Brown University Task Force on Faculty Governance Minutes of Meetings

Minutes of The Task Force on Faculty Governance

March 14, 2003

Attending: Russell Church, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Peter Gromet, Rajiv Vohra, and John Savage (Chair)

Absent: Nancy Armstrong, Richard Fishman, and Michael White

Guest: Russell Carey

1. The meeting opened at 2:05pm and closed at 2:50pm

2. The Minutes of February 14 were previously approved via email

3. Advisory Boards

   We examined proposals for the creation of the Library Advisory Board, the Campus Planning Advisory Board and the Computing Advisory Board. We made recommendations for changes, as shown below. Russell Carey produced the first drafts of these boards. He will transmit the recommendations of the committee to the relevant senior administrator. After the senior administrators review these recommendations, they will be forwarded to the FEC for review and transmission to the Faculty for approval. For all three boards, we recommend changing the title of Item #5 from "Election" to "Appointment of Members" since members of each of these boards will be appointed. The other recommendations follow.

   Library Advisory Board

   a. Specify the number of faculty members at 6, the number of undergraduate students at 2, and the number of post-graduate (graduate and/or medical) students at 2. The thought is that it will be easier to appoint members to this committee with a specific membership (rather than a range or a minimum) for each constituency. b. Change the executive committee members from consisting of "at least" the Chair and Vice Chair to simply the Chair and Vice Chair. c. We also recommend that it might be useful for the advisory board to meet once a year with the library liaisons/representatives in the academic departments.

   Campus Planning Advisory Board

   1. Specify the number of faculty members at 4, the number of staff at 2, and the number of students at 1 each (undergraduate, graduate and medical). The thought is that it will be easier to appoint members to this committee with a specific membership (rather than a range or a minimum) for each constituency.
   2. Change the executive committee members from consisting of "at least" the Chair and Vice Chair to simply the Chair and Vice Chair.

   Computing Advisory Board

   1. Specify the number of faculty members at 6, and the number of staff members at 2. The thought is that it will be easier to appoint members to this committee with a specific membership (rather than a range or a minimum) for each constituency.
   2. Change "The Board shall typically meet at least once a month" to "The Board should meet at least once a month".

4. The College Advisory Board

   On the advice of Bill Beeman, we agreed to propose a meeting with Dean Armstrong or his designee to discuss the College Advisory Board.

Submitted by
John E. Savage