In light of the fact that many of the 25 faculty committees seem to have lost their purpose, and several have overlapping duties, the faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering will extensively reorganize its committee structure over the next year.
The reorganization will possibly include the rearrangement or disbandment of some groups.
"The Executive Committee and a lot of the faculty feel like it's time for a little tinkering because the system needs it right now," said History Professor Steve Marrone, a member of the Executive Committee. "While things aren't falling apart, they definitely aren't perfect and they do need change."
All potential changes will be supervised by the Executive Committee, which oversees all faculty committees. Committee members will review each of the 25 existing committees and their bylaws to reaffirm their compatibility with current University goals.
Due to committee overlap, some haven't met for a year. Others don't have enough members and lack individuals to act as chairs, obligating some faculty members to serve on multiple committees.
"We've had a large number of committees for awhile and I do think it's grown," said Associate Professor of Economics David Garman, who is also on the Executive Committee. "I think what's happened over time is that we've created new committees instead of broadening the charges of old ones."
Garman cited an incident where a committee on Educational Policy put forth a proposal that conflicted with the agenda of the Budget Priorities committee. "Sometimes if you have too many committees, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing."
Committee members have also complained about a lack of communication on the part of the administration. Frequently, committees submit their final reports, but receive little response from Tufts administrators and see few changes on campus as a result of their recommendations.
Garman said reducing the number of committees would also facilitate discussion between faculty
and administrators
"My own personal feeling is that if we had fewer committees that are writing and filing fewer reports, and working more closely with the right administrators, they would be happy to respond," Garman said.
"Right now, it can just be a little overwhelming to have 25 committees' reports coming in where the members of the administration haven't even been aware of some of the things that the committees have been discussing," he said.
President Larry Bacow also expressed concern about the issue. At the Oct. 26 faculty meeting, he said, "If the process of implementation is divorced from recommendations, nothing happens. When recommendations come from the faculty, they should become part of an ongoing dialogue."
Three members of the Executive Committee have taken on the task of reformatting the existing committees: Psychology Professor David Harder, Mechanical Engineering Professor Behrouz Abedian, and German/Russian/Asian Professor David Sloane, who leads the subcommittee.
These faculty members were chosen due to their "interest and expertise," Garman said.
Garman's subcommittee has spent the last semester collecting information from annual reports and talking to committee chairs. Although project is still in its preliminary stages, it will coincide with the larger restructuring of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering begun this fall under the initiative of Provost Jamshed Barucha.
This larger administrative reformatting will most likely result in the creation of a new dean, who will supervise matters in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.
While some faculty members are concerned this will further divide the two schools, the Executive Committee will work to make faculty governance more efficient to correspond with broader administrative changes.
"We hope that in restructuring, we can also strengthen the voice of the faculty," Marrone said. "This is a real opportunity, if [Barucha] means what he says and we can do what we say, for things to be accomplished."
