Statement of Candidacy:
Shawn Whalen, Director of Forensics, Communication Studies

I am a candidate for Chair of the Academic Senate for the 2008-2009 academic year and I would appreciate your support.

I joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in 1997 and I seek the office of Chair with the benefit of having served on the Academic Program Review Committee, as the former Chair of the Academic Policies Committee, and as Vice Chair of the Senate this year.  I have prior experience chairing a large deliberative body, as the former President of intercollegiate debate’s national governing organization, and I have served as the Academic Senate’s parliamentarian for the past two years.

In my role as Chair of the Academic Policies Committee and as Vice Chair of the Academic Senate, I have been directly involved in the revision of our undergraduate writing requirements and I served as a member of the Graduation Requirements Task Force.  Next year’s Senate will play a crucial role in the continued improvements to our undergraduate curriculum and I feel well prepared to contribute to that work.  There are a host of other issues we will tackle as well and I think that my previous service provides evidence of my ability to successfully move tasks to completion.  My academic training is in argumentation, rhetoric, and dispute resolution and it has served me well in my previous collaborative decision making.

As Chair I will be mindful of the time commitment made by members of the Academic Senate and I will work to make your service productive and rewarding.  As our desires to strengthen our academic programs continue to be confronted with shrinking resources, it is imperative that the Academic Senate work efficiently and effectively and that its efforts are devoted to our most urgent priorities.

I am firmly committed to the value of shared governance and I believe that we all benefit from the collaboration, reflection, and revision that shared governance ensures.  We are a complex organization of committed faculty, staff, and administrators whose perspectives often differ.  When we are at our best, the Academic Senate is the sight of convergence for contested yet collaborative dialogue and it enables us to better serve our students and our community.

Respectfully,

Shawn Whalen