CURIOUS FACULTY SENATES. Volokh Conspiracy links to a "Not In Our Name" penned by three colleagues miffed that some professors exploited the bylaws of the UCLA (motto: On! Wisconsin!) faculty senate to convene a rump session and passed an anti-war resolution. (This after Saddam statues assumed their scrap value, no less.) The authors correctly observe that "The academic senate has made clear that it no longer represents the entire UCLA faculty. It therefore has no standing to participate in the system of shared governance. So either shared governance must be terminated or a new organization must be created that can represent the entire faculty." Meanwhile, at St. Cloud State, selective quorum strategies appear to be in the wind.

These faculty senates both appear to be committees of the whole faculty. Strikes me as cumbersome. The Northern Illinois University faculty senate is apportioned on a departmental basis, with each department electing at least one delegate (some larger departments get to elect two) and members of the University Council, the faculty body that gets to make decisions, being ex officio senators. Many meetings might be best described as bearded daycares for Silent Generation relics.