Academic Senate

An academic senate is a governing body in some universities and colleges, and is typically the supreme academic authority for the institution.

In Scotland, the senatus academicus is the supreme academic body of an ancient university, given legal authority by the Universities (Scotland) Acts. The senatus is responsible for authorising degree programmes, issuing degrees to and honorary recipients, and for the discipline of students. Membership includes ex officio and elected members, and generally comprises:

Ex officio

At the University of Glasgow, the Clerk of Senate (whose office is equivalent to that of a vice-principal) and Secretary of Court are also ex officio members of the Senate.

In the United States of America the academic senate, also known as the faculty senate, is a governing body for a university made up of members of the faculty from various units within the university. In most cases administrative units such as human resources or other university support units do not have representatives as they are not scholastic units. Individual faculty or academic departments such as the Department of Biology or units such as the library may select representatives for the academic senate.

The academic senate normally creates university academic policy that applies to the university. The policy created by the academic senate is restricted to and must be congruent with policy by the university system of which the university is a member institution, any accreditation bodies, state laws and regulations, federal laws and regulations, and changes derived from judicial decisions at the state and federal levels of the court systems. While a majority of universities and colleges have some form of an academic senate, the general perception is that the organization has more of a ceremonial role. However some researchers have found a negative correlation between centralization of university administration and the presence of an academic senate indicating that an academic senate acts as an organizational force for the decentralization of a university in the area of academics.

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