The Senate Assembly on Monday elected three faculty members to fill seats on the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, the executive arm of the University of Michigan’s central faculty governance system.
Elected to three-year terms that begin May 1 were:
• Colleen Conway, professor of music education, School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
• Sarah Lippert, associate professor of art history, College of Arts and Sciences, UM-Flint.
• Deirdre Spencer, senior associate librarian, Library Research — Arts and Humanities, University Library.
Sarah Lippert
Deirdre Spencer
Conway, Lippert and Spencer will succeed three members whose terms expire April 30: Robert Ortega, associate professor of social work, School of Social Work; Stefan Szymanski, Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management and professor of kinesiology, School of Kinesiology; and Dave Wright, associate professor of accounting, Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
During their remarks before the election, Conway said she has been involved on several university committees. Having “dipped her toe” into faculty governance over the years, she said she was ready to take on the challenge and be more involved.
Lippert said she considered serving on SACUA for a variety of reasons, noting that she was looking forward to the opportunity to represent the needs of U-M faculty and that her campus, UM-Flint, “has been underrepresented in institutional governance for as long as anyone can remember.”
Spencer said representative leadership is needed for “excellence to continue” at a time of escalating uncertainty and when community members are experiencing “retrograde expressions of hate, bigotry and intolerance.”
The Senate Assembly chose the three new SACUA members from among seven candidates. The other candidates were Ivo D. Dinov, professor of nursing, School of Nursing, and professor of computational medicine and bioinformatics, Medical School; Marita R. Inglehart, professor of dentistry, School of Dentistry, and adjunct professor of psychology, LSA; Mark S. Rosentraub, Bickner Endowed Professor of Sport Management and sport management co-chair, School of Kinesiology; and James Tappenden, associate professor of philosophy, LSA.
The new SACUA members will join incumbents Michael Atzmon, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences and of materials science and engineering, College of Engineering; Joy Beatty, associate professor of management studies, College of Business, UM-Dearborn; Ruth Carlos, professor of radiology, Medical School; Sami Malek, professor of internal medicine, Medical School; Neil Marsh, professor of chemistry, LSA, and professor of biological chemistry, Medical School; and William Schultz, professor of mechanical engineering and of naval architecture and marine engineering, College of Engineering.
Besides SACUA, central faculty governance consists of the Senate Assembly and the Faculty Senate. The full Senate consists of all professorial faculty, librarians, full-time research faculty, executive officers and deans. The Senate Assembly consists of 74 elected faculty members from the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses.
