Representation and Responsibilities – Participatory / Shared Governance
As you “represent” the senate, you are able to take a global view, charged to work more independently, accept the responsibility to improve and open communications between colleagues, and share in a responsibility to work for all concerned, in addition to your classified colleagues.
The Classified Senates support the concepts of professionalism for all classified personnel, not for just a selected few. Because we are professional governance organizations within the community college system, we are in an excellent position to do this and can provide opportunities to promote and encourage professionalism among each other.
Unions strive to provide and protect suitable working conditions within which classified personnel can more readily function as professionals. Unions differ from senates in that they are independent organizations, i.e., they are not strictly functional units within the community college system, but they represent their community college members in collective bargaining issues. They need to maintain this separation and independence in order to be effective and to successfully protect their members and their organization. Although the protective responsibility held by unions is very important to many classified personnel, it sometimes places them in an adversarial position that prevents them from being as effective in all aspects of shared governance. Although unions can contribute significantly to the professional standing of some classified personnel, it is the classified senate that can best support and promote this concept overall.
The classified senate provides a positive, philosophically unique outlook that can effectively fill the void historically present for classified professionals that are only represented by a union. Both unions and classified senates contribute and complement each other as we work successfully together, yet in different ways and arenas of responsibility, to improve our professional standing and levels of respect among our colleagues. There are many professional classified across the state. Classified senates accept and promote the concept that all classified personnel within the community college system can be and should be considered professionals. We are all professionals.