AND OPEN STATEMENT FROM NARAYAN AND DREAMAL,

PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE FACULTY SENATE

As employees of Florida A & M University and members of the Faculty Senate, we have a common obligation, and that is, to provide the best education to our students whose tuitions pay a greater portion of our salaries. As we see it, inherent in this common obligation is the adherence to shared governance, a practice in which administrators, faculty, staff and students meaningfully participate and provide input in the decision making processes of the University. This shared governance shuns the promotion of individual interests and anchors in its stead, the collective interest, a collective interest grounded by policies, procedures, ethical standards and behaviors inherent in the academic profession. Emphatically stated, the collective interest focuses on, and promotes, the whole, the whole being the totality of academic arrangements and functions of Florida A & M University. In this arena of shared governance, the faculty serves an extremely important voice, and our role as senators is to be the oversight body that ensures that everyone abide by the mission, policies and procedures that govern us all. Hence, as President and Vice President, our solemn promise to you is to ensure that the Faculty Senate body will always be the advocate for all faculty members and the avant-garde for institutional fairness and accountability.