The faculty will vote Tuesday on a proposal that, if approved, will create a new faculty position on the University Resources Committee - a change that would come only months after the number of undergraduate student positions on the committee was doubled.
Either a lecturer or a senior lecturer would fill the proposed position, bringing the committee's faculty-to-student ratio to an even split with seven members representing each.
The motion to increase undergraduate representation from two to four positions, passed after much faculty debate, The Herald previously reported. The change responded to student concerns that the URC's duties - which include setting the University's budget and recommending tuition hikes - were of particular relevance to undergraduate interests and called for greater student input.
"The increase of faculty from six members to seven responds to a concern expressed by a member of the faculty that, after increasing student representation on the URC last spring from five to seven, faculty are now in a minority on a university committee," wrote Mary Louise Gill, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of philosophy, in an email to The Herald.
Gill also wrote that adding a lecturer or senior lecturer to the group "is a way to increase their voice" in University governance. This proposal comes on the heels of a vote last month to add a position to the Faculty Executive Committee to be held by a lecturer or senior lecturer.
Senior lecturers and lecturers are not on the tenure track - unlike professors, associate professors and assistant professors - and they are not required to devote as much time to research.
"Lecturers are considered regular faculty at the University," said Mark Schlissel P'15, provost and chair of the URC. "They are concerned that they don't have enough representation."
Currently, no lecturers hold positions on the URC, even though they are affected by decisions the faculty makes in establishing the next year's budget, Schlissel said.
He said the current proposal is in part a "manifestation" of last year's decision to increase the number of student representatives.
"Faculty might be concerned that this committee might be unbalanced," he said. With students now outnumbering faculty members on the committee by one, the proposal could "make up for perceived loss in parity," he said.
Student representative Abigail Plummer '15 said she does not see a problem with the addition of another faculty member.
"Everyone deserves a say in the budget ... and the greater diversity of opinions, the better," she wrote in an email to The Herald.
Luiz Valente, professor of Portuguese and Brazilian studies and comparative literature, wrote in an email to The Herald that he supports "better representation for (lecturers) on faculty committees." He wrote that he was concerned with having students outnumber faculty members on the committee prior to this proposal.
"The URC is a standing committee of the faculty, not a council of the University community," Valente wrote. His idea to increase the number of URC faculty member positions to eight, with "two from each of the major divisions of humanities, social sciences, life sciences and physical sciences," was not accepted, but he supports the "proposed increase to seven (members)."
URC faculty representative and Professor of Philosophy David Christensen wrote in an email to The Herald that he is "provisionally in favor" of the proposal, but he added that his opinion is subject to change since he has yet to hear any arguments against the expansion.
"The rationale to equalize the number of students and number of faculty on the committee and to add the voice of an underrepresented group makes sense to me," he wrote.
Schlissel said last year he supported the increase in student representation and "was not worried about them having too big of a voice."
But Schlissel added that while he feels neutral about the proposed addition, he is concerned about the possibility of increasing the size of the URC to the point of losing effectiveness.
"There's an upper limit to how many people can sit around a table and have a good conversation with one another," he said. "By adding one more person, I'm not sure if it will make a huge difference."
