Jasmin Espinosa BROWNSVILLE – According to a Sept. 9 email from university President Guy Bailey, UTRGV “dissolved” its faculty senate ahead of Sept. 1; now a month after Senate Bill 37 went into effect, it remains unclear if a new committee will form.
Christopher Gabler, a former UTRGV Faculty Senate president, said the university is waiting for the University of Texas System Board of Regents to share what the new policy will look like before making any moves to form a new committee.
SB 37 abolished faculty senates across Texas public universities and colleges last month.
Faculty senates are committees that make major policy-making decisions that affect faculty and students.
Gabler said the faculty senate plays an important role in the development of higher education, research, administrative and committee work for policies and without the members in place there are fewer individuals to fill in the role, and the responsibility falls on staff.
“It’s actually a very large gap to fill,” Gabler said. “And so, apart from the issue of shared governance, is simply the issue of governance in general and administration.” … “So, so the loss of faculty senates creates a large administrative burden on the staff and the rest of the leadership structure at a university.”
Faculties’ main concerns are the fear of shared governance, a system of collaborative decision-making where faculty, staff and the university participate in the direction of the institution and the decision-making process of creating and implementing a curriculum by teachers and schools.
“One of the main issues was fear that faculty would be losing their place in being able to have any sort of say over curriculum development, which at UTRGV was less of [an] issue than other institutions because we have always had a separate curriculum committee,” Gabler said. “And so, it wasn’t ever solely the faculty senate’s place to determine curriculum or approve curriculum.”
Political science lecturer Bryant Sculos said Senate Bill 37 now requires half of the faculty senate members to be appointed by the president of the university as opposed to being elected by the faculty senators. Appointed faculty senate members by the president can serve for six years while elected faculty members can only serve for two years.
“A certain percentage of those, about half will be all appointed by the president of the university, as opposed to the previous system where basically all faculty senators were elected by the faculty themselves,” Sculos said.
Sculos said the bill also encourages universities to cut low enrollment programs or programs that do not show clear evidence of fields available to students. As for which low-enrollment classes may be cut, that decision has yet to be announced.
Gabler adds that the university cannot do much until the UT System Board of Regents shares a plan of action.
“It’s, it’s hard to know exactly sort of where our voice will be and how strong it will be compared to what it was before. until we actually see what the new, policy handed down by the board of regents actually is. and as it is now, we are not even sure whether or not they will have such a policy, come November at their next board of regents scheduled meeting,” Gabler said.
KVAQ-TV reached out to Vice President for University Marketing and Communications Patrick Gonzales, but he declined to comment.
The Board of Regents is expected to meet on Nov. 19 and 20 but there has been no word yet if SB 37 will be discussed.
With that said The House Research Organization states an advisory committee must provide a report on its findings and recommendations from the changes of SB 37 to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board by Nov. 1, 2026. For more information on SB 37 visit Texas House Research org.
