As complicated as a jigsaw puzzle, University Senate governance plays an important role in the University of Minnesota’s functioning, including representing groups of faculty, staff and students and advising senior leadership.

However, many members of the University may be unaware of these committees representing their voices when important decisions are made. One of these seemingly underground, yet highly significant, committees is the Faculty Consultative Committee (FCC), which represents faculty across University campuses systemwide.

“A lot of people don’t know about the Faculty Consultative Committee specifically,” said Ned Patterson, FCC chair and University professor of veterinary medicine and genetics. “They [may] know vaguely about the University Senate, [but] unless you’re in the middle of it or involved with an issue, not everybody knows.”

Patterson officially transitioned into the FCC chair position Thursday — a role he will hold for the next year.

Born in Colorado, Patterson moved to Minnesota when he was six years old and has resided here for most of his life, he said. He attended the University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, received a doctorate degree and is now a practicing veterinarian and professor.

“I’ve been working for the U in one way or another since 1996, so 25 years,” Patterson said. “Started as a student in ’92 and haven’t left. I really liked it.”

Patterson’s participation in University committees began prior to his appointment as FCC chair. He was a member of several committees while at the veterinary school, which led to his appointment on the Health Sciences Faculty Consultative Committee (HS FCC), he said.

Serving on this committee allowed him to become a member of the FCC for two years. After this, Patterson was elected to a three-year term as an FCC member and served one year as the committee’s vice chair before being elected as chair this year.

“So that’s where I first really knew about the FCC,” Patterson said. “I started hearing about it when I got on that committee [the HS FCC].”

Similarly, Colleen Flaherty Manchester, FCC vice chair and University work and organizations associate professor, was not aware of the FCC until she became involved when the University announced in 2018 it was going to close the childcare center on campus.

“That’s when I first learned about the FCC because I went to the FCC to advocate for keeping the center open and expanding,” Manchester said. “I realized it was a group that could mobilize around issues that were really important to faculty. I saw how impactful it could be.”

Previously, Manchester served as a member of the Women’s Faculty Cabinet and just finished her first three-year term as an elected FCC member, during which she was elected as vice chair for the 2021-22 term.

For the upcoming year, Patterson, Manchester and the other FCC members plan to prioritize continuing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the University, which includes integrating social justice themes into every classroom, Patterson said.

Additionally, the FCC wants to increase faculty accountability in relation to sexual misconduct and promote a positive, respectful culture, Patterson said.

Another concern is improving two-way communication between the University community and the FCC, and thinking about how to effectively communicate with the rest of the faculty about issues, Manchester said.

“[This means] making sure faculty know who to contact if they have a concern or issue,” she said.

The FCC is a consultative body to University President Joan Gabel, Manchester said. It creates advisory resolutions for the president around faculty issues and concerns, and has limited decision-making powers. The committee can make recommendations when appropriate.

The FCC consists of approximately 20 members, all of whom are professors, associate professors or assistant professors. Currently, there are 12 elected members and 10 nonelected members.

The committee also represents faculty at large in the University system and is only designed to address issues that affect more than one college, Patterson said. If a concern affects only one college, the responsibility goes to the dean or department head.

“We’re not meant to get into the internal affairs of a college,” Patterson said. ”But for any issue that affects more than one college, we are supposed to represent all of those groups, so they can always come to us.”

This knowledge of the FCC, what it does and how it fits into the University, is important to know because it helps facilitate and strengthen shared governance, Patterson and Manchester said.

“The idea of shared governance is really important … so leadership can understand the consequences of its decisions as well as share its rationale,” Manchester said. “It’s important for an institution to function well to have input from its constituencies and for those constituents to have a voice that matters.”

After more than a year of online classes and meetings, faculty leaders at the University of Minnesota reflected on the challenges of operating online and the silver linings they discovered along the way.

The Faculty Consultative Committee (FCC), the group that represents faculty at the University as a whole, held its final meeting of the year Thursday, where they weighed in on future priorities and goals for the University. Senate leaders announced Thursday that all online operations for University governance committees would continue at least through the fall 2021 semester.

“As with everything else, [online operations have been] hard in some ways, but there’s been silver linings,” said Ned Patterson, the incoming FCC chair and University professor of veterinary medicine and genetics.

Operating remotely has made it easier to call meetings on urgent matters quickly, Patterson said. Attendance at meetings has also increased, which has allowed more people to present their ideas and opinions.

“I think it’s been great to have everyone on the same playing field in a Zoom platform,” said Colleen Flaherty Manchester, the incoming FCC vice chair and University work and organizations associate professor.

Listening to the perspectives of many different faculty around important topics like campus safety, racism and the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges for the FCC throughout the past year. Navigating the sometimes polarized opinions from faculty was difficult at times, as oftentimes no decision would result in complete agreement, Patterson said.

The increase in workload due to the pandemic was also challenging. Concerns around the pandemic and social justice accelerated conversations and decisions, and shone a spotlight on important issues the University needs to address, outgoing FCC chair and University chemistry professor Phil Buhlmann said.

“There were so many issues that we were tracking down, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of the killing of George Floyd,” Buhlmann said.

Similarly to students, faculty also struggled with productivity, burnout and making social connections with colleagues throughout the past year, according to Manchester, who studied the effect of COVID-19 on faculty in December 2020.

“The downside is … not having that ability to connect with colleagues and have those additional interactions that you would have just by being in the same proximity,” Manchester said. “That can make you feel a little more isolated.”

Buhlmann said he thought the FCC and University governance responded relatively well to the challenges brought about by the pandemic and social justice concerns. Although the University continues to have issues, collaborative governance allowed for more faculty and student voices to be heard over the past year in comparison to other universities, he said.

