There is no room for military science teachers on NIU’s Faculty Senate.

A request from a former dean to extend membership to ROTC teachers failed in the senate last week.

“The senate would have had to revise the bylaws,” said senate President J. Carroll Moody.

The former dean of the College of Professional Studies, Peggy Sullivan, recommended last semester that the Faculty Senate extend membership to ROTC teachers even though they are not regular contract teachers.

The University Constitution requires the Faculty Senate be made up of faculty who are both full-time and regular contract (tenured or eligible for tenure). Because ROTC teachers are not regular contract, the senate Rules and Governance Committee recommended not allowing them to join.

ROTC teachers are not paid by the univerisity and are not tenured, said William Monat, chairman of the Rules and Governance Committee.

The senate voted Jan. 9 to accept the committee’s recommendation and not allow faculty from the military science department to serve on the Faculty Senate.

“I’ve not been formally notified of the resolution or the reasons,” said Lt. Col. Terry Fielden, chairman of the department. Fielden said he didn’t want to cmment before he was notified.

“The request didn’t come directly from them,” Moody said. He said that because he hadn’t been in contact with them throughout the discussion last semester he didn’t feel it was urgent to tell them about the decision.

Sullivan, now the director of university libraries, made the ROTC request in May 1990, after the University Council’s last meeting and before the first meeting of the Faculty Senate.

Moody said he didn’t know if they were aware the matter was going to be voted on. He said he assumed they would like to becme members of the senate.

“The senate chose not to change the definition of eligible faculty by creating another category,” he said.

The Faculty Senate, new in the fall 1990, relates faculty concerns to the University Council, which advises NIU’s governing body, the Board of Regents.