Campus unity focus of meeting
First Faculty Senate, Staff Assembly, SGA joint meeting today
By Brandon Ortiz
Staff Reporter

Chelsea Hudson isn’t exaggerating when she calls today’s joint meeting between the Faculty Senate, Staff Assembly and Student Government Association “historic.” It’s never happened before.

The first meeting between the organizations will focus on ways students, faculty and staff members can come together to improve TCU.

“I think a lot of people would agree that TCU needs to constantly work on building this community,” said Hudson, a junior political science major and president of SGA. “We do a good job of getting faculty and staff involved with orientation and Frog Camp but it kind of stops there. This meeting is making a statement for us all coming together.”

Carolyn Spence Cagle, an associate professor of nursing and chairwoman of Faculty Senate, said she hopes the meeting will trigger greater collaboration from the three groups. She said that collaboration hasn’t been lacking between the three groups, but could be improved.

“We are hoping we will see common issues we can all address next year,” Cagle said. “Certainly we might develop some agenda items for the Faculty Senate from what comes out of this forum and the same thing will happen in the student house and Staff Assembly.”

After a keynote speech from Paul Harral, vice president and editorial director of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, participants will split up into groups. Each group will come up with two ways to bring students, faculty and staff closer together on an ongoing basis to cooperatively improve the quality of education and promote the wellness of the TCU community.

Hudson said Harral’s experience at the Star-Telegram and as an adjunct journalism professor makes him a good choice as keynote speaker.

“He has the background of coming from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which gives him a community outlook,” Hudson said. “It is even a little broader than TCU, which is good. It is good to get somebody outside the TCU bubble. And the other thing is he is a TCU (faculty).

“It makes a difference when it is one of your own saying this.”

As editorial page director, Harral said he looks at the Fort Worth community as whole. He said participating in today’s meeting “is an extension of what I do for a living.”

“Faculty, students and staff all have a vested interest in making a student succeed,” he said. “Anything they can do to make common goals, to dream common dreams, is good.”

The meeting is 4 p.m. today in the Faculty Center in Reed Hall.

Brandon Ortiz
b.p.ortiz@student.tcu.edu

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