At its October 19, 2004 meeting, the Senate University Structure and Governance Committee voted unanimously to send the following resolution to the Senate Executive Committee for consideration:

We believe that the University needs a reliable and stable video and telephone conferencing system in order to facilitate the participation of Senators from multiple campuses in Senate business.  The preponderance of meetings in New Brunswick is a powerful disincentive for participation from members on the Newark and Camden campuses.  The Route 18 construction will
exacerbate this problem and heighten the need.  These barriers create a situation where an inordinate amount of time must be spent getting to Senate meetings.  We would like to request that Chuck Hedrick look into this and report back to the Senate.  The use of this technology in the committee’s meeting on October 19th  illustrates the usefulness of the idea and its possible payoff.

At its November 5, 2004 meeting, the Executive Committee had a full agenda and read this resolution but did not act on it.  The committee decided again to ask the Executive Committee to consider this resolution for referral to the entire Senate for approval.  Based on further input from committee members, the resolution was amended as follows and referred to the Executive Committee for its next meeting:

We believe that the University needs a reliable and stable video and telephone conferencing system in order to facilitate the participation of Senators from multiple campuses in Senate business.  The issue of technology is a serious issue. The preponderance of meetings in New Brunswick is a powerful disincentive for participation from members on the Newark and
Camden campuses.  The Route 18 construction will exacerbate this problem and heighten the need.  These barriers create a situation where an inordinate amount of time must be spent getting to Senate meetings for some members of the University community.  We recommend that Chuck Hedrick  look into this and report back to the Senate.  The use of this technology in the
committee’s meetings on October 19 (telephone conference) and November 9 (video conference) has provided evidence that workable solutions to this problem are possible.  These meetings illustrate the usefulness of the idea and its possible payoff.  If Rutgers  chooses not to encourage  these kinds of solutions, that is a choice to limit participation in University governance bodies.