The University Senate met on Oct.12. Much of the agenda revolved around providing time for different committees to update Senate members, as no presentations took place.

The two main pieces of work the senate had to address was around the Fall Break proposal and upcoming elections. Regarding fall break, the proposal for a fall break during the 2024-2025 school year has been approved with editorial changes. Editorial changes mean the administration is allowed to change the proposal how they see fit, but the executives will vote on if those changes are quantified as editorial and only then will they be allowed to take place.

Looking at the 2023-2024 school year, the idea of moving fall break to week 8 has been circulating the Academic and Instructional Policy (AITC) Committee. All that remains is tidying up the proposal for said break, and submission of the proposal should be in the upcoming week.  After submission, the talks will most likely shift towards amending the proposal into the existing 23-24 calendar.

There are a multitude of committees that have upcoming elections. Secretary Robert Hutchinson said the list is “almost a full page long.” The main committee elections mentioned during the meeting were the Provost Search Committee and Athletic Council. Moving forward, the senate will be accepting recommendations and volunteers to apply for these roles. The full list of committees up for election can be found in the agenda for senate meeting 677, on the MTU Senate webpage.

A new proposal was brought forward during the senate meeting. Officially referred to as “Proposal 3-23 Elimination of Shelved Program.”, the proposal moves to officially eliminate one degree and two certifications that MTU offers. These 3 programs have been shelved for at least five years, which means that no students are enrolled in them since then. The Curricular Policy Committee said this is “done every academic year,” and will continue to grow as the year progresses. Last year almost fifteen different programs were eliminated and thus is normal for these three to be eliminated as well.

In the next meeting, President Richard J. Koubek will have a presentation, and another presentation of the campus master plan will take place. That meeting will take place in DOW 642 at 5:30 p.m. and the recordings can be found on the website.