Dearborn Faculty Congress rejects proposal to add a voting lecturer seat to Faculty senate

On March 29 on the Dearborn campus, all governing faculty were invited to attend the Faculty Congress meeting via Zoom, and vote on a number of bylaws proposals. One Proposal, in particular, was important to the recognition of lecturers as members of the faculty, and for expanding voting rights to eligible lecturers. The proposal sought to add one seat to the Faculty Senate for a governing-eligible Lecturer to also be able to vote as an elected Senate member.

Unfortunately, the proposal did not pass (50 Yes votes and 64 No votes with 3 abstentions), but it has opened a conversation about lecturer governance on campus that we haven’t seen previously. And although only 117 faculty were in the meeting to vote, out of over 300 governing faculty, it was nonetheless historic in terms of attendance at a Faculty Congress meeting. So the failure of the proposal also marks an important potential for lecturers and Tenure-Track (TT) faculty to move further in conversation about Dearborn campus and UM-wide issues.