In an attempt to obtain a stronger faculty voice in University Council matters, a proposal to restructure the council will be presented later this semester by the Constitutional Task Force.

The task force agreed Wednesday with the proposal after much discussion over various options which were drafted by James Banovetz, director of Public Administration.

“The option which was chosen is a scheme which takes away from the elected university administrators and transfers the voting right to the faculty,” Banovetz said.

If the proposal is approved, faculty representation would be increased to 67 percent. Currently, there are 23 voting faculty members and eight voting administrators on the council.

With the new proposal, the number of voting faculty members would be increased to 31 by giving the eight administrative votes to the faculty. However, student representation would remain the same at 12 votes.

The task force began working on the proposal because members felt that the faculty should have a majority of the vote in the council, said council Executive Secretary Jim Giles. Currently, the faculty has less than one-half of the vote in the council, Giles said. He said in the highest levels of government at other universities, the faculty has the majority of the vote.

“I really think we should be where other universities are. I deeply think the faculty should have a clear majority of the vote,” he said.

As of yet, the task force has not received any negative reactions concerning the proposal from administrators, Giles said. “I am pleased that the deans on the task force have supported the proposal,” he said.

Giles said the proposal first will be reviewed by a council subcommittee. After review, the council will vote on the proposal and, if approved, it will go into effect by next semester.

Last summer, Faculty Assembly members said they wanted to have more input concerning administrative decisions such as the search process involved in appointing university presidents.