Inside Iowa State

Aug. 29, 2008

Clark Ford, 2008-09 Faculty Senate president

Position at ISU: Associate professor of food science and human nutrition

Arrived at Iowa State: Joined the genetics department faculty in 1985, moved to food science and human nutrition in 1991.

Previous service on the senate: Senator (1998-2004, 2006-07); executive board member (2007-08) and president-elect (2007-08); judiciary and appeals council member (2001-04) and chair (2002-04); appeals committee member (2001-04, 2006-07) and chair (2003-04); governance council member (2006-07); committee on committees member (1998-2000) and chair (2007-08); university planning and budget member (1999-2000); ad hoc committee on promotion and tenure member (2004-07); Human Sciences caucus representative (1998-2004)

Senate's top goals this year:

• Monitoring the new resource management model and its effects
• Promoting shared governance throughout administration, colleges and departments
• Examining policy limits on non-tenure-eligible faculty numbers
• Increasing tenure-track faculty numbers and faculty salaries
• Creating a modified duties policy
• Exploring a tuition policy for faculty families

Thoughts on the year ahead:

"Shared governance is an opportunity and a responsibility of faculty members. I'd like to encourage more faculty members to be engaged with issues at the university, working with their senate representatives. I'll work to promote a faculty voice in decisions at the department level, the college level, and of course, in decisions that affect the whole university at the administration level. Also, it would be great to increase the visibility of the Faculty Senate among faculty members, and to increase the perceived effectiveness. It is a strong, empowered group and we're doing important work at the university. A lot of faculty members don't know that, or even believe it is possible. I'd like to help change that perception."

Clark Ford. Photo by Bob Elbert.

Issue that could be the most important to the senate this year:

"The new budget model, and making sure that it's working for everyone at Iowa State. A great deal of work has gone into it, but until it plays out, we won't know exactly what some of the effects will be."

Clark Ford