| Description | Minutes of a committee appointed by the Senate 'to examine and to make recommendations to the Senate on the functions and organisation of the Senate and its relationships to the Council and to Faculty Boards and other bodies' as part of the wider consultations on constitutional change and governance that the University of Birmingham was undertaking in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in this case the future of the Senate and its work in relation to the major Senate Committees and the Boards of the Faculties
Membership consisted of the Vice-Principal (chair) and members of academic staff, mostly at professorial level
The Committee considered questions on constitutional change framed by the Council and by the Boards of the Faculties and of the School of Education , and discussed the future conduct of academic business and the role of the Senate as the supreme academic authority. The Committee explored the size and composition of the Senate and at the first meeting of the Committee, held on 16 February 1970, members were asked their views on the functions of Faculty Boards; the functions of an Academic or Senate Executive Committee; the functions of the Senate itself; and the business of the Senate which would require ratification by the Council. Minutes record the views of the Committee on the future of the Senate Executive Committee and the Committee of Principals and Deans, and also contain references to discussion about student representation on the Senate and the Senate's use of reserved powers. Minutes include reports of Faculty Boards on constitutional change, and a copy of the report of the Non-Professorial Working Party on the Organisation of the Faculty of Science and Engineering
Minutes of the meeting held on 3 June 1970 mention that the delegation and delineation of the powers of the Faculty Boards; the Committee of Principals and Deans; the Senate Executive Committee; and the Senate still remained to be dealt with, as did the question of the reserved powers of the Senate and other bodies concerned, and the University Academic Appointments Committee and its functions. The minutes suggest that another meeting of the Senate Constitutional Committee was planned to discuss these matters before it could consider drafting its report to the Senate which would ultimately go to the Review Body. No further minutes of this Committee have been transferred to the University Archives, but recommendations resulting from its report were presumably reflected in the Review Body report |