The Senate Represents Faculty Interests
Officers, committee chairs and mentors welcomed newly elected senators to the Faculty Senate at an orientation preceding the Aug. 10 meeting.
A Voice for Faculty
The Baylor College of Medicine Faculty Senate is the primary venue for faculty participation in shared governance and planning at the College.
Senate responsibilities include:
- Making recommendations to College administration on issues deemed to be important to the faculty
- Developing, evaluating and endorsing petitions, recommendations or resolutions from the faculty or others concerning faculty issues
- Appointing members to the College’s Institutional Policy Committee
- Nominating faculty to serve on senate and College committees
Education, faculty affairs and benefits, strategic planning, communications and public affairs, elections and administrative operations are the subjects of the senate's standing committees.
Faculty Senate Officers
Six elected officers lead the Faculty Senate: the chair, chair-elect, secretary, past chair, and basic sciences and clinical sciences representatives, who each serve two-year terms. The officers also are members of Baylor’s Academic Council, which includes department chairs, center directors and deans.
- Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye
Chair
- Dr. Laila Woc-Colburn
Chair-Elect
- Dr. LeChauncy Woodard
Secretary
- Dr. Jeffrey Starke
Clinical sciences representative
- Dr. Hugo Bellen
Basic sciences representative
- Dr. Mary Dickinson
Past chair
Membership
The faculty senate has 101 voting members.
- Forty-four represent the College’s departments (at least one for each department with larger departments having proportionally more positions)
- Nine represent the College’s research/clinical centers (one for each center)
- Four represent the schools (one for each of the four schools)
- Seven represent the hospital affiliate sites (one for each of the affiliates)
- Thirty-seven at-large faculty members
Ex-officio officers: the College’s president and provost and the deans of each of the four schools. Baylor’s general counsel serves as advisor to the senate.