Jamison, Rex L.
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This interview with Professor Rex Jamison focuses on the Faculty Senate from his perspective as academic secretary to the university from 2007 to 2014. He begins by describing his educational background and how he came to Stanford in 1971 as a professor in the School of Medicine. Jamison recalls his two terms of service as an elected senator in the 1980s and describes how his friendship with the previous academic secretary, Ted Harris, led to his being chosen as Harris’s successor. Regarding preparation for the role of academic secretary, Jamison commends Trish Del Pozzo, the assistant academic secretary, for her immense knowledge and support, noting that he did a lot of reading about Stanford’s history of faculty governance. He describes how the fifty-five senators are elected from their respective schools or divisions, and how they then elect the senate chair and the members of the Senate Steering Committee. The senate’s Committee on Committees nominates faculty to serve on the seven Academic Council committees, he says, after which it is the academic secretary’s job to persuade them to serve. Jamison explains that issues within the senate’s purview are brought forward from the relevant Academic Council committee. Other issues come to the senate for important discussion or review even though there is no vote on them. Jamison cites as a prime example the budget plans put in place by the leadership after the financial crisis of 2008, which were carefully explained at the senate as decisions were being made and later implemented; the faculty valued this transparency. Jamison praises each of the senate chairs he worked with: Eamonn Callan (Education), Karen Cook (Sociology), Andrea Goldsmith (Electrical Engineering), David Spiegel (Psychiatry), Rosemary Knight (Geophysics), Ray Levitt (Civil and Environmental Engineering), and David Palumbo-Liu (Comparative Literature). He mentions several important issues dealt with by the senate during his term, including the Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) and the broad range of resulting curricular reforms approved by the senate. He also speaks about the “Stanford in New York” proposal, the consideration of bringing ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) back to campus after its discontinuation in the 1960s, and the campus uproar over the Hoover Institution’s appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as a visiting fellow. The interview concludes with Jamison expressing the personal rewards of his service as academic secretary and his admiration for the faculty who take time from their busy academic and personal lives to participate in faculty governance.
Description
Type of resource | mixed material |
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Date created | July 17, 2017 |
Creators/Contributors
Author | Jamison, Rex L. | |
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Contributing author | Horton, Larry N. | |
Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
Subject | Rex Jamison |
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Subject | Stanford Historical Society |
Subject | oral histories |
Subject | interviews |
Subject | higher education |
Subject | professors |
Subject | faculty governance |
Subject | Stanford University. Faculty Senate |
Bibliographic information
Related item |
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Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/yj708gf5023 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Jamison, Rex L. (2017).
Interview for the Stanford Faculty Senate Oral History Project. Stanford Historical Society
Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932). Department of Special Collections & University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Available at:
https://purl.stanford.edu/yj708gf5023
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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- Contact
- universityarchives@stanford.edu
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