The potential of severe cuts to higher education is among the hot-button issues the Faculty Council will tackle this semester.

Faculty Council Chairman Harry Tyrer said the proposed state budget, which suggested a 12.5 percent cut to higher education, will be at the forefront of the Council’s agenda.

“We want to try to help shape what our response should be to the budget,” Tyrer said. “This is the first time university management has pushed back on budget cuts.”

Faculty Affairs Committee Chairman Clyde Bentley said the biggest issue facing the faculty was, without question, the future fiscal situation.

“The combination of decreased state support and restrictions on tuition while enrollment continues to grow is a dismal math problem that doesn’t take a Ph.D. to understand,” Bentley said. “The faculty is committed to maintaining quality as long as they can, but there are few savings left.”

Tyrer said he urged students to voice their concerns of the budget cuts by writing to state legislators.

“There is a richness here that is not possible elsewhere,” Tyrer said. “I’m not sure if legislators understand the wonderful stuff going on, and by writing to legislators, students can facilitate that.”

Students and faculty will also be encouraged to voice their opinions of the diversity course requirement, Tyrer said.

Faculty voted down the proposed graduation requirement last May, causing the council to reevaluate how to implement a diversity-intensive course.

“Everyone is for diversity,” Tyrer said. “There were good reasons why it was voted down, but none of them dealt with the subject matter.”

Tyrer said the Council has expanded the idea of a diversity course requirement to a broader title, the “diversity experience.”

“The objective would be to provide a common experience that all MU graduates would have,” Tyrer said. “We think this is more related toward their majors than just taking courses to take care of the requirement.”

Tyrer said it wasn’t likely that the diversity experience would come to a vote this semester, as it needs to be further defined.

Pursuing alternative revenue streams will also be a focus for the council, Fiscal Affairs Committee Chairman Kattesh Katti said.

Katti said his committee will look specifically into expanding MU’s online educational system to capitalize on a growing demand.

“There are many countries in the world that do not have the educational infrastructure in interdisciplinary areas that MU has,” Katti said. “We need to leverage the expertise of our faculty and infrastructure in offering online, formal education programs to aspiring students from those countries.”

MU has the potential to grow its online programs in fields such as pharmaceutical, medical engineering and journalism, Katti said.

“I strongly believe that the online education system is one place where we can reap new and sustainable revenue streams,” Katti said.

The Faculty Council works as a senate would, by representing faculty to constituents of the university. How to define “faculty” will be an issue addressed by the Faculty Affairs Committee this semester, Bentley said. The committee created a task force of professors to review the status of tenure and promotion at MU.

“We are now looking at how to incorporate our growing number of NTT (non tenure track) professors into the shared governance of the university,” Bentley said. “Right now staff is represented by Staff Council and tenure-track professors are represented by the Faculty Council, but the more than 500 ranked NTT professors are in limbo.”

Four NTT representatives sit with the Faculty Council, Bentley said, but have no voting rights.

Tyrer, who is in his first year of acting as Faculty Council chairman, said he has enjoyed the experience so far and believes the Council is set to accomplish much this semester.

“Communication has been excellent between the committees so far and we will continue to get things done,” Tyrer said. “We should be open and things should be transparent. That’s the way we’ll run this shop.”