At the last Faculty Senate meeting on Feb. 14, the faculty representatives debated a report recommending that the Ward nuclear reactor be shut down. The Senate postponed the decision to ratify the recommendation until its next meeting.
Yesterday, the Senate voted to recommend that the Ward Laboratory remain open, rejecting a recommendation from one of its committees to deactivate the reactor.
In 1996, the Senate passed a resolution recommending that the University continue to operate the Ward reactor, even though the School of Engineering did not offer a major in nuclear physics.
The Local Advisory Committee (LAC), a Faculty Senate committee, reviewed the Ward Laboratory’s activities in an effort to fulfill the lab’s original charter, which stated that the lab was to be inspected in 1998.
Last month, the members of the LAC unanimously recommended that the Ward Reactor be shut down. However, at the last Faculty Senate meeting, Prof. Peter Kuniholm, history of art, and Kenan