Faculty Senate Votes No Confidence in Day Hall

On Friday, Nov. 6, the Faculty Senate announced an electronic vote on the question of “no confidence” in the central administration’s handling of sexual assault. The vote was 75 yes, 50 no, 5 abstain.

The text of the resolution read, “Resolved: That the Faculty Senate has no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University.” The motion was drafted without naming any specific person.

Although the motion is advisory in nature, it carries the full weight of the University Faculty. For its first 100 years, every member of the faculty would fill Bailey Hall to debate educational policy. The meetings included some of the best orators in the nation, and debates were famously vigorous.

In 1970, there was a push for a more representative form of governance, and an elected student-faculty-employee University Senate was created. Some faculty saw that as a threat to their prerogatives, so they established the Faculty Council of Representatives to have an elected set of representatives debate and decide policy rather than having every faculty member participate directly in each meeting. The FCR became the Faculty Senate, a 138-member group. Each Cornell Department elects one or more representatives to the Faculty Senate, which claims to speak for the entire faculty.

The Senate held hybrid meetings on October 14 and 28 and then conducted an electronic vote through noon on Nov. 6. In addition to the debate, faculty posted opinions on departmental web pages, on the Faculty Senate webpage and as opinion columns in the Cornell Daily Sun. At the Oct. 28 meeting, the Faculty Senate defeated a motion to postpone the no-confidence vote until an independent investigation could be conducted by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

One faculty member commented:

“As I sat through the faculty senate meeting on October 28, I could not help but feel even sadder: sad about the frequent applause that broke out when one side delivered a decisive point about sexual assault, the rush of adrenaline that some felt when a vote on a motion was concluded (we won!), the comments in the chat and interruptions about who could vote or speak (including whether a former dean and retired faculty member had the right to speak in a senate meeting). These moments diminished the gravity of the moment.”

Aside from the Faculty Senate votes, faculty views are communicated to the Board of Trustees through two faculty-elected Trustees and through the Dean of the Faculty, Chris B. Schaffer, who attends Trustee meetings. Only the Board of Trustees has the power to hire or fire the President.

The outcome of the vote was not clear until it was announced.

Prof. Randy O. Wayne, Plant Sciences, reacted to the vote, “I am disappointed that the resolution passed because a judgment should follow the presentation of evidence.”

Prof. Richard F. Bensel, one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, wrote: 

“We are professors and as professors we are members of a guild…a guild that judges the scholarly merits of our colleagues and the quality of their teaching. But our guild is more than that…we also subscribe to principles of honesty, integrity, and ethical responsibility.

“Many years ago during a controversy similar to the one we have now a trustee told me that Cornell was a ‘corporation.’ By that he meant that there were clear hierarchies in which the values and policies of the university were set out by its leaders. Over the years since then Cornell has increasingly become that corporation as the central administration has made ‘shared governance’…at one time the theme of a presidential address…a mockery.

“As a corporation, the central administration has imposed draconian punishments on protestors, covered up horrific sexual misconduct, and studiously ignored faculty resolutions opposing these and other central administration policies.

“Passage of this resolution does several things. First, it clearly states that we have no confidence in the corporation’s policies on sexual misconduct. But it also and equally importantly says that the ethics and values of the central administration are not our ethics and values. And it reaffirms that we are not the corporation’s employees to be ordered about as they wish…and, put more simply, we are not them.”

Perhaps the vote’s coverage in the national media will add to its weight.

As a next step, the Faculty Senate and the University Assembly have proposed a Joint Commission on Sexual Violence as a part of Cornell’s shared governance structure for ‘fostering a vibrant social life free of sexual violence.”