Connecting with Campus Leaders

Saint Joseph’s University is more than a place where students attend classes and earn credits towards degrees. Each member of the community has a unique and critical role in the overall success of the University’s goals.

To ensure that faculty, staff and administrators have a voice in shaping the University’s future, two representative groups — the Faculty Senate and the Administrative Staff Council — serve to connect the wider employee base to University leadership. The SJU News team reached out to these groups to learn more about them and their work.

Administrative Staff Council

SJU News: What is the Administrative Staff Council?

Colleen Klose, Staff Co-Chair: The ASC is a council that provides employees a forum in which meaningful discussion may take place on issues that affect the University community, combined with the opportunity to advise the University administration on how these issues are affecting everyone. The executive council is comprised of four administrators and four staff members. The ASC holds two voting seats on the University Council and a seat on the Diversity Committee.

The ASC has earned a stellar reputation for organizing employees around a common cause, like collecting Thanksgiving baskets for Project H.O.M.E. What other initiatives does the ASC undertake that people might overlook?

The ASC partners with the Office of Human Resources with the promotion, selection and presentation of the annual Merit Awards to acknowledge extraordinary work done around campus. We also host periodic open forums to address campus issues. The most recent event was centered around the campus climate study.

What are your goals for the remainder of the academic year, and how can employees better engage with the ASC to help you achieve them?

The issue of food insecurity throughout campus was recently brought to our council. This is an issue that is affecting students and employees alike. We have been researching the topic and recently visited Temple University’s Cherry Pantry. We gained a sense of how they run their program. Members of our council have joined the larger University committee centered around addressing the issue of food insecurity on campus. The ASC plans to continue its work and to work more closely with senior administration on a solution to help our campus community. Employees are urged to get involved.

The council can be reached at ascouncil@sju.edu.

Faculty Senate

SJU News: For those who don’t know, what is the Faculty Senate, and what does it do?

Ron Dufresne, Ph.D., Senate President: The Faculty Senate is the formally-recognized body through which the faculty exercises its voice in the University’s shared governance system. The rights and duties of the Senate are far-ranging, including making recommendations regarding faculty and academic policies and procedures, expressing our voice on matters relating to the welfare of the University, and advising the administration in all areas of University activity. The Senate consists of all full-time tenure-track faculty.

In your experience, how is the faculty at SJU different from other universities?

This is an impossible question for me to answer, since SJU is the only university where I’ve been on faculty. I do know that our faculty are 100% committed to helping our students grow and are incredibly collegial.

What are your goals for the remainder of the academic year and beyond?

The most important goal for the academic year is to make sure we have a robust conversation about representation in governance in light of the starting of the School of Health Studies and Education. The faculty are also continuing conversations about the many different ways we can move our campus climate to be more inclusive. Beyond this year, the goal will remain for faculty to work as strategic partners to ensure we best serve our students of today and tomorrow.

What avenues of growth lie ahead for the Faculty Senate?

The Faculty Senate committee on faculty policies and procedures is currently studying mandates concerning giving voice to non-tenure-track faculty in our governance system. These colleagues are important members of our academic community and play a large role in our students’ education. By the end of the year, we hope to bring this question to a positive and inclusive conclusion.