By SHANNON O. WELLS
The first Faculty Assembly meeting of the 2024-25 academic year, held Sept. 11 in Posvar Hall, yielded a lengthy discussion on a proposed resolution establishing parameters for campus affinity groups seeking a voice in the University Senate.
Nick Bircher, co-chair of the Bylaws and Procedures Committee and faculty member in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, introduced the affinity groups resolution, which committee members discussed and formulated through the past year.
The committee approved the resolution at its May 31 meeting, with the intention of bringing it before Faculty Assembly.
Following the introduction of amendments to remove a clause that some said limited affinity groups’ inclusionary scope, as well as minor language changes, Faculty Assembly ultimately voted to postpone the final vote to its next meeting in October.
Defining an affinity group as “a group of people linked by common interest or purpose,” Bircher said the proposal for inclusion in the University Senate mechanism is built on the affinity group structure first developed by the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
“So we have built on their model, but their model actually has a lot of requirements, which make it a somewhat cumbersome mechanism,” he said. “Over the past year in the Bylaws committee, we have streamlined the requirements.”
Bircher praised Senate Council President Robin Kear’s contributions to the resolution as “extremely valuable in her commentary” in terms of building in “checks and balances,” so affinity groups are approved either by Faculty Assembly or a standing committee.
“If an affinity group wishes to report to a standing committee, those provisions are in the proposition itself,” he said.
The primary goal, Bircher said, is to enhance opportunities for communication among historically marginalized groups and any group with a specific set of concerns, and create a path to affinity group status, “so it’s not limited in its scope to a protected category under the law.”
Thanking the Bylaws committee for “taking the time to think of a new (way) for shared governance to work,” Kear said the resolution fills a “gap” in the Senate structure by allowing ideas to come forward in a way that bypasses the “formality” of committees. Committees, however, would be able to ask questions of affinity groups down the line, she noted.
Clearly inclusive?
During discussions about the resolution, Jennifer Murtazashvili, professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, questioned if some of its language was sufficiently inclusive.
“Understanding where certain groups fit in the University under the OEDI system that we have, it’s not always clear to a lot of people where people fall,” she said.
She said the clause, “Whereas diversity, equity and inclusion are one of the most fundamental principles of social justice,” “seems like a hypothesis.”
Murtazashvili suggested the subsequent clause, emphasizing effective communication as “an important step in creating a more inclusive University, especially for historically underrepresented groups,” could be easily misconstrued.
“This seems like, if all groups are not included under that rubric, it’s almost being not as inclusive as you would want to be, right up front, because not all groups fall under this rubric,” Murtazashvili said.
Bircher clarified that the proposal “does not limit affinity groups to that particular subset. And I understand the hypothetical nature (of the concern),” he said.
Murtazashvili countered that “it’s actually not hypothetical. I think some of this is playing out on our campus now, for better or worse, and that’s why I (want to be as) inclusive as possible, to think about groups who may be quite marginalized, who may not be underrepresented,” she said.
“These terms, they have a lot of meaning, and you want to be very careful in how to use these words, right?”
Bircher clarified that “ultimately, (affinity group qualifying) decision making occurs at the Faculty Assembly level, or at the level of the standing committee,” he said. “Those options are, as I mentioned, open to everybody trying to organize an affinity group.”
Digesting changes
Kris Kanthak, Faculty Assembly vice president and associate professor in the Department of Political Science, shared her reasons for codifying certain campus organizations as affinity groups.
“One is that there are underrepresented and marginalized groups that are just sort of sitting there in OEDI, and we can increase the Senate’s communication levels with those groups, should they choose to,” she explained. “Reason two is there could be other groups that are outside the purview of OEDI, like humanities in the sciences, that we would also want to include, right? …
“It seems to me that what’s happening here is that ‘Whereas diversity, equity and inclusion are among the fundamental principles … ‘, just simply having that clause is antithetical to what you’re trying to do, partly because you’re trying to say, ‘We do things other than OEDI. We see this as something as more important.’ ”
From a political science standpoint and as “words mean different things to different people,” Kanthak added, “I think there are a lot of people who are turned off by that language, but would think it’s awesome what you’re trying to do. If we took that clause out, can we do the thing we want to do?”
Bircher said he was “amenable” to deleting the phrase from the resolution, and Faculty Assembly subsequently approved a motion to remove it.
After several wording changes in the resolution were suggested and discussed, Nancy Glynn, associate professor and director of master’s degree programs in the School of Public Health, motioned to postpone a final vote on the resolution.
“I feel like this is kinda rushed,” she said. “I think we’d like to digest this a little bit, with all these changes.”
With 19 in favor and 17 opposed, Faculty Assembly voted to postpone voting until the next scheduled Faculty Assembly meeting on Oct. 9. Bircher said he would take the approved revisions to the Bylaws committee, and he or a committee representative would return with a resolution incorporating the changes.
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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