UT Vice Provost: Faculty Council chair’s action “hypocritical”

2009-2010 UT Faculty Council

Among issues that were planned for discussion at Monday’s UT Faculty Council meeting was a resolution sponsored by the council’s chair, RTF professor Janet Staiger, “A Resolution in Support of the Cactus Cafe.”

The Austin-American Statesman reports that Monday’s meeting became “testy” when Staiger decided to proceed after Executive Vice Provost Stephen Monti complained that there wasn’t a quorum. Calling the chair’s action to proceed “hypocritical”, he apparently didn’t realize that he had no authority to raise a quorum objection in the first place: he’s not a council member.

UT Classics professor and council member Thomas G. Palaima later expressed the opinion that the Cactus Cafe resolution was the only item on the agenda that anyone might have wanted to quash, and then only for publicity reasons, as the council is merely advisory. He wrote as a comment to the Statesman article, “It is a sad day, among many in UT’s long history, when an experienced administrator [Monti] feels the need to use a procedural atomic bomb to silence the buzz of UT’s mosquitoes… This was bullying and also just as much a bad faith action as the actions of administrators in orchestrating and misinforming re the initial announcement to close the Cactus.”

On March 4, Monti announced his plans to retire from the position of Vice Provost, coincidentally also in August, the same month that the University of Texas plans to close the Cactus Cafe.

More details about Monday’s council meeting are in the Statesman article “UT Faculty Council meeting turns testy”.

The Faculty Council’s next meeting is planned for May 10.