U of A president declines to sign shared governance contract with faculty

The existing memorandum, signed previously by former UA President Robert Robbins but not by Garimella, was last worked on between 2020 and 2022. Hudson said the UA’s tradition has been to review the document every time a new president comes in.

The one signed by Robbins is “quite good and we have seen the (Garimella) administration, the provost even, following some of the suggestions in the memorandum,” but not all of its commitments, Hymel said.

“Basically, we have a statute that says you shall govern together,” Hymel said of the state law. “That doesn’t give us much detail, so we work together again in our shared governance committee to draft, in essence, to negotiate the boundaries of who is going to do what and how we’re going to do it.”

“The agreement typically spells out a lot of the processes and procedures that we agree to follow in hiring, in searches, in grievances, in all kinds of areas, and it delineates who will do that,” Hymel said.

She gave this example: “If we hire vice presidents, there needs to be three (faculty) senators chosen by the faculty chair on that committee.”

The faculty governance law passed by the Arizona Legislature in 1992, ARS 15-1601B, for the state’s three public universities, including UA, says in part:

“Subject to the responsibilities and powers of the Board (of Regents) and the University Presidents, the faculty members of the Universities, through their elected faculty representatives, shall share responsibility for academic and education activities and matters related to faculty personnel. The faculty members of each University, through their elected faculty representatives, shall participate in the governance of their respective Universities and shall actively participate in the development of University policy.”