On May 27, 2010, Nathan Tublitz wrote:

Dear Senators:

Many thanks for concluding a successful academic year in the University Senate. We accomplished much important work including but not limited to adopting policies on academic free speech (US09/10-18) and facilities use (US09/10-19), to establishing a Senate Public Records Review Committee (US09/10-07) to denouncing the hateful speech expressed at the Pacifica Forum. A complete list of issues covered and motions passed this academic year can be found on the Senate Home page (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/senate.html) Other notable advances by the Senate include the Senate going paperless and having our meetings streamed live on the web as well as archived for later viewing.

Perhaps our greatest achievements are having respectful dialogues on contentious issues at Senate meetings and working closely with the University Adminstration to achieve common goals. The latter is due to our new administration's concerted effort to collaborate closely with the Senate and make our campus governance system work as smoothly as possible. I thank the University President Richard Lariviere, Provost Bean, and Vice Provost Tomlin for their efforts. It is my hope that we have set the foundation for advances on both fronts next year.

The Senate could not run without a battery of talented people. Tami Oar from Academic Affairs took minutes and help organize the meetings. Marilyn Skalberg stepped in mid year to take over the Senate Webmaster's position and has done a superlative job. Paul Simonds did his usual terrific work as Senate Parliamentarian. We also could not have been as successful as we were without the hard work in front and behind the scenes by our interim Senate VP, Peter Keyes. Thanks to you all!

I must pay special tribute to Gwen Steigelman, our amazing Senate and Statutory Faculty Secretary. Gwen is retiring this year and yesterday was her final Senate meeting as Secretary. Gwen has done a fabulous job for 14 years in this position and has been the glue that has held the Senate together. On behalf of all of us, I thank her from the bottom of my heart for all her efforts. You have been fantastic in every respect Gwen and we will miss you.

Although Gwen is truly irreplaceable, the University President and myself are excited to announce that we have jointly appointed Heather Briston, the current University Archivist to be the next Senate and Statutory Faculty Secretary. Heather brings a unique and superb skill set to this job and we are very pleased she has decided to accept the position. Please join me in welcoming Heather next time you see her.

Finally, thanks to all of you for making this year so successful. I especially want to thank those Senators who are rotating off the Senate. I deeply appreciate your commitment to campus governance and hope you will consider running again for the Senate in future years.

With the implementation of the new campus goveranance document approved last week by the Statutory Faculty, our governance system will only continue to improve and be strengthened. I look forward to working with you all next year to make us proud of our governance system.

A happy end of term and summer to you all!

Cheers,

Nathan

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Professor of Biology
Institute of Neuroscience
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon USA 97403
phone: 541-346-4510
fax:: 541-346-4548
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