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The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building Monday afternoon to vote to elect biostatistics professor Tom Braun as chair and Damani Partridge, associate professor of anthropology, as vice chair of SACUA. Committee members also discussed a resolution to establish a committee that would work to construct a land acknowledgement monument on campus.
Before the vote for the new committee chair and vice chair, the candidates gave statements on their platform to the committee. Braun ran uncontested for SACUA chair, while Partridge ran for vice chair against Sociology professor Silvia Pedraza.
Partridge said he plans to address problems with the University of Michigan campus climate. He said he is particularly passionate about tackling sexual misconduct, making the University more supportive of faculty of Color and bolstering relations between all three U-M campuses.
“Some of the key issues here are University climate, the risk and persistence of sexual misconduct and making the University feel more welcoming to Black and Latinx faculty in particular. We also need to address the targeting of Chinese faculty,” Partridge said. “Finally, to continue to build the relationships between the three campuses, especially to make sure that we can help and strive together when vulnerabilities emerge.”
Braun said he intends to focus on faculty retention, child and family care and shared governance during his tenure — topics that he believes many faculty members care about.
“(These topics) are what SACUA is able to do,” Braun said. “We need to combine our collective networks and faculty connections to produce solid evidence and data from which our proposals will truly have merit and power with the administration.”
Braun was elected chair of SACUA and Partridge was elected vice chair. The chair of SACUA also serves as chair of the Faculty Senate and Senate Assembly.
Having served as SACUA chair from May to December 2022, Pedraza said she looks forward to continuing to help guide SACUA in the coming year and supporting the new leadership.
“I should continue to help SACUA as best I can with all the details of how SACUA runs itself, how the University administration runs itself and, how the different departments interface with the faculty and faculty governance,” Pedraza said. “I just thought that it would be good for me to continue to offer my services in effect.”
SACUA also discussed a resolution to create a land acknowledgement monument which had been previously proposed by SACUA’s Committee on Anti-Racism (CAR). Land acknowledgements recognize Indigenous peoples as the original owners of areas of land currently being inhabited by others. The three Anishinaabeg tribes and the Wyandot tribe originally granted land for the University to be situated upon in 1817 through the Treaty of Fort Meigs.
The University installed a plaque on campus in 2002 to commemorate the land grant, listing the names of the tribes and the history behind it. This resolution states that CAR feels that the plaque is an “inadequate” monument to honor the land gift and asks SACUA to establish a special committee. The committee would be tasked with the creation of a new monument on Central Campus commemorating the Indigenous nations’ donation. They would also advocate for the University to take steps to bring members of the original tribes to campus.
SACUA unanimously approved the resolution to be further discussed at the April 17 Senate Assembly meeting.
Daily News Editor Joey Lin can be reached at joeyylin@umich.edu.