There wasn’t a lot left to discuss at Thursday’s Faculty Council meeting.

The proposal to extend campus-wide voting rights to non-tenure track faculty, which has been an ongoing topic of discussion since it was brought up to the council in late October, passed by a margin of 184 votes last week. Faculty Council Chairman Harry Tyrer announced the results via email early Wednesday morning, after which the council had little to discuss Thursday.

Tyrer told the council the vote should be implemented soon, pending approval by the University of Missouri System Board of Curators at its April 11 conference. He thanked all the staff who participated in the vote, with specific mention of the faculty-appointed oversight committee and Humanities Research Librarian Rachel Brekhus, who designed a comprehensive website.

“We don’t know how to separate these variables, but we did get over 50 percent voting, which is an enthusiastic number,” Tyrer said to the council.

The only remaining matter is effective dates, Tyrer said. He said he received an email which might have hinted that the non-tenure track vote is near effective, and he said he plans on talking to UM System President Tim Wolfe soon. However, with an issue that has brought out a broad range of opinions from students and staff alike, Tyrer said he didn’t want to get bogged down in any more details.

“Let’s just save the good stuff for today,” Tyrer said.

After all, the approval of the non-tenure track vote marks the end of an issue that has been prominent in Faculty Council for more than six months.

**Nov. 9, 2012**

There’s a justice aspect to the non-tenure track issue, associate professor of journalism Katherine Reed told the council on Nov. 9.

Reed, a member of the council without tenure status, made note that non-tenure track staff are all over campus, teaching classes and serving on committees. She said they work just as hard as tenure-track faculty members, and students were not happy with non-tenure track faculty’s lack of voting rights.

“There are a lot of people who are absolutely outraged by this,” Reed said at the meeting. “And my students are outraged by it. Think about the example that sets on our campus, that there are faculty members who don’t have voting rights.”

Nicole Monnier, associate teaching professor of Russian and non-tenure track faculty member, also defended members of staff without tenure. She pointed out that non-tenure track faculty are integrated into almost all the structures of MU and have a strong presence in academic affairs.

“They’re like the Canadians,” Monnier told the council, laughing. She said non-tenure track faculty walk amongst other teaching professionals, but it’s almost impossible to notice they’re any different.

”We already have (faculty) rights on the divisional levels on all these colleges on campus,” Monnier said.

But Tim Evans, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology, said he didn’t feel confident about the proposal’s chances.

“If we put it forward as it is right now, my impression, based on people that I’ve talked to, is that it’s not going to pass,” Evans said.

**Feb. 19**

Not a lot changed with the non-tenure track proposal from November to February. The full-length motion, which has been made available on the Faculty Council website, underwent a few small variations as a result of changes made to MU collected rules and regulations, but it remained virtually the same.

On Feb. 19, a general faculty forum was held to discuss the vote. This time around, faculty were overwhelmingly in support of the measure.

“Why (non-tenure track faculty) are different from someone who has a designated tenure track, I’m not quite sure,” associate professor of journalism Clyde Bentley said at the forum.

Bentley said he has always believed the issue is unfair. When Bentley started out on the council, he was shocked to learn that a fellow member of the council wasn’t allowed to vote, he said. It was someone he respected; Bentley didn’t get it.

Support was almost unanimous. Monnier and mathematics professor Stephen Montgomery-Smith, who helped lead the discussion with Bentley, were also in support of the issue.

In last week’s approved non-tenure track vote, about a month after the faculty forum, the measure was passed by a 65 percent margin. The final count was 396 to 212. The UM System Board of Curators will act upon the proposal at the April 11 conference.