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November 21, 1996

Senate's Eva Brosius leaving

A fter 26 years as clerk of the University Senate, Eva Reid Brosius will resign Dec. 1 to take on a new assignment: writing the Senate's official history.

Given her long affiliation with the Senate and her historical perspective of the University, Brosius was a natural choice for the job, said Robert E. Dunkelman, secretary of the University. Dunkelman made arrangements for the project and for Brosius's new office on the Cathedral of Learning ninth floor.

"This history, which will chronicle the evolution of the Senate since its establishment [in the 1930s], is being compiled to preserve the Senate's rich past for the benefit of the University community as well as interested individuals outside of the institution," Dunkelman wrote in a Nov. 15 memorandum to the Pitt community.

"In order to undertake this important project, Mrs. Brosius will relinquish her day-to-day Senate responsibilities, but will be able to give counsel and advice on Senate matters," Dunkelman wrote.

Fran Czak, director of the Office of Special Events for the last 14 years and a member of the office's staff for 13 years before that, will succeed Brosius as the Senate's administrative officer. Czak will have the new title of director, Office of the University Senate.

Brosius smilingly declines to reveal her age but admits to being "80-plus." No single factor convinced her to resign as clerk and tackle the history project, she explained. It wasn't a question of her age, her failing hearing or any sense of boredom with her duties, Brosius said.

But undoubtedly, the increasing — if belated — computerization of the Senate office influenced her decision, she said. Just last week, the office, which is located on the Cathedral's 12th floor, finally was wired for e-mail. For the past decade, the office has made do with one computer while Brosius contentedly pecked away at her electric typewriter.

But no longer. Brosius will take the typewriter with her when she moves to the ninth floor.

"I am computer-illiterate," she confessed. "I've always had someone in the office to do the computer work for me, but now we're adding two more computers here. There's no question that computers are very good for the Senate, but I'm afraid it would take me the rest of my working life to learn to use them at this point." Senate President Keith McDuffie thanked Brosius for what he called "her long-term and invaluable service" and said he looks forward to working with Czak. "Fran is very personable and knows her way around the University. As we reconfigure that job, I think it will take on more of an administrative support role than has been the case in the past. Fran should be able to relieve the Senate officers of a lot of the detail work and legwork that they now perform in doing things like naming faculty representatives for search committees.

"Faculty face a growing number of threats these days, including attacks on tenure, and I believe the Senate needs to take on more of an outreach role in standing up for faculty rights," McDuffie continued. "In order to raise the Senate's profile and attract new faculty members to serve, we need a very experienced hand in the Senate office, someone who can provide continuity as the elected officers like me come and go. I expect that Fran will provide that." Czak, in a written statement, said: "While I still find my current job interesting and challenging, several years ago I began to think about making a career change but wasn't sure of the direction I wanted to take — except that I wanted to remain with the University.

"When I learned that Mrs. Brosius's position was available, I saw a wonderful opportunity to move in a new career direction. My experience as director of Special Events gave me frequent opportunities to interact with faculty and I always enormously enjoyed these interactions." Succeeding Czak as Special Events director effective Dec. 1 will be Graham Park, currently associate director of Special Events.

About her successor, Brosius said: "Fran has been where she's been for as long as I've been at the Senate. She knows the University, and that will help her a lot in this office." * * * Pitt's Board of Trustees founded the University Senate during the early 1930s, and until the 1960s the Senate was dominated by the administration, Brosius said. "The chancellor was the head of the Senate for many years. It really wasn't until Dr. [Wesley] Posvar became chancellor that the faculty became the dominant members of the Senate and Senate Council," she said.

While there's been a steady turnover of Senate activists and Pitt officials during her career, Brosius said the same issues have come up repeatedly at meetings of Senate Council, Faculty Assembly and the full Senate: affirmative action, research integrity, faculty unionization, alleged violations of tenure rights, complaints about inadequate faculty salaries.

And poor attendance at the twice-yearly full University Senate meetings is nothing new, Brosius noted. "The full Senate has always been difficult in terms of attendance, for as long as I can remember," she said. Some 3,400 Pitt faculty members and representatives of the administration, staff and students are eligible to participate in Senate meetings, and any member of the University community may attend. But attendance over the years has ranged from a few hundred people to literally a few.

The only way to guarantee a full house at a University Senate meeting would be for Pitt's administration to threaten to forbid any more Senate meetings, Brosius joked. "Most faculty want to have the Senate around as a forum. They see it as a way for faculty to participate in University governance. They just don't want to get involved themselves," she said.

University professors and administrators are not noted for their small egos. "But for the most part, the faculty who are elected to the Senate Council and Faculty Assembly put the University's interests ahead of their own," Brosius said. "I don't know what they get out of it [service on Senate groups] except the satisfaction of doing something for the good of the University." The administration of Chancellor J. Dennis O'Connor from 1991 to 1995 marked the "least productive" period for the Senate during the last three decades, according to Brosius. "He [O'Connor] would dispute that, and I don't want to point fingers, but it wasn't a very good time for positive relations between faculty and the administration," she said.

In contrast, Brosius said she is optimistic about the Senate's future during the administration of O'Connor's successor, current Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, who serves with Brosius on the board of trustees of Thiel College.

"I think Nordenberg is unusual, in that he's been around here long enough to understand the faculty's side of things, to know how the University works, and to know what the Senate's role traditionally has been," she said.

"He has very high principles and he's fearless, yet he's also very personable, and I think all of that is going to pay off. Maybe not for a while, but in the long run." As for her future, Brosius said she's glad to be able to assume new duties without cutting her Senate ties. "I have been very, very happy in the Senate," she said. "It's been the love of my life."

— Bruce Steele

Filed under: Feature,Volume 29 Issue 7

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