Tuesday's Academic Council meeting spurred administration compliments for faculty involvement.

Only about 50 members of the council met at the International Center, but 64 were needed to vote on agenda items.

Since the agenda could not be followed, MSU President M. Peter McPherson and Provost Lou Anna Simon instead commented on the Academic Senate meeting last week and how important faculty input is to the university.

"We all felt a great deal of vitality on campus," McPherson said about the senate meeting. "It was a 'we' instead of 'how this affects me' conversation - I thought that was excellent."

Simon said the conversations at the meeting were "with the spirit of trying to improve quality and status of the university," which will help pave the way for future conversations.

"We have a capacity to continue talk about good ideas," she said.

Jon Sticklen, Executive Committee of Academic Council chair, said the faculty needs to stay engaged because the upcoming fall semester will see more action on university changes.

"We have a good start now," he said.

The Committee on College Reorganization of Liberal Arts and Sciences, to be led by Stephen Esquith, a professor and chairman of the Department of Philosophy, will meet over the summer.

That committee will discuss university changes with other committees concerning aspects of Simon's vision for the future of liberal arts.

Simon said the committee chairs will meet and "act as own internal traffic cops" to keep discussions on the same page.

The Esquith committee is scheduled to have a summary report on discussions available Oct. 1.

Also during Tuesday's council meeting, Jacqueline Wright, secretary for Academic Governance and professor of nursing, announced a slight change in next year's Executive Committee of Academic Council.

English Professor Kenneth Harrow will take the place of nursing Associate Professor Manfred Stommel as an at-large faculty member. Harrow now will also be a voting member of Academic and Faculty councils.

Harrow said he is excited to get into the Academic Governance system while key university decisions are being made.

"Faculty will start to participate and have a real role to play," he said. "That's the key issue and I'm hoping to pay attention to it."