Faculty Senate Records, 1944-2024

The Faculty Senate records document the development, administration and activities of the OSU Faculty Senate and its various committees. The bulk of these records are listed in an Excel spreadsheet that is described at the file level and arranged into 6 series.

Series 1, Administration, contains records documenting the overall administrative and communication workflows of the Faculty Senate and is made up of Faculty Senate meeting minutes and agendas, correspondence, reports to the Faculty Senate, Faculty Forum Papers, and membership lists.

Series 2 is made up of records documenting Faculty Senate Committees, task forces, interest groups, and councils. These materials reflect the decision-making processes conducted by these committees that resulted in the development of university procedures, formation of policies and guidelines, and engagement in strategic planning. The various foci of these committees include: instructional program development, Faculty Senate bylaws, new curricula and academic program review, budgetary management, strategic planning, coordination of university awards, and faculty compensation. In addition to meeting minutes and agendas, this series contains annual reports, correspondence, newspaper clippings.

The subject files in series 3 were assembled for reference purposes and are organized by topic, administrative office, and college. Subjects covered in these files include: collective bargaining rights for faculty, budget reduction management, Oregon legislative bills related to higher education, faculty salaries, Faculty Senate resolutions, promotion and tenure policies, and planning for the conversion from a quarter to a semester based academic calendar. These files are made up of correspondence, event brochures, newspaper clippings, publications, and reports.

Series 4 relates to the interaction between the Faculty Senate and the Oregon State System Higher Education (OSSHE) and its later form, the Oregon University System (OUS). This agency, formed in 1932, administered Oregon’s seven public universities until its disbanding in 2015. Discussions of topics and policies relating to OSU are featured in the OSSHE/OUS meeting minutes, which also reference OSU’s representative to the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate, which is comprised of faculty senators from each of the public universities. In addition to meeting minutes, this series contains correspondence, newsletters, and reports.

The audio-visual materials in series 5 are made up of sound and moving image recordings documenting meetings of the Faculty Senate, Executive Committee meetings, various university lectures, and University Day award ceremonies. The media in this series are comprised of cassette tapes, micro-cassette tapes, VHS videotapes, and DVDs. The born digital files on the DVDs have been migrated off their original media and are available upon request.

Series 6 consists of Faculty Senate records that were microfilmed onto reels in 1967 and 1975. The records on these 5 reels of microfilm are made up of Faculty Senate meeting minutes, correspondence and reports from Faculty Senate committees, member lists, and correspondence relating to the School of Agriculture. The committees represented in this series include: the Curriculum Council, the Executive Committee, the Publication Advisory Committee, and the Committee on Resident Faculty Organization. Dating from 1944 to 1971, most of the content on these reels is duplicated in paper records elsewhere in the collection.

Additions to the Faculty Senate records that are not listed on the spreadsheet are described here with their accession numbers.  These consist of the following: Executive Committee records (2005:001), Advancement of Teaching Committee records (2008:006), Student Recognition and Awards Committee records (2011:058), Faculty Recognition and Awards Committee records (2008:001, 2013:003; 2019:049), and informational announcements emailed to faculty and staff from Faculty Senate Presidents (2013:003 and 2014:001).

The digital files are available upon request.

Access to the Faculty Grievance Committee files in series 2 is restricted due to the presence of confidential information. For more information about access to restricted materials, please see our Guide to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center.