Final report goes to Senate Monday

An official vote on confidence in University President Bruce Speck could come as early as Monday.

A final report compiled by a Faculty Senate ad hoc committee will be presented to the full Senate during the 3 p.m. meeting in the Billingsly Student Center. According to an agenda posted for the meeting, the Senate will consider the committee’s recommendations after administrators are excused.

“I expect there will be a motion to vote,” Faculty Senate President Roger Chelf said Wednesday.

A copy of the report obtained by The Chart contains recommended voting procedures for a no-confidence vote. According to those recommendations, a full faculty vote would be held if the Faculty Senate votes no confidence. That vote would be available for those with Faculty Senate representation, excluding faculty members on one-year contracts.

A date and location for the vote would be determined by the Senate’s executive committee at least two weeks before the vote would take place.

A ballot would have two voting options: “I have confidence in President Bruce Speck,” or “I do not have confidence in President Bruce Speck.”

“I expect this will be a very productive meeting,” Chelf said. “I have a long list of Robert’s Rules where I can keep this thing under control.

“We are not going to get in there and collectively bash our president, we’re going to move forward with what we must do.”

Chelf added that results of a faculty senate vote would be “pretty representative” of the entire faculty.

“I have repeatedly asked senators to know what their constituents feelings are, so a senate vote is essentially paramount to a full faculty vote,” Chelf said. “Whether or not we move forward with one I do not know, the Board has given (Speck) directives and it is something that will be determined at the Senate meeting.

A preliminary report containing 22 grievances against Speck was provided to the Board of Governors and Speck two weeks ago. Speck declined to comment on that report last week, saying he was not the one driving the process.

“This is a faculty-driven process and I want to respect what they’re doing,” he said. “I don’t want to appear to be trying to subvert or to try to interfere with their process. I’ve not been asked to respond and they said they’d ask me to respond at some time so I await their pleasure on this matter.”

Chelf said he didn’t know when Speck would respond to the final report.

“He is president of this university,” he said. “I will not create a forum for him, he can create his own forum. Whether or not he responds at this Senate meeting, whether or not he calls the faculty together to respond, the ball’s in his court.”