In the latest example of campus divisions over UMass moving to the elite ranks of college football, the school’s Faculty Senate on Thursday narrowly rebuffed an effort to kill the multimillion-dollar upgrade.

The vote was 19-18, with one abstention, against calling on university leaders to immediately consider developing a plan to withdraw from the elite Football Bowl Subdivision. The move would have failed even if the lone abstainer, Max Page, a leading critic of the upgrade, were not absent to attend a conference in China.