Senate adopts merger procedures

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he Faculty Senate approved a set of procedures to be followed in the merger of academic programs after a brief discussion at its Feb. 14 meeting.

     The campus had been without a specific procedure for addressing "situations in which the outcome of planning is the merger of existing programs, rather than reduction or elimination." Governance documents had previously considered mergers as if they were the elimination of a program.

     The senate's plan distinguishes between situations in which there is substantial agreement between the parties who are considering a merger and situations where substantial agreement is lacking. In the former case, the procedures are designed to streamline the process, and in the latter case, an advisory timetable sets deadlines for each step of the more complex process, covering a roughly six-month period between the formal proposal of a merger by a department, dean, or provost to the provost's recommendation to the chancellor.