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From: "John Savage, Chair of the
Faculty/FEC"
Sender:
owner-facgov.announce@canis.services.brown.edu
To:
facgov.announce@canis.services.brown.edu
Subject: Important Message from Task
Force on Faculty Governance
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 13:15:06 -0400
Dear Colleagues:
The Task Force on Faculty Governance has met alone ten times and
twice with Provost Zimmer. We also met
once with selected members of the
Corporation and the FEC. The minutes of our meetings are available at
our website http://facgov.brown.edu/taskforce.html
along with the names
of Task Force members.
We have drafted descriptions of four key Faculty committees (given
below) that we deem absolutely
essential to fulfilling President
Simmons' advice to this committee,
namely, to make revisions that will
help all of us to make better
decisions. Before writing up detailed
charges for these committees we would
like to share with you our
thinking to this point. Our descriptions reflect a great deal of
serious discussion within the task force. In the fall we will bring
more fully developed proposals for
these new Faculty committees to one
or more Faculty Forums for discussion
and to the Faculty for votes.
The Task Force agreed immediately that faculty governance was burdened
with two basic problems: 1) there was
too much of it, requiring no less
than 237 faculty members in any given
year to staff the various
committees now described in the Faculty
rules, and 2) faculty governance
was not sufficiently authorized to
bring the expertise of the Brown
faculty to bear on the decisions that
most affect its members.
The four key committees outlined below are designed to put the most
appropriate faculty to work effectively
on the major issues where
faculty expertise and perspective are most
essential to maintaining the
quality for which Brown University is
known. We took the injunction of
the President, the encouragement of the
Corporation, and the
collaboration of the Provost to heart
in constructing a set of
committees that balance the
responsibilities of an effective
administration against the traditions
of faculty self-governance. Our
intent is to create committee
structures that encourage cooperation and
shared decision making among faculty
and administrators.
We expect to reduce the number of committees whose decisions affect
all faculty to a handful and to greatly
reduce the number of faculty who
will be called upon for heavy-duty
service at any given time. We intend
to take care of some functions that
presently require committee
assignments by distributing them to the
appropriate administrators and
by a mechanism whereby the Academic
Priorities Committee (APC) can
appoint ad hoc committees to deal with
issues requiring a faculty
perspective as they arise.
One of the key functions in which faculty have been involved is the
making of recommendations concerning
the budget for the University. In
the future this will require active
faculty involvement and the close
interplay of the Academic Priorities
Committee with the budgeting
process. However, because this task
involves more than just faculty
matters, we are working with the
Provost to create a replacement for
the Advisory Committee on University
Planning that will be responsible
to him.
We encourage you to contribute your views on any relevant governance
issue by sending e-mail to
John_Savage@brown.edu or any other member of
the Task Force. We are particularly interested in hearing
what you
think about the balance of
responsibility between faculty and
administration by which we've sought to
ensure both collaboration and
the integrity of each perspective. We are also interested in having you
identify areas that we haven't
mentioned but where a faculty perspective
is necessary.
Our web site http://facgov.brown.edu/taskforce.html describes the
membership of the task force and has
other useful information on faculty
governance.
Task Force on Faculty Governance
NEW COMMITTEE DESCRIPTIONS
(These descriptions have changed)
=============================DRAFT=================================
Academic Priorities Committee (APC)
-----------------------------------
o Responsibilities
* Shapes the general direction of Brown academic programs.
* Makes recommendations on all major academic matters, including
external reviews of and change of status in academic
units,
appointment of external review committees, major academic
budgetary proposals, strategic allocation of academic
resources for
operational, instructional and research purposes,
appointment to
named chairs and university-level external academic
relationships.
* Appointment of subcommittees
* Recommends to the Faculty for its approval all new departments
and degree programs approved by the APC.
o Membership
* Six senior academic administrators and six full professors.
Each year two slates of two faculty members will be prepared for
election by the Faculty as a member and alternate member of the
committee. Candidates are to be chosen by the Provost from a list
prepared by the Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) (or its
replacement). Candidates should
be representative of divisions
of knowledge in the University and the diversity in the Faculty.
o Reporting
* The committee will make recommendations to President and submit
regular reports to the Faculty
o Chair
* The Provost serves as chair.
===================================================================
=============================DRAFT=================================
Tenure, Promotion and Appointment (TPA) Committee
-------------------------------------------------
o Responsibilities
* Make recommendations to the Dean of Faculty or Dean of Biology
and Medicine (as appropriate) and through them to the Provost
concerning faculty appointments, promotions, tenure
* Review and approve departmental standards, criteria and procedures
to ensure excellence across all areas of knowledge
* Make annual reports to the Faculty and the Faculty Personnel
Committee.
o Membership
* Four non-voting academic administrators (Deans of the Faculty,
College, Graduate School, and Biology and Medicine) and
twelve
voting full professors, three per division, elected by the
Faculty to staggered three-year terms.
* Faculty members should be
representative of diversity in the
Faculty.
o Chair and Support
* The Vice Chair shall be elected from among the elected
faculty
in their second year of service on the Committee. The Vice
chair shall become Chair during his/her third year on
the
Committee.
* An office, staff and budget.
===================================================================
=============================DRAFT=================================
Faculty Personnel Committee (FPC)
---------------------------------
o Responsibilities
* Supervise periodic professional assessment of the competitiveness
of faculty salaries, benefits and leaves
* Recommend policy concerning faculty salary, benefits and leaves
* Assess and advise on faculty retention and recruitment policies
* Assess and promote faculty diversity
* Implementation of existing grievance procedures.
o Membership
* Six faculty members elected by the Faculty representative of the
distribution of faculty members by division and rank.
Faculty
members will serve staggered three-year terms.
* Faculty members should be representative of diversity in the
Faculty.
o Support
* An office, staff and budget
o Reporting
* The Committee will report to the Faculty and the Academic
Priorities Committee
===================================================================
=============================DRAFT=================================
University Curriculum Committee (UCC)
-------------------------------------
o Responsibilities
* Oversees
undergraduate and graduate degree programs
and the development of criteria and standards for them.
* Submits proposed changes in degree programs, criteria and
standards to the Faculty for approval.
* Recommendations to the APC and the Faculty concerning the changing
curricular needs of Brown undergraduate and graduate
students.
* Reviews curricula for all new degree programs (graduate and
undergraduate) and recommendations on them to the APC.
* Reviews (3-5 years) of all departmental and program
concentrations and curricula (graduate and undergraduate).
Reports annually on these reviews to the Faculty and may recommend
termination of inactive concentrations and degree programs.
* Approves changes in undergraduate concentrations and graduate
degree requirements consistent with approved criteria and
standards.
* Adjudicates curricular conflicts as they arise between programs
and departments.
* Delegates review and approval of new courses to standing
screening committees that bring only problem cases forward for a
decision. Such
subcommittees are chaired by the Dean of the
College or the Dean of the Graduate School depending on
whether the
purview of the committee is primarily undergraduate or
graduate
matters.
* Appointment of subcommittees
o Membership
* Deans of the College and Graduate School, an Associate Dean of the
Faculty, the Registrar, eight faculty members, two per division,
elected by the Faculty to staggered two-year terms, two
undergraduate students elected by the Undergraduate
Council of
Students and two graduate students elected by the Graduate
Student
Council.
* Faculty members should be representative of diversity in the
Faculty.
o Chair and Support
* Deans of the College and Graduate School chair this committee as
business within their respective domains appears on the
docket.
o Note
* The Deans of the College and Graduate School may wish to create
their own advisory councils having faculty membership.
===================================================================