How faculty (intentionally) avoid critical conversations about academe

The university's computing services are after the few people like me who are yet to migrate to Google mail that the rest of the campus has transitioned to ... which is when I thought it might be worth spending time looking at the importance of deleting old emails once and for all. I read one email in a folder titled "Senate" and it became obvious that I will have a tough time deleting them all, and will end up migrating all those old emails to Gmail.

The excerpt below is from an email I had sent in June 2003--more than eight years ago--to the incoming president of the faculty senate.  As I re-read it, the feeling is of crushing disappointment that all these are the issues that academe is dealing with even now and we never bothered to tackle them, when all these were so obvious even to a moron like me!

A few days after I sent the email, a big time faculty-leader pulled me aside in the corridor and told me point-blank that the issues I was raising for discussions were within the purview of the faculty union, and that I needed to understand that the only role for the senate was to discuss curriculum.  What a shame!

i suppose that over the next couple of weeks you and the exec. team will put together a work plan for the next year.  may i request consideration of the following?

in my understanding, the higher ed system is rapidly changing.  in addition to the directly influencing acts such as drastic reductions in public spending on hr.ed., larger discussions such as liberal arts v. professional ed., traditional models v. the univ. of phoenix model, etc., are having, and will continue to have, significant impacts on hr. ed as we know it.

it seems like there is a rapidly evolving "new reality" that we faculty need to understand.  perhaps librarians are at the forefront in terms of experiencing the "new reality" that technology, in addition to other factors, is shaping for the profession.  yet, most of these discussions are happening outside the university, and very little is being deliberated by faculty bodies such as the academic senate.  but, faculty bodies, such as our senate, rarely take the lead to figure out what these may mean for their respective campuses; what these may mean not for the next year but for years down the road.

it will be neat if we can discuss at the senate these dynamic events that are happening outside.  in other words, to have the academic senate explore what the future may hold for WOU and how faculty may have to start thinking about that future.  while this will be separate from how the administration and the OUS perceive of the future, i am sure the senate's deliberations will be well received by them. 

examples: will we have to prepare for a future that could sharply change the lecture/discussion/assessment model of today?  all these may lead us to a different paradigm of teaching and learning.  if so, then how do we deliver the content in a new teaching/learning model?  what could be those changes and how can WOU's faculty prepare for those changes?  what do these changes mean for an incoming assistant professor who is joining us for a thirty-year period? 

perhaps this is too broad a discussion.  but, that is precisely my point--that faculty, as individuals and as a body, are perhaps not addressing these issues that form the context within which we conduct classes.  addressing these larger issues will help us in many ways.

thanks.