SPRING 2026 FACULTY SENATE ELECTIONS
Elections Begin: Tuesday April 21st, through Monday, April 27th, 5:00 pm
OFFICERS:
President
- Mike Bognanno, College of Liberal Arts
Statement:
I am seeking to serve as President of the Faculty Senate because I believe in the importance of faculty governance—especially during periods of institutional change. Three years ago, I stepped forward to serve as Vice President at a time when I was concerned about the university’s direction during the tenure of former President Wingard. Over the past three years, I have served as Vice President during a significant period of transition, including the appointment of a new president and provost, as well as the development of a new strategic plan and budget model. During this time, the administration has become more open to faculty participation in governance, and faculty representation has increased—progress that reflects a shift toward collaboration and transparency. This shift has enabled me to make substantive contributions to the University Budget Committee and to engage more effectively with administrators.
Having served Temple University in a variety of roles for more than 35 years, I bring an independent perspective at an important time in the university’s history. The years ahead will require informed judgment and a continued commitment to shared governance. I would be honored to serve as President of the Faculty Senate next year and to contribute my voice to the decisions shaping Temple’s future.
Vice President
- Robin Kolodny, College of Liberal Arts
Statement:
I have served as Secretary of the Faculty Senate for the past two years and have been the representative from the College of Liberal Arts for many years before that. I believe I can contribute to improving communication between the administration and the faculty in the role of Vice President especially because the Vice President normally has oversight of the Faculty Senate committees. I think our committees need a stronger link with the FSSC and I am willing to put in the work to make that happen.
Bio: Robin Kolodny – Professor of Political Science
Secretary
- Steve Newman, College of Liberal Arts
Statement:
This is a critical and even perilous moment for faculty. At universities across the United States, we face unprecedented challenges to academic freedom, federal funding, and shared governance. At Temple, our academic missions face fiscal headwinds from both external and internal factors, the challenges (and opportunities) posed by AI, a steep decline in tenured and tenure-track faculty, an increased workload for almost all faculty, and troubling instances where faculty have not been sufficiently consulted on key academic matters, such as the offering of four-year degrees at Temple-Rome and TUJ.
We have welcomed President Fry and will welcome Provost-Designee Wentz and other key administrative hires; their arrival offers new prospects for progress on these matters, and I very much appreciate Pres. Fry’s openness to real discussions with faculty and the moves he has made to address Temple’s challenges. But real progress will also require that the Senate engage in frank though collegial discussions with the administration and assert its prerogatives. While our role may be advisory, it does matter and will matter more if we insist on being heard. If elected Secretary, I want to help forward that effort by participating in the Steering Committee and by upholding my duties to announce upcoming Senate meetings, to take clear minutes for the Representative and University Senate meetings as well as the FSSC, and to assist my fellow officers and other colleague however I can. I also want to do what I can to celebrate our remarkable faculty and our university. We need joy and solidarity along with clear-eyed criticism.
I believe my record of service to Temple and to the Senate in particular have prepared me well for this role. My bio describes some of what I’ve done for my department and the College of Liberal Arts. As many of you know, I served as the Vice President (2013-17) and then President of the Temple Association for University Professionals (2017-21), where I helped to resist an on-campus football stadium, to lead the integration of our adjunct colleagues into our union, to bargaining three contracts, and to coordinate the union’s response to the administration’s flawed plan on COVID. I have also chaired TAUP’s Grievance Committee and currently chair the Tenure-Track Constituency Council; in the latter role, I also serve on the Executive Committee.
I believe the Senate and TAUP should work together wherever they can. But they also have different missions and some differences in constituencies; to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, I would step down from TAUP’s Executive Committee were I to be elected Secretary.
I have repeatedly served as a faculty Senator from CLA and have served on many Senate committees, and in 2013 served as Editor of the Faculty Herald. More recently, I chaired the Educational Programs and Policies Committee; there, I helped to facilitate the administration’s adopting a new Instructional Intellectual Property policy and the consideration of the new scheduling matrix, among other accomplishments. As Chair of the EPPC, I enjoyed working with other faculty, academic advisors, and administrators on the committee, so that important academic matters could be aired fully, and the EPPC’s advisory decisions could be put forth confidently. I also helped to lead a recent forum at the Senate on the State of Temple (along with Profs. Eric Borguet and Mohammad Kiani) and presented at another on the present and future of Football at Temple, facilitated by the current VP of the Senate, Mike Bognanno. I have also co-authored resolutions passed by the Senate opposing Pres. Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” and another under consideration urging Temple not to co-operate with ICE.
My prior service to the Senate points to my vision for it: The Senate must be a place for faculty to engage in open, respectful, and productive dialogue with each other and members of the administration, to share knowledge and insights on matters at the heart of Temple’s mission, and to deliberate on and pass resolutions and plans for action on key issues. Most importantly, it must always be faculty led.
Thank you for considering me as a candidate for Secretary.
Biography:
Research: I am an associate professor in the English Department at Temple University, specializing in English and Scottish literature during what scholars now refer to as the Long Eighteenth Century (1660-1832). My current book has the working title, Narratives of Value: What the Scottish Enlightenment and Scottish Romanticism Have to Teach Us About the Value of the Humanities Now. A version of the chapter on Adam Smith won the 2024-25 James L. Clifford award from the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies for “an article that presents an outstanding study of some aspect of eighteenth-century culture, interesting to any eighteenth-century specialist, regardless of discipline.” I edited Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd (1725; 1729), the first volume in The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay, which was published by Edinburgh University Press in the Spring of 2022. The Collected Works received a grant of £1 million from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am also directing a Digital Humanities project on The Beggar’s Opera (1728) by John Gay, the biggest hit in British eighteenth-century theater and one of the most influential texts in British literature. In January of 2025, I worked with faculty and students in Voice and Opera and Musical Theater, as the dramaturg and script-cobbler for the premiere of The Beggar’s Trio, comprising selections from The Beggar’s Opera, and two adaptations of it, Brecht/Hauptmann/ Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (1928) and Latouche/ Ellington’s Beggar’s Holiday (1946). I am additionally the author of Ballad Collection, Lyric, and the Canon (U Penn Press, 2007) and many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.
Teaching: I teach courses ranging from General Education to the introduction to the English major to surveys of British literature to more advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in the Long Eighteenth Century. I established a Summer Study Abroad program in London in 2013, reprised in 2015 and 2017, with Scotland added in 2022 and taught by a colleague in 2025 and slated for this coming Summer. I have received teaching awards from the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies, the Lindback Foundation, and the College of Liberal Arts.
Service: I have served for many years as a Faculty Senator, edited The Faculty Herald, and chaired the Educational Programs and Policies Committee for multiple years, facilitating changes in our Intellectual Property policy for faculty, the new matrix, and other matters. I have also presented at Faculty Senate fora on the State of Temple and on the future of football here and co-sponsored multiple resolutions, including recent ones on President Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence” and the presence of ICE on campus. From 2013-17 I was the Vice President and from 2017-21 the President of the Temple Association of University Professionals, representing over 2500 full-time and part-time faculty, librarians, and academic professionals. I have served my department and college in many ways; this Spring, I complete my three-year term as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English, during which time I have fostered conversations and policy changes about our program’s curriculum and orientation toward the job market. My contributions to my profession include currently serving as the Northeast Regional Director for the Robert Burns Association of North America and on the Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures.
ELECTED COMMITTEES will be posted immediately following the officer elections.