{"id":45698,"date":"2017-07-13T17:32:13","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=45698"},"modified":"2017-07-13T17:40:52","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:40:52","slug":"whitehead-named-new-brock-senate-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/07\/whitehead-named-new-brock-senate-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitehead named new Brock Senate Chair"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Brock University Senate will begin the fall term under new leadership, with Dave Whitehead taking the helm as Senate Chair.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

An associate professor of Industrial Relations for the Goodman School of Business, Whitehead has worked at the University for three decades and has held a role with Senate for the past five years.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s looking forward to continuing the work of predecessor Scott Henderson, who recently completed a two-year term as Chair of the University\u2019s academic governing body.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m expecting this coming year will be another exciting time of challenges and opportunity for the Brock Senate,\u201d Whitehead said. While he acknowledged there remains \u201can incredible amount to learn\u201d in his new role, he feels he will be assisted by his past experience as a \u201cnegotiator, mediator, arbitrator, teacher and trainer of conflict resolution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Whitehead has been resolving disputes professionally since 1979 and providing training in negotiating skills since 1982. He has had numerous appointments as a mediator and arbitrator in public- and private-sector union-management disputes, and served as the Brock University Faculty Association Chief Negotiator in 2010-11 and Grievance Officer from 2012-15.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to his professional experience, Whitehead feels he will greatly benefit from the knowledge available through his support network, including Senate Vice-Chair Roberto Nickel, University Secretary Chabriol Colebatch, Past Chairs Susan Sydor and Henderson, and the strong leadership found on every Senate committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to be relying on them as required, as I go through this steep, steep learning curve,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would be impossible to imagine how anyone could start into these roles without all that professional support.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Whitehead plans to work proactively to continue themes started by past Senate leaders, focusing on making meetings more efficient and effective, making the structure of Senate committees optimal for getting work completed, effectively and regularly communicating to Senate and the Brock community, reviewing and improving the effectiveness of Senate\u2019s structure and processes, and continuing to clarify and improve Senate\u2019s role in Brock\u2019s bicameral system of governance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI expect some surprising challenges, some we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Whitehead said of the coming year. \u201cI\u2019m ready to actively participate in the search for effective solutions as those challenges emerge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As he reflected on his time as Chair, Henderson felt it was an experience his successor will soon learn is quite rewarding.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opportunity to work with dedicated colleagues from across the University has been invaluable, the associate professor of popular culture said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very lucky to have a group of people who are willing to go above and beyond in their service to the University,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cWhen we speak of transdisciplinarity, we often look to research, but we have one truly transdisciplinary body at Brock \u2014 and that is Senate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While it is often a challenge to bring together so many diverse views, Henderson said members of Senate are respectful in their differences of opinion, as they are all ultimately working for one common cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been evident in the evolving relationship between Senate, the Board and the administration,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Working together on projects such as the writing of the Strategic Mandate agreement made it clear that \u201cwe all recognize the need to work collaboratively in response to Ministry directives and guidelines,\u201d he said. \u201cI came away with the sense that we all believe in Brock, and all have a shared sense of what our strengths are and what challenges we face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile opinions may differ on how we utilize these strengths and how we respond to these challenges, there is a shared respect and a willingness to listen across all three bodies that bodes well for Brock\u2019s future success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brock University Senate will begin the fall term under new leadership, with Dave Whitehead taking the helm as Senate Chair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":45699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,7,3319,4052,1,4,38],"tags":[5573,594,3229,303],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}