Academic Senate of Masaryk University

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vladimír Palyza, Chair of the Senate


In 1999, the Academic Senate of Masaryk University (AS MU) was in the last (third) year of its functional period (1997–1999). The Act on Schools of Higher Education (Act no. 111/98), fully in effect from the beginning of the year, influenced greatly the work of the Senate.

At almost all of its eight sittings, the Senate approved new statutes, status amendments and internal regulations (in the second half of December, the Senate took a special vote by electronic means).

The original plan to provide MU faculties with internal modified regulations at the end of September was not fulfilled; it was necessary to change practically the entire legislation. The Legal Department of the MU Rector’s Office (headed by Dr. Marta Stárková) and the AS Legislation Committee (headed by Dr. Dana Hrabcová, Faculty of Law) had to process an extensive amount of work: thousands of amended pages were (often repeatedly) discussed.

In the given situation, the new Academic Senate will have to deal with the further profiling of some faculty regulations, and MU management has already taken necessary organizational actions.

At the March sitting, AS MU acknowledged the MU subsidy specification for 1999, and discussed specific salary regulations for MU academics, approved members of the Academic Council of the Institute for Strategic Studies, repeatedly discussed rules for the dividing of the annual MU subsidy and financial solutions to the questions of inter-faculty study. At the end of the second sitting in March, AS MU could not approve the MU budget as the Senate did not have a two-thirds majority of its members. For this reason, it was necessary to call a third March sitting, at which the budget was approved.

In April, before presenting the proposal of the MU Statutes and their amendments to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, they were discussed and approved by the Senate. The comment of the Ministry was approved in May. At that time, three new members of the MU Academic Council were confirmed. The Senate repeatedly discussed issues connected to the student identity card (its form and defrayment) which – under the new law - has to be issued for every student.

”The Long-term Outlook for Masaryk University up to the Year 2005” was discussed and approved unanimously at the beginning of November. In the middle of November, the Senate resumed discussions on the student card (its defrayment in particular). At the end of November, a day-long meeting of the extended Rector’s Advisory Board (with the participation of AS MU representatives) was held in Šlapanice, and discussed, in line with tradition, economic issues for the following calendar year. The work of the Senate in November and December focused on the discussing of the statutes of individual faculties, their amendments and internal regulations.

Generally, we may say that in the Senates of MU faculties a parity representation of students and academics did not prove to be effective. In votes, the same number of positive and negative votes is a possibility which causes an insoluable situation. We came to the conclusion that with seven representatives of each faculty, the MU Senate was too large. In line with the new ”Rules of Voting and Procedure”, the Senate will consist of five elected representatives of each MU faculty (three academics and two students, plus two alternates – one academic and one student).

On the other hand, the membership of Chairs of the Academic Senates of individual MU faculties in the MU Senate has proven effective. Co-operation between the Academic Senate and the university management was also highly satisfactory. Almost all meetings of the Academic Senate were attended by academic officials, and the Chair of AS MU was a regular guest at weekly meetings of the MU management, the Rector’s Advisory Board and meetings at the Ministry of Education.

For the next functional period (2000-2005) at the Board of Schools of Higher Education (RVŠ), Tereza Výborná and Luděk Václavek (an alternate) were delegated on behalf of MU students (both from the MU Faculty of Law); and Drahomír Horký (Faculty of Medicine), Josef Janyška (Faculty of Science), Maxmilián Strmiska (School of Social Studies), Zdeňka Gregorová (Faculty of Law), Josef Trna (Faculty of Education) were delegated on behalf of the staff of MU faculties. In spite of a number of reminders, the Faculties of Arts, Informatics and Economics and Administration did not delegate their representatives, and the positions of representative for the RVŠ Ge- neral Meeting and representative for the RVŠ Board have remained unoccupied.