Senate approves motions affecting athletics committee
In a voice vote last Thursday, the Faculty Senate approved a motion to make Stanford's representative to the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics a member of the university's Committee on Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (CAPER).
The coalition, which promotes comprehensive reform of college sports, is an alliance of faculty senates in 56 Division 1A schools across the country.
In another voice vote, the senate approved a motion to require CAPER to present an annual report to the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy (C-USP). CAPER, which oversees the university's intercollegiate athletics programs, is a nine-member committee composed of faculty, students and administrators, including the registrar and athletic director.
In response to questions about what information would be included in the annual report, Eamonn Callan, senate chair, said the academic rationale for integrating the two committees (CAPER and C-USP) was to ensure that athletes were making adequate academic progress and were adequately integrated into the academic life of the larger Stanford community.
"From time to time, issues that might arise within that category would vary," Callan said. "We hope that C-USP would focus on whatever issues were current in that broad category. That will determine what kind of report one would expect CAPER to make to C-USP."
The senate also overwhelmingly rejected a resolution to drop the honorific term "distinguished" from all non-Academic Council appointments.
Controversy over the use of the term first arose last year, after former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was named a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
