How I Would Set the 2026–27 Priorities

Anyone can list priorities. The harder question is how you choose them, and how the faculty can hold you to the choice. In my forthcoming book Judgment Call, I teach a five-question discipline for any significant decision: one question each for framing, evidence, context, values, and accountability. Here is that framework applied, in the open, to the year ahead. This is also how I would run the Chair's office: decisions made transparently, assumptions named, and my name on the call.

1. Framing — What are we really deciding?

The year will arrive framed as a budget problem: which programs, which sections, which positions. I reject that frame. What we are really deciding in 2026–27 is what kind of university comes out the other side — because this single year is expected to select a permanent President, Provost, Vice President for Student Affairs, Dean of CBAPP, and other key leaders, settle major data and AI policy, and possibly test us with a contract fight, including a potential strike. A model, or an administration, answers the question it is given. The Senate's first job is to insist on the right question.

2. Evidence — What do we know, and what are we assuming?

We know layoff notices went out, that proposed cuts fell hardest on the lowest-paid faculty, and that no complete program-cost accounting exists. Claims about which programs "cost too much" are, today, assumptions. Priority: stand up the Data Governance Board with faculty at the table and require transparent cost and revenue data — not FTE counts and graduates alone — before any program decision reaches a vote.

3. Context — Who is affected, and what does the room look like from their seat?

From a lecturer's seat, this year looks like a layoff risk and a possible picket line. From a junior colleague's seat, leadership feels closed. From a student's seat, it looks like disappearing sections. Priority: carry every constituency's seat into the searches and the budget rooms — NTTF representation, staff and student partnership, and genuine faculty voice in selecting the permanent President, Provost, VP for Student Affairs, and Dean of CBAPP.

4. Values — What will we not trade, no matter what the number says?

Consultation rights. Academic freedom. The curriculum in faculty hands. Equity commitments that survive reorganization. If a strike comes, the Senate's independence and the faculty's solidarity are not bargaining chips. Priority: written, public positions on each — before the pressure arrives, not during it.

5. Accountability — Who signs?

I do. Records posted on time, weekly open office hours, and my name on every recommendation the Chair's office makes. And accountability should outlast any one Chair: I will seek a constitutional amendment so the general faculty elect the Vice Chair and Secretary in future years, and I will develop committee Chairs and Vice Chairs deliberately, building a diverse bench for future Senate leadership. If no one can be wrong in a way that costs them something, no one has decided anything.

The Resulting 2026–27 Priorities

Run the five questions and the year's priorities fall out in order: honest program-cost evidence before any cuts; a strong faculty voice in the permanent leadership searches; faculty-shaped data and AI implementation; protection of consultation rights and colleagues through any contract action; and a constitutional path to elected, diverse Senate leadership. That is the agenda I would carry, and the standard you should hold me to.