Faculty Senate leads 'Journey towards Democracy'

Promoting democracy on campus and in society is the aim of two initiatives launched by Faculty Senate this year. Introduced by Senate Chair Neocles Leontis in his inaugural address last May, the first project seeks to enhance the shared governance of the senate. The second, larger project, titled Journey towards Democracy, seeks to address how we educate students for democracy and is part of a national movement by the same name.

Central to the advancement of shared governance is the new Faculty Senate On-line Community, which facilitates the flow of information and communication between faculty members and others in the campus community. Accessible through Blackboard, the interactive site provides a forum for discussion of issues as well as a resource for information. With both public and “private” areas, it can be used by committee members to conduct their business and to post information.

Calling this type of on-line forum the “next wave of change in our political culture,” Leontis said that while the Internet has been widely used in many ways, “it has not yet been used to help organizations function more democratically.”

The chemistry faculty member said he hopes colleagues will contribute their expertise and opinions on University issues through the electronic forum. With its capacity for threaded on-line discussions, the site allows participants to share their thoughts at their own pace. “With email, it’s evanescent: if you miss it that day, it’s gone. But this stays up,” Leontis said.

All faculty members are automatically enrolled in the site, which has featured discussions on such topics as proposed changes to the State Teachers Retirement System, the Higher Education Reauthorization Act and the future of the BGSU science library.

“It’s not limited just to faculty,” Leontis said. Anyone who wishes to be included may contact him or Senate Vice Chair Radhika Gajjala, communication studies,to be enrolled. Also, “If you have an issue you think is of general interest to the faculty as a whole, we can create a forum for it on the discussion board,” he said.

Journey towards Democracy
Taking their cue from John Dewey, faculty from across campus and the nation have become involved with the Journey towards Democracy project.

Following an initial committee meeting at BGSU last summer of interested faculty, a “white paper” was drawn up and circulated by Leontis for review by others on campus. The response came from all over campus. A second committee was then created, joined by faculty and graduate students interested in fostering engagement among students and others.

Participants such as Royce Ann Martin, aviation studies, said they became involved in part because they were impressed with the “extremely wide representation across campus” in the first group and in part because of their interest in the topic.

“I think it’s so important that our students become engaged—locally, professionally, nationally. I want my students not only to be interested but to know how to respond to events that affect them,” Martin said.
Jacqueline Guzell, human development and family studies, College of Education and Human Development, said the project is “an opportunity to integrate my teaching and research with my service interests. My area of research is adults’ perceived control over outcomes. I want to encourage critical thinking and get students to recognize that they do have a voice, and that they gain voice by being engaged in the classroom.”

College is a time when students are “forming ideas about how they’re going to live the rest of their lives,” Guzell said. “We have to start where their hearts and their minds are, and often their anxieties and needs are in the classroom, so the most honorable way we can teach them is not to squelch their voices.”
Like Martin, helping students learn to use that voice effectively is a chief concern for her, she said.

Two students on the committee are acting upon their belief in the power of democracy to effect change. Matt Clever, a Bay Village, Ohio, junior majoring in history, is the student representative on the BGSU Board of Trustees, and Nassim Abdi, a graduate student in higher education administration, will use democratic education to work toward change in her native Iran and other countries in which democracy is not yet fully developed.

In January, Provost John Folkins and several of the committee members attended the 2004 conference of the Association of Colleges and Universities, where they participated in a pre-conference symposium called “Journey towards Democracy: Power, Voice and the Public Good.”

Folkins led a discussion on what students need to know in order to overcome cynicism and discouragement and become active citizens. The BGSU group included Guzell, Abdi, Martin, Gajjala, and Leontis.

“As citizens, we hold legitimate power, and we want to get students to think about how to exercise that by teaching them to ask the right questions. You’re much more likely to get involved in democratic processes if you feel some ownership,” Leontis said. “Faculty can model that in the classroom and in their lives.”

The group will hold its first “Discussion Café" on Feb. 18. Committee members have invited guests who they feel would be excited and interested by the project to come share their ideas.

“I am glad that the issues are being discussed and look forward to seeing where the faculty involved with this project will steer it,” said Gajjala.