The Faculty Senate Steering Committee recommends to the
Faculty Senate adoption of the following five sets of amendments
of the Faculty Senate Bylaws:
1. To amend Paragraph I.A.3 of the Faculty Senate Bylaws to
read as follows:
“The chair of each standing Senate committee, or another
committee member elected by the committee, shall be an ex
officio non-voting member of the Senate. A faculty member may
serve simultaneously as a departmental senator and as a
committee senator.”
(Discussion: It has been noted repeatedly that the UNCW Faculty
Senate is a large voting body composed of over 70 departmental
representatives and up to 17 faculty senate committee chairs.
Other system senates function with a smaller body.
Recommendation 1 makes the faculty committee representatives
non-voting instead of voting. Recommendation 2 below further
reduces the senate size. For example, a department of 22 would
be entitled to two senators instead of three as is the current
case.)
2. To amend Paragraph I.B.1 of the Faculty Senate Bylaws to
read as follows:
“The faculty of each department, the faculty of each school
having no department, and the faculty of the library shall elect by
secret ballot one representative for each ten full-time faculty
members or fraction thereof provided that the fraction is one-half
or larger. Any academic unit listed in the preceding sentence with
less than 5 faculty members shall be entitled to one
representative. The number of representatives shall be based
upon the number of faculty employed at the beginning of the fall
semester.”
3. To amend Section 14 of that appendix of the Faculty Senate
Bylaws entitled Election Procedures for Autonomous
Faculty Committees to read as follows:
“Departments are assigned to one of four voting divisions as
follows:
Division I: Art & Art History, Creative Writing, English,
Film Studies, Foreign Languages & Literatures, Music,
Philosophy & Religion
Division II: Biology and Marine Biology, Chemistry &
Biochemistry, Computer Science, Environmental
Studies, Geography and Geology, Mathematics &
Statistics, Physics & Physical Oceanography,
Psychology
Division III: Anthropology, Communication Studies,
History, Public and International Affairs, Randall
Library, School of Health & Applied Human Sciences,
School of Social Work, Sociology & Criminology
Division IV: Cameron School of Business
(Accountancy & Business Law, Economics & Finance,
Information Systems & Operations Management,
Management, