Faculty Senate talked about the Council on University Planning and Budgeting meetings at the meeting Tuesday and issues the council has been dealing with like interpreting the mission statement.

In the previous council meeting, Grant Sterling, the senate chairman, proposed two resolutions ensuring the council take a strict approach to the mission statement and to follow it closely when deciding the $8 million dollar cuts to be made.

After a lengthy debate between council members on fears of academics getting a impervious status, the council voted down the resolutions.

Worry from senate members arose during Tuesday’s meeting on whether the council had moved to change the mission statement. Because of this, senate members Jeannie Ludlow, an associate English professor, and Jeffrey Ashley, a political science professor, proposed a resolution in response to the decision made by the council.

The resolution, which is tabled until the following meeting, said the defeated resolution in the council meeting “devalues the educational work of faculty and students and threatens to reinterpret the core mission of EIU.”

Ludlow said she believed it is important to clarify the senate’s stance on the decision.

“As representatives f the faculty body, we should make a statement about our mission and teaching and learning in our mission,” Ludlow said.

She added the council decision threatens to functionally change the mission statement without actually changing it.

Blair Lord, the provost and the vice president for academic affairs, commented on worries from the senate of relying on attrition to make up the deficit. He said despite talks about not hiring faculty in the coming years, new faculty will replace some of those who are retiring or leaving.

“You can’t have a hiring freeze. That is nonsense,” Lord said. “You can slow hiring down. You could have a chill or whatever phrase you want to put on it, but a freeze in nonsense.”

He added with an organization as complex as Eastern, it would be impossible to have a hiring freeze with forcing a detriment to the campus.

The next faculty senate meeting will take place at 2 p.m. April 29 in the 4440 Room in Booth Library.

Jarad Jarmon can be reached at 581-2812 or jsjarmon@eiu.edu.