{"id":643,"date":"2025-04-01T12:31:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/01\/senate-assembly-elects-three-new-members-to-sacua\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T12:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:31:38","slug":"senate-assembly-elects-three-new-members-to-sacua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/01\/senate-assembly-elects-three-new-members-to-sacua\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Assembly elects three new members to SACUA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On March 21, the University of Michigan Senate Assembly<a href=\"https:\/\/record.umich.edu\/articles\/three-faculty-members-elected-to-serve-on-sacua-2\/\"> announced<\/a> the election of three new faculty members to the<a href=\"https:\/\/facultysenate.umich.edu\/sacua\/\"> Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs<\/a>. Eight candidates ran for the three seats being vacated by Rebekah Modrak, Simon Cushing and Craig Smith, whose terms will end at the end of April. New members Jesse Capecelatro, Kirsten Herold and Kentaro Toyama are set to begin their three year terms May 1.<\/p>\n<p>Jesse Capecelatro, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has served on the Senate Assembly for the past two years. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Capecelatro said one of his main reasons for running was the uncertainty regarding changes to federal funding, especially for faculty and students in the College of Engineering.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of my concerns is that there\u2019s a sort of tug of war between the executive orders at the federal level, and we\u2019re a public university, and so we can\u2019t ignore that, right?\u201d Capecelatro said. \u201cBut we also have our own core values that we want to uphold, and so I feel that more than ever, there needs to be a faculty voice at the table when leadership\u2019s making decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Capecelatro also highlighted his desire to strengthen the relationship between University President Santa Ono, University Provost Laurie McCauley, the Board of Regents and SACUA.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201c I think right now it\u2019s probably more important than ever that we have a strong relationship (between) faculty and administration and that we come to some type of agreement so that when decisions are made, we can (see) both sides and advocate for why this is happening,\u201d Capecelatro said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not the current situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kirsten Herold, Public Health lecturer and current president of the Lecturers\u2019 Employee Organization, has served on LEO in a<a href=\"https:\/\/record.umich.edu\/articles\/eight-faculty-members-seeking-three-seats-in-sacua-election\/\"> leadership role<\/a> since 2002. In an interview with The Daily, Herold said she hoped to find a different approach to restore relationships and work better with the U-M administration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do think that my election sends a clear signal that people are ready for a change of direction,\u201d Herold said. \u201cAnd hopefully, with the other eight members of SACUA \u2026 we can do our part to make that happen. And hopefully (the University administration) will meet us halfway and do their part to help make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Herold said she hopes SACUA can help the administration be more collaborative with faculty in discussions surrounding campus issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI certainly hope faculty can be part of the conversation before the decision is made, not after the decision is made that people aren\u2019t happy with,\u201d Herold said. \u201cYou know, we have to listen. We have to hear what they have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Kentaro Toyama, professor of community information, has<a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/news-briefs\/three-faculty-members-appointed-sacua-first-electronic-vote\/\"> served<\/a> in SACUA from 2020 to 2023. Toyama said in an interview with The Daily changes coming from the Trump administration such as cuts to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/news-briefs\/umich-announces-cuts-to-all-dei-programs\/\">DEI <\/a>or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/research\/nih-pulls-funding-from-umich-transgender-health-research\/\">research funding<\/a> are some of the major factors encouraging him to serve in SACUA again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think many of us on the faculty have very different ideas of what it really means to protect speech and so on,\u201d Toyama said. \u201cBut I think since Trump has taken over, there\u2019s no doubt that there\u2019s also a very immediate sense (that) we all have to be in this together and fight it together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Toyama also said he believes SACUA has a role in addressing student and faculty concerns surrounding free speech and freedom of expression on campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur hope is that our leadership will understand that (freedom speech and expression)are pretty much non-negotiable for a world class university,\u201d Toyama said. \u201cMaybe there are other compromises that could be made. But if we give an inch on those things, I think not only are we losing what makes a great American university great, but also just helping along the process of the loss of free speech in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily News Contributor Carter Carino can be reached at carinoc@umich.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 21, the University of Michigan Senate Assembly announced the election of three new faculty members to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs. Eight candidates ran for the three seats being vacated by Rebekah Modrak, Simon Cushing and Craig Smith, whose terms will end at the end of April. New members Jesse Capecelatro, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[657,658,659,660,656],"class_list":{"0":"post-643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-assembly","9":"tag-elects","10":"tag-members","11":"tag-sacua","12":"tag-senate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}