In the November meeting, University President James Wagner encouraged the Faculty Council to consider “reinvigorating and even growing what we do around faculty governance.” He observed that the increasingly utilitarian social value placed on education over many decades and the more recent economic pressures have changed the circumstances of universities broadly. “We should understand and search for the opportunities in these changes, rather than understand them always to be threats,” he said.
Wagner went on to suggest that faculty must take a leading role in formulating, owning, and implementing Emory’s response to these changes, especially as the university approaches the end of its strategic planning cycle in 2015. “it should be guided with faculty engagement,” he said, “all managed, owned, and implemented at the deepest levels of our institution.” To foster strong, creative, and progressive faculty governance, he concluded, questions of structure, policy, participation, and responsibility need to be examined.