“We see the values in these things so much so that we would like to clearly state our intention that we are going to expand these things beyond the original schools that were included in the original legislation,” McColley said, “which is consistent with our given oversight and appropriation authority over all of these institutions.”
The center, which would be named by the Board of Trustees, would be an independent academic unit within the College of Arts and Sciences. The bill states that at least 10 tenure-track faculty will be appointed to the center, either as their primary appointment or as a joint appointment, and that “No faculty outside of the center shall have the authority to block faculty hires into the center.”
If the bill is passed in its current form, the university would have until Dec. 31 of this year to appoint an academic council to lead the search for a director of the center. The seven-member council would be almost entirely external, with only one university employee allowed to be a member. The council would recommend a list of finalists to the president, who would then select the director. Under the bill’s current language, the director would have “the sole and exclusive authority to manage the recruitment and hiring process and to extend offers for employment for all faculty and staff of the center, and to terminate employment of all staff.” S.B. 117 would allocate $2 million in yearly state funding for the establishment and operation of the center at Miami.
By amending the bill to include Miami the day it passed in Senate, Miami students and faculty were given little chance to testify for or against it.
Members of the Miami University community could have offered testimony when the bill was limited to UT and OSU, but only one person with a Miami connection did. Mark Ridenour, a Miami alum and chair emeritus of the Board of Trustees, offered written testimony in May supporting the bill and suggesting that Miami should be included in it.
Senator Kent Smith, a democratic representative from Euclid, said he first saw the amendment three hours before they were set to vote on the bill. By bypassing the committee process for the amendment, he said the Senate undercut its own ability to take in feedback.
“The amendment that all the senators have on their desk is less than three hours old,” Smith said in opposition to the amendment Wednesday, “but that’s more time than the three universities have that are mentioned in the amendment.”
Smith said he reached out to both Miami and Cleveland State after he read the amendment, and neither university had been aware of it.
McColley clarified that the bill has to be passed in the House before being adopted if it isn’t included in the overall budget, and the version of S.B. 117 that appears in the budget does not include the additional schools.
Senator George Lang, who represents the 4th Senate District covering most of Butler County, said he is glad to see Miami included in the bill.
Miami University already has a center dedicated to creating “an informed and engaged citizenry”: the Menard Family Center for Democracy. The center’s website states that it supports teaching, programming and research that “builds the capacity of citizens and communities to collaborate in solving problems across ideological, political and social lines.” While S.B. 117 calls for and offers funding to support a 10-person staff, the Menard Center currently only has three staff members listed on its team.
Anne Whitesell, an associate professor and the associate director of the Menard Center, said the creation of a new center wouldn’t make sense. “This is unnecessary,” she said. “Lots of us are already doing this work at Miami, the Menard Center included.”
Miami’s political science department currently has 14 tenure and tenure-track faculty members. Whitesell said the plan for the new center to have 10 seems like a lot, and the lack of oversight in hiring is not common.
“The idea that faculty would have no input on who is being hired is very unusual,” Whitesell said. “Search committees for faculty positions always consist of other faculty.”
The Journal-News has reached out to the Miami University administration and faculty for comment.
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