[Discussion] Israeli Faculty Members Protest Proposed Changes in University Governance

[Paksoy, Hb]

Monday, January 6, 2003

 
  Israeli Faculty Members Protest Proposed Changes in University 
Governance
By HAIM WATZMAN

A plan to revise university governance at Bar-Ilan University, in Israel,
has roused the opposition of faculty members at all of the country's public
institutions. 

The executive committee of Bar-Ilan's Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet
today to consider the plan, which would transfer powers currently vested in
the Faculty Senate to the executive committee and the university's
president. 

"There may well be chaos if the proposal is passed," predicted Ahiezer
Shaki, chairman of the faculty union and a professor of mathematics at
Bar-Ilan, which is located in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. 

Mr. Shaki argued that the proposal is a threat to academic freedom. 

The plan would grant the executive committee the power to approve the
establishment and elimination of academic programs. The executive committee
would also approve the university's code of ethics. Furthermore, under the
new plan, the university's president would be its top officer. Under the
current system of governance at all of Israel's public universities, a
president, elected by the board of trustees, and a rector, elected by a
faculty senate made up of all full professors, have equal powers. 

"The executive committee is made up of nonprofessionals who should not be
entrusted with academic decisions," Mr. Shaki said. He warned that the
nonacademics on the executive committee, or a nonacademic university
president, could conceivably decide to close an academic department for
political reasons. 

Bar-Ilan's faculty has already staged a warning strike in opposition to the
proposal and plans to strike again today as the executive committee
considers the plan. Two weeks ago, faculty members at all the public
universities struck in sympathy with their colleagues at Bar-Ilan, and the
rectors of all seven traditional universities published a joint statement in
major newspapers opposing the new governance plan. 

The new proposal is based on recommendations made by a public commission on
university governance established by the national government in the wake of
a three-month faculty strike seven years ago. The commission's report,
published two years ago, said that universities require a clearer
decision-making hierarchy, and that academic decisions made by the faculty
senates needed to be subordinate to financial and budgetary decisions, which
should be made by the universities' presidents and boards of trustees. 

The commission's recommendations aroused broad opposition in the university
faculties, but the Council for Higher Education, the country's
higher-education accrediting and policy-making board, approved the report
and called on the universities to adopt its measures in accordance with
their needs. Bar-Ilan is the first to do so. 

Bar-Ilan's president, Moshe Kaveh, who is a member of the university's
physics faculty and a former rector himself, said the proposed changes are
much less radical than the faculty union is making them sound. The
university's current charter already grants the executive committee the
power to close departments for budgetary considerations, Mr. Kaveh said. And
proper financial management of the university requires that there be a
single chief, he added. 

"Today, there is no mechanism for bridging differences between a president
and a rector," he explained. 

Mr. Kaveh said he hoped that the executive committee would pass the
noncontroversial parts of the plan today, but expressed a willingness to put
off a decision on the controversial issues. 

"These are issues of principle, and it isn't really possible to compromise,"
he said. "But I believe that it is still possible to reach an
understanding." 




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Background article from The Chronicle: 
Israeli Lawmakers Warn Professors of Erosion of Support for Academe in
Parliament (11/27/2001)



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Chronicle of Higher Education
10 January 2003