The Faculty Senate Executive Committee elected two interim co-chairs on Friday, following the chair’s resignation late last month after some committee members requested that she step down.
FSEC elected Guillermo Orti and Amita Vyas as temporary co-chairs following the resignation of former Chair Katrin Schultheiss last month, after six of nine representatives requested she step down over unspecified concerns, with the senate electing a permanent chair at the Faculty Senate’s Nov. 14 meeting. Two additional FSEC representatives — Sameh Badie and Jeffrey Akman — are no longer listed as committee members on the senate’s website after last month’s meeting, which triggered a heated debate over the committee’s request for Schultheiss to resign.
The Faculty Organization Plan stipulates FSEC can elect a replacement chair or voting representative in the event they are unable to serve temporarily or indefinitely until the next regular Faculty Senate meeting, where the senate will elect a replacement for the remainder of the FSEC term. The plan does not detail the exact election procedure.
Schultheiss stepped down from her role helming FSEC — a committee elected by the Faculty Senate and tasked with guiding the body’s work — sometime before the Faculty Senate’s October meeting, in lieu of the committee’s alleged threat to hold a vote of no confidence. The three FSEC members who opposed calls for Schultheiss’ resignation criticized the other members’ request, prompting Faculty Senator Jamie Cohen-Cole to propose a resolution to remove all FSEC members from their positions, though the motion never reached a vote after the meeting lost quorum.
FSEC temporarily elected Orti to replace Schultheiss as the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences FSEC representative, who seconded Cohen-Cole’s motion to reverse the election of the 2025-26 FSEC committee, citing that he sensed confidence in FSEC had diminished, and the committee would not function properly just because senators aired some present issues. School of Nursing FSEC Representative Rhonda Schwindt said at the senate meeting last month a new CCAS representative started serving on FSEC Oct. 24, which the website now indicates was Orti.
Vyas, the Milken Institute School of Public Health FSEC representative, was one of the six members who called on Schultheiss to resign.
Orti declined to comment on the changes within FSEC. Vyas did not return a request for comment.
Schwindt said at last month’s Faculty Senate meeting that six members had emailed Schultheiss, asking her to step down within three hours, so they could finalize the agenda and paperwork for the next senate meeting, allowing CCAS senators to nominate a new representative for Friday’s meeting. She also said the senate’s parliamentarian, Sarah Binder, prepared FSEC on how to elect an interim chair, which she said they intended to do at their committee meeting Friday.
Badie, the School of Engineering & Applied Science FSEC representative and one of the six who called on Schultheiss to resign, and Akman, the School of Medicine & Health Sciences FSEC representative — who sparked the initial conversation about Schultheiss’ resignation and opposed the six members’ calls for her to step down — are no longer listed as FSEC committee members on the website.
Badie and Akman did not return a request to comment on why they are no longer listed as members of FSEC.
FSEC temporarily elected Tarek El-Ghazawi to serve as SEAS’ FSEC representative and David Mendelowitz to serve as SMHS’ representative. El-Ghazawi and Mendelowitz did not return a request to comment on being elected as temporary FSEC representatives.
The Faculty Senate will formally elect replacement FSEC representatives for CCAS, SEAS and SMHS to serve for the remainder of the FSEC term at the body’s Nov. 14 meeting, as stipulated in the Faculty Organization Plan.
