Two tie votes in the Tuesday election for Faculty Senate president for the 1998-99 school year ended with the Senate having the election via mail ballot, upsetting some Senate members.

The Faculty Senate voted 14-14 two separate times for the two candidates running for president.

There were two Faculty Senate meetings Tuesday. The first was to finish business and say farewell to exiting members. The second was to elect new executive officers to the Faculty Senate.

Advertisement

Jim Allen, a professor in history, and Dan Chavez, an associate professor in anatomy, are the two presidential candidates.

Joan Friedenberg, a professor in linguistics, made a motion to suspend the rules and the motion was seconded by Mary Lamb, a professor in English.

Then, Allen, made a motion to conduct the election by mail ballot and was seconded by Marcia Anderson, a professor in workforce education and development.

Some Senate members justified the mail ballot by stating that too many members were leaving for class following the two votes. Jensen added the Senate was close to not meeting quorum.

The decision to conduct the elections via mail caused four senate members to walk out while voicing their displeasure.

Eric Niederhoffer, an associate professor in medical biochemistry, left during Allen’s motion saying, this is completely out of order.

Russell Wright, an associate professor in medical education, stood up and said, we are in violation in Robert’s rules right now.

Advertisement*

Steve Jensen, Faculty Senate president, said over senate member arguments that he did not think you could stop the election to decide to vote by mail ballot.

If we stop it (the election) now, I think we’re doing the wrong thing, Jensen said.

Twenty-four members of the 28 voting members were left at the adjournment of the second meeting.

We’re totally sorry about this, Jensen said at adjournment. This is totally unexpected.

Throughout his years on committees, Jensen said he has never seen anything like Tuesday’s election results.

It’s a totally unique situation, he said. I’ve served on committees for 25 years and it has never come up like this a tie. There’s really no specific rule to handle this.

Jensen said the president usually gets a vote in the case of a tie, but his term was over prior to the election.

Jensen said he has already spoken to the presidential candidates about appointing a parliamentarian for situations like this.

All groups that are run democratically and by Robert’s rules of order you really need a very proficient parliamentarian, he said.

The mail ballots are due Friday and the Senate will have an emergency Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday to officially announce the new president as well as complete the election for the vacant vice president, secretary and Committee on Committees seats.

Jensen jokingly said because there were four members missing from the election, he hopes the senate can progress.

Now I hope we don’t have 16-16, he said.