The University Senate is preparing to tackle contentious issues, such as rape on the campus, merit pay for faculty and a smoking ban this year, even though one month into the semester, the body has yet to meet.

The senate, an advisory body that makes policy recommendations to university President Dan Mote, will finally meet next week, after the first meetings of both the full body and the Senate Executive Committee were cancelled due to inclement weather and a lack of issues on which to vote. But the cancellations shouldn’t prevent the senate from finishing a packed agenda, officials said.

“Their cancellation had very minor impact,” civil engineering professor and Senate Chair Elise Miller-Hooks wrote in an e-mail. “In general, we would not have cancelled a [Senate Executive Committee] meeting if the cancellation would have significant consequences.”

An additional senate meeting was added in April because several big issues will not be ready until then.

“We have several very big items coming up that will not be ready for Senate action until April,” wrote Miller-Hooks. “We want to get these through this year — hence, the extra meeting.”

Committee chairs are also optimistic that the lack of meetings won’t affect the senate timetable this semester.

“The next senate meeting will be a little packed and a little stretched for time,” said Student Affairs Committee Chair Kevin Tervala.

CAMPUS AFFAIRS

The two most controversial issues the senate will be looking at may come from the Campus Affairs Committee. The first is an issue on the campus that committee Chairman Edward Walters said largely flies under the radar: rape.

“With the rape issue, there is apparently some serious non-reporting,” he said. “Things are being shoved under the rug. Not by the campus but by students who don’t necessarily want to come forward and admit that it happened. It’s a lot to deal with. We’re trying to see what the current situation is on campus.”

The committee plans to host a forum in early April to discuss the issue and gauge how students feel about it.

“We want to gather as much information as we can and then make a recommendation that something needs to be done or at least make [the senate] aware of the problem,” said Walters. “We’re trying to bring this out into the open.”

The committee is also dealing with a proposed ban on smoking on the campus. While Walters wouldn’t say what the committee plans to do, they do have a recommendation in mind.

“If we put a more stringent ban on it, there’s a lot of problems we could run into, like how do we enforce and pay for this change?” he said.

STAFF AND FACULTY AFFAIRS

The Staff Affairs and Faculty Affairs committees are working with the Graduate Student Government to look at what they say is a campus-wide problem: access to childcare.

“The childcare available now is very limited,” said Cynthia Shaw, chairwoman of the Staff Affairs Committee, noting that the Center for Young Children has a long waiting list and only allows children of a certain age. 

Shaw and other members of the committees are working to find low-cost solutions by seeking out a resource specialist from George Washington University who helped solve a similar problem there.

Staff Affairs will also face the question of extending domestic partner benefits to include maternity leave, Shaw said, which is a new issue for the senate. Last semester, the state voted to mandate medical benefits for domestic partners.

“It seems logical to extend these benefits even further,” Shaw said. “It’s a financial issue. We’re going to work really hard to get this through the senate by the end of the semester.”

Eric Kasischke, chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, is heading a task force charged with updating the university’s merit review policy, which determines when faculty members are awarded bonuses for good performance.

Kasischke, a geography professor, realized there was a clause in the policy that stated it was due to be revamped because it had reached its five-year limit.

“The policy was due to be reviewed,” Kasischke said. “We want to make sure faculty concerns are being taken care of.”

STUDENT AFFAIRS

The Student Affairs Committee is working on clarifying the university policy regarding student absences that can only be excused by a doctor’s note.

“At the moment, we’re not looking at a policy change,” said Tervala, a junior art history and history major. “We want to clarify to the university community what the issue is. There’s a lot of confusion pertaining to this policy.”

redding@umdbk.com