Provost Robert Frank has named interim deans for the Honors College and the College of Education, Health and Human Services.

During Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, he announced Donald Williams, dean of faculty and administrative affairs in the College of Business Administration, as the Honors College interim dean, and Donald Bubenzer, chair of the Department of Adult Counseling, Health and Vocational Education, as interim dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services.

Frank said the interim deans will serve for about a year, and he is currently forming search committees to hire permanent deans.

Doctoral reallocation resolutions postponed

Faculty senators engaged in a lengthy debate over two resolutions regarding doctoral reallocation during the meeting.

Under Ohio law, public universities are required to reallocate funds from some doctoral programs to those aligning with Third Frontier fronts – science, technology, engineering and math. Last spring, after proposing to shift all the history department’s doctoral funds to liquid crystal physics and biomedical sciences, the university delayed making a final decision.

Faculty Senate members were expected to vote Monday on resolutions stating there were flaws in the process of determining the quality of doctoral programs in that it was not as transparent as it could have been, and also that the proposed elimination of the history department’s funds was a mistake.

Jonathan Selinger, professor of chemical physics, raised concern that, in voting for these resolutions, the university would be resisting the state mandate.

“The state is sincere, and it seems like a worthy goal,” he said.

Robert Twieg, professor in chemistry and a member of last year’s steering committee for doctoral reallocation, disagreed. He said the state mandate is focused on business instead of education, and because of this, the university should stand up for its principles. He said it puts humanities on a lower level than subjects aligned with the Third Frontier.

“I’m sorry, I’m not going to settle for a caste system in our university,” he said. “If the government is not going to (change the mandate), we have to say, ‘we don’t like this idea; we have a better idea.'”

Frank said the university has recognized the flaws in the process to evaluate doctoral programs; the university, however, will remain bound by state law.

Faculty Senate members voted to table the resolutions and will vote on compromised resolutions during the next meeting on Sept. 10.

Contact principal reporter Christina Stavale at [email protected].