“The governance system at the University of Minnesota is really quite unique,” Buhlmann said. “It’s really very, very clear that in many other places, the faculty, the staff [and] the students haven’t been listened to as much as they have been here.”

The pandemic and online operations also allowed faculty to find new ways to teach, Manchester said.

“I think that even though it was a real challenge to bring everything online, many faculty were able to innovate and think critically,” Manchester said. “It’s kind of a forced reassessment of the way [we] do things.”

Buhlmann said he thinks faculty may use the lessons learned throughout the past year to improve future instruction for the benefit of students.

“I think the really tough learning experience that some of our faculty had through the last one and half years, they’re trying to put that now at an advantage and really try to benefit the students and create flexibility,” Buhlmann said.

Throughout the next year, the FCC plans to continue prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing student and faculty mental health and improving crisis communication with the University community, according to Buhlmann and Patterson.

The FCC will hold its next scheduled meeting in September.

Professor Qadri Ismail, a rigorous and beloved University of Minnesota English professor, spirited debater, fierce advocate for the oppressed and loyal friend, died the last week of May. He was 59 years old.

Ismail died of natural causes, according to Sayyid Markar, Ismail’s nephew. Ismail was an influential presence both in and out of the University community as a professor and journalist.

“I think losing Qadri was a tremendous loss for the [English] department and the U of M community at large,” said Halima Samatar, a recent graduate from the University, who studied English with Ismail. “He was willing to sacrifice how people saw him … in order to advocate for what was right.”

A Reputable Professor

In spring 2020, Samatar decided, with some reservation, to take a course with Ismail. Ismail taught courses focused on literary theory and postcolonial studies within the English department.

He had a reputation in which some students loved him and others went to their advisers in tears, Samatar said. She took on the challenge though, a decision she said she did not regret.

“Starting from the first day, he kept students on their feet,” Samatar said. “I always left feeling challenged … [and] inspired.”
Samatar took another of Ismail’s classes this past spring. She said she wanted to end her college career with a professor she enjoyed, truly learned from and respected.

“He taught us to aggressively question everything,” Samatar said. “He really practiced what he preached. That’s something that made a lot of us respect him.”

While Ismail was a challenging professor, he was also a caring mentor, according to his past students.
During her first semester in the English doctoral program, University student Nyla Numan said she felt overwhelmed with her courses and behind her peers.

“Qadri reminded me that it would take time … before I felt more comfortable and familiar with the material,” Numan said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “I found Qadri to be a brilliant teacher and caring mentor.”

Moinak Choudhury, another English graduate student at the University, said Ismail was also generous with his time.

“He made an active effort to [check in] — asking me both about my professional work here and my family back in India,” Choudhury said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “He was keenly aware of the difficulties of beginning a new chapter in a foreign country.”

From Sri Lanka to Minnesota

Born on November 7, 1961 in Sri Lanka, Ismail studied English at the University of Peradeniya before pursuing a career in journalism.

He became a prominent journalist during the Sri Lankan Civil War, when he worked as a reporter for Time Magazine and the Sri Lankan Sunday Times newspaper. Ismail was known for his fearless criticism of the government and daring fieldwork, during which he was shot in the neck, Markar said.

After being shot, Ismail attended graduate school at Columbia University as a Fulbright scholar in 1989. In 1997, Ismail accepted a position as a professor at the University of Minnesota, Markar said.

It was at the University where Ismail became infamous as a rigorous intellectual and fierce debater with students, colleagues and close friends.

“Most of us strive to deflect confrontation, whereas I think he almost sought out confrontation,” said University professor and close friend Vinay Gidwani.

Ismail used argumentation as a way to teach his students how to carry through and stand by their arguments, which was a critical aspect of his teaching, according to University Professor Ajay Skaria, another close friend.

Outside of seeking out arguments and teaching his students and colleagues how to debate, Ismail enjoyed simple things in life.

“He was an amazing cook,” Gidwani said. “He did a lot of cooking for [other] people.”

Assistant Professor V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan said Ismail was one of the first people to welcome her to the English department when she started at the University in 2015. Ismail would cook Sri Lankan food for her, which meant a lot to her as another person of Sri Lankan descent.

“It was a lot of food that I grew up with and wouldn’t have had a lot of places to get here,” Ganeshananthan said.

Ismail loved watching cricket and would stay up late to watch matches in India and Sri Lanka, Skaria said. He was also passionate about art and owned a collection of paintings by various Sri Lankan political artists.

“He was somebody who was capable of both intellectual rigor and enjoying the pleasures of everyday life,” Skaria said.

Ismail was more than a caring professor, vigorous debater and exceptional cook. He was also an unabashedly fierce advocate for the oppressed, according to those who knew him.

A Fearless Advocate

Ismail became the chair of the English department’s first Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee in 2019 and advocated for changing the curriculum, among other EDI matters.

“He was outraged that the department still had a Shakespeare requirement,” Skaria said.

Ismail loved Shakespeare, but he wanted to reduce Eurocentrism within the department. Ismail advocated for removing these requirements because they single out authors like Shakespeare as the true author of the English language, Samatar said.

“He didn’t play the performative game [with] terms like diversity, inclusivity … those words meant a removal of any trace of any inherently Eurocentric, exclusive ideas,” Samatar said.

It was through all of this — Ismail’s caring and generous but blunt and argumentative nature, as well as his advocacy — that he impacted his students.

Samatar said the atmosphere in Ismail’s classroom embodied higher education, as he fostered conversation, learned from his students and welcomed differences.

“He’s an example of what higher education should look like,” Samatar said. “I’m so thankful that I took not just one, but two classes with him because that experience is immeasurable.”

Ismail was buried at the Garden of Eden Islamic Cemetery in Burnsville on June 2 and is survived by his mother, brother, sister, nephew and three nieces. A formal tribute to his life will take place at the University in fall 2021.