor.

What are the Mandates and Powers of the University Senate?

Significant, at least according to Article II of the University Statutes. The Statutes say quite clearly (§23):

“The University Senate shall be a policy-making body which may consider all matters of University-wide concern, all matters affecting more than one Faculty or school, and all matters pertaining to the implementation and execution of agreements with the other educational institutions that are now or may hereafter become affiliated with the University”

However, the Statutes refer to the University Senate (and its powers) as a “policy-making body”, as opposed to the President who “shall have general charge of the affairs of the University”. The Statutes are not fully clear on the difference between “policy” and “affairs of the University”, but it lists several examples of “policy-making”, such has looking at “plans and policies to strengthen the educational system of the University”, the “long-range master plan for the physical development of the University”, the “promotion of student welfare and the enhancement of student life”, among others. Significantly, the University Senate also approves new academic offerings (degree and certificates), new schools and faculties, and new centers and institutes.

According to the Statutes, on these policy matters, the University Senate has specific decision rights:

“Unless Trustee concurrence is required, acts of the University Senate under Sections 22 and 23 shall become final on passage. In all matters involving a change in budgetary appropriations, involving the acquisition or disposition of real property, affecting contractual obligations of the University, or as required by law, such concurrence shall be required. In all other matters, the action of the University Senate will be final unless the President shall advise the University Senate not later than its next regularly scheduled meeting that Trustee concurrence is necessary.”

The Statutes therefore give the University Senate general power to act without Trustee concurrence, subject to two explicit and one implied caveat. First, the President can unilaterally transform a University Senate decision into one requiring Trustee concurrence—and then advise the Trustee to not concur. Second, the Senate’s power to act is explicitly confined to its authority as a “policy-making body” (several examples of which are delineated.) Third, no provision in the Statutes grants the University Senate any executive powers, so it relies on the President and the administration to implement its resolutions.

The University Senate has the duty (not just the “right”) to “to consider any question that may arise as to the conduct or efficiency of any officer of administration or instruction, and to report thereon to the Trustees through the President.” As we discuss below, this resembles, but is not quite, a form of “investigatory” power.

Finally, the University Senate can also question the jurisdiction and propriety of actions of individual faculties, as it has the duty (not just the “right”) to “report to the Trustees its opinion as to any exercise of power proposed by a Faculty under Section 35.” Unlike the example above, this does not include a “through the President” qualifier.

How the University Senate is Supposed to Function

The original conception of the University Senate envisioned a sort of “ecumenical council” that brought together all the constituencies of the University in order to deliberate upon and make major policy decisions. The historical record of the President being the presiding officer of the University Senate also evokes, at first blush, a sort of Westminster-style arrangement where the executive is also the leader of a legislature.

We believe the convenors of the University Senate thought they were creating a sort of a permanent, structural alignment of interests by having the President lead the University Senate. The balance of power did not appear to envision conflict between the President and the University Senate. For example:

  • No concept of a “confidence of the house”… but a hint of “investigatory” power that does not apply to the President. The University Senate does not have oversight power over the President and the President is accountable only to the Trustees, not to the University Senate. However, with the cooperation of the President, the University Senate can report to the Trustees on the “conduct or efficiency” of any officer. This suggests they envisioned the President would leverage the University Senate for supervisory activities.
  • No Presidential veto… because one is not needed. Faculties and administrative boards can override a Presidential veto with a two-thirds vote, but the President does not have a veto with the University Senate. This suggests the convenors did not see a situation where the President—as the presiding officer of the University Senate—would need a veto, since presumably he or she would control whether matters come to a vote.
  • Lack of separate executive powers… because the chief executive is the presiding officer of the University Senate. The topic of implementation and/or operationalization is never raised and the University Senate has no executive powers. We think this is because the convenors assumed the University Senate’s acts would have by definition been in accordance with its presiding officer’s priorities—and the President would have exercised his or her executive powers as to the “affairs of the University” to carry them out.

The President’s role as presiding officer of the University Senate seems to suggest that the University Senate would be understood not as a “counterweight” to the University leadership, but actually part of the University leadership, working in collaboration with the administration under the oversight of the Trustees.

We believe that implicit in this—though we have never heard this view articulated—is that that if the University Senate is to be a part of the University leadership, then its members should adopt a “fiduciary” approach towards governance (i.e. duty of care and of loyalty to the institution), rather than just a constituency-representative perspective.

In fact, the faculty proposals in 1968 specifically called for adopting this perspective, commenting “it is the faculty that ought to concern itself with all matters of University government that create the conditions and the environment under which it must carry out its primary responsibilities” and further that “implicit in the recommendation for a University Senate with mixed representation from all segments of the University is the assumption that the different constituencies share basic common interests, and that the policy-making process for the University as a whole is a unitary process which should not be unnecessarily segmented and divided.”

How the University Senate Functions in Practice Today

The University Senate has strayed from its original vision in three significant ways.

First, recent Presidents have largely disengaged from the University Senate’s activities. In the past, Presidents regularly attended University Senate meetings, reinforcing their role as presiding officers and signaling their commitment to the University Senate’s work. Their presence demonstrated openness to community input and validated the efforts of the University Senators, even when no major decisions were on the table, and even if they did not operate in accordance with the convenors’ vision. However, they showed up, which, to borrow from Woody Allen, in itself mattered. In the later years of President Bollinger’s tenure, and under President Shafik—who attended only three of the twelve sessions during the 2023-2024 academic year—this engagement has dwindled. The absence of the President sends a clear message: if the presiding officer doesn’t take the University Senate seriously, its members might question the significance of their own roles.

Second, the University Senate has ceased to exercise its formal powers effectively. Without the President’s active involvement, the University Senate lacks the means to enforce or implement its decisions. Because the President has authority over the “affairs of the University”, the University Senate holds no “power of the purse” and cannot compel the administration to act. As a result, the University Senate often avoids situations where its authority might be “tested” which would undermine its intended function. As we discuss earlier, the original convenors of the University Senate may not have anticipated this scenario, as they assumed that the President would be intrinsically involved in its actions.

Third, as a consequence of the first two issues, the Senate has shifted from being a part of University leadership to something more akin to a “counterweight”, or even “opposition”, to that leadership. This shift represents a missed opportunity to fulfill the University Senate’s original purpose as a unifying force within the University.

The Need for Balance: Theory vs. Practice

The description here reflects “theory” as written down in the Statutes. In theory, the hierarchy and distribution of powers are as follows:

  • First, the charter of 1810 as enacted by the New York State Legislature carries the force of law, and the charter specifically grants Trustees ultimate power as fiduciaries of the University. This is amply supported by case law.
  • Second, the Trustees have issued Statutes which divided power between the President, the University Senate, the faculties, etc. Because the Trustees are empowered by the charter of 1810 to make and amend “ordinances and by-laws,” this structure can be changed by them at any time for any reason or for no reason.  Thus, all branches of University governance (administration, University Senate, faculties, etc.) are accountable to them.
  • Third, the President “shall have general charge of the affairs of the University”, while simultaneously serving as presiding officer of the University Senate, which has significant policy-making responsibilities. Therefore, neither the University Senate nor the President have absolute power as delegated by the Trustees, and the President is not accountable to or an agent of the University Senate.
  • This tension was specifically acknowledged in the founding of the University Senate, which ensured that while the President was the presiding officer of the Senate, “members of the administration will not be able to dominate the University Senate in the same manner in which they have in practice dominated the University Council.”
  • Therefore, the compromises of the 1960s and the working arrangements that have persisted with us to the present day are a voluntary delegation of authority by the Trustees that could be abolished at their sole discretion.

However, in “practice” this is usually never presented in such stark terms. This is because the governance and administration of the University, while technically a corporation, relies on a long (and largely unwritten) body of customs, traditions, precedents, and informal understandings. At the end of the day, the force of law must be balanced with the sentiments of the faculty who memorably reminded President Eisenhower in 1950 that “we are the University.” If faculty—who are the intellectual leaders who attract students and funding, and burnish the University’s reach, relevance, and reputation—do not believe their rights and privileges—chief among which is the right to academic freedom and the right to participate in shared governance—are respected, they will not want to be faculty at Columbia University. A university of administrators is no university at all.

It is this fragile and unwritten balance of power, this gray area between consultation and decision rights, between formal powers and informal influence, this (perhaps intentional?) strategic ambiguity that led some to comment that the University Senate’s powers are “mysterious.” At the same time, in moments of crisis such as now, that ambiguity creates stress on the system. It may be time to clarify that.

The Future: Re-engagement or Reform?

Policy-making in an academic environment is inherently challenging. The demands of full-time faculty, students, staff, and others with busy schedules often make it difficult to fully engage in the time-intensive work required to govern a university. Members of the University Senate may not agree—or more likely, may not even be aware—that the convenors of University Senate envisioned they would approach their duties with a fiduciary, rather than a constituency-driven, mindset. It’s also possible that past Presidents deliberately reduced their involvement with the University Senate to streamline their agendas, calculating that the trade-off—reduced legitimacy for increased efficiency—was worth it. Alternatively, the original vision for the University Senate may have been overly ambitious or unrealistic from the start. In 2010, President Emeritus Michael Sovern, one of the original founders of the University Senate, reflected that in the events leading up to the formation of the University Senate, “everything was improvised.”

If the University Senate is unable to function as originally intended, then the Trustees (who convened the University Senate and defined its powers on May 13, 1969) should initiate a broad, inclusive process to redefine its roles and responsibilities, similar to the one undertaken in 1968-69 to bring it into existence. However, unless and until such changes are made to the University Statutes, the University Senate’s statutory role remains crucial and cannot simply be disregarded by either side.

At the Senate’s 40th anniversary conference in 2010, the long-serving and beloved University Senate manager Tom Mathewson observed, “I think the accomplishments of the first few years of the Senate reflect that sense of a legislative mission. Inevitably, perhaps, the urgency faded as the university’s affairs returned to normal. Forty-one years out, the Senate certainly has work to do, but it sometimes feels a little like a cargo cult, with an array of powerful but underused legislative customs and procedures, waiting for a cataclysm that may never return.”

Fifty-five years later, the cataclysm has returned.