Faculty Senate President-Elect Vote

Vote for one person. Usernames are stripped away from specific votes, this is to keep users from voting multiple times. Only a user's first vote will be counted.

Voting closes April 1, 2024 at 5:00 pm. 

Jon Karpel (Biology)

Hello my Fellow Faculty!

My name is Jon Karpel and I am happy to be considered for the position of President-Elect of the Senate.

I have been a member of the Biology department for 14 years and have continued to engage in the campus climate through many committees, such as the General Education committee and Faculty Scholarship awards. Much of my administrative experience has come through leadership positions in local volunteer organizations, as I have served 10 years on the board of the AYSO soccer program and now I'm the commander of a Civil Air Patrol squadron. These experiences have prepared me well to work closely with constituents and become an effective leader so I can properly strengthen these programs.

If elected, I plan to continue the efforts of our past Presidents to affirm the Senate's critical role in shared governance at the University and work my hardest to represent all faculty in the finest fashion to the administration and community. I would also like to support the push to increase faculty compensation and benefits to better reflect the time and effort we dedicate to our work.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve and I look forward to continuing my work in the Senate in any capacity. Thanks for your consideration.

Chris Monson (Chemistry & Physics)

I am a chemistry professor, specializing in analytical chemistry. I have been at SUU since 2011, and love it here in Cedar City. My family and I enjoy all the outdoor recreation opportunities in particular – from rock climbing to fishing to star gazing.

Professionally, I try to be a big advocate of undergraduate research. In my experience (at least in the sciences), undergraduate research opens doors that can be difficult to open in any other way. So far at SUU I have mentored many undergraduate students in research and I have both enjoyed it and seen the benefit it has been for the students. I have served on the Faculty Senate before, including two years in the Senate Executive Committee as the Treasurer, so I am aware of both the opportunities and limitations of the Faculty Senate.

If elected as Faculty Senate President Elect, I would like to focus on three things. First, streamlining the bureaucratic hoops that faculty have to jump through. I recognize the necessity of tracking and demonstrating value, but I personally get frustrated by having to report the same things multiple times in slightly different ways and would like to reduce those kinds of tasks. Second, while the salary increases this past year were great and I personally am very grateful for them, SUU faculty salaries are only a few bad years away from being lower than local high school salaries. I hope we can keep salary considerations high in the minds of administrators so that we can continue to recruit and retain great faculty. Third, I want to focus on listening. I believe it is supremely important that University leaders are listening to students, faculty, staff, community members, and the state funding entities, and try to both balance their decisions to benefit as many as possible and explain why they make the decisions they do. While the Faculty Senate doesn’t make many of these decisions, it is important that they accurately represent faculty needs and, as much as possible, force administration to consider faculty views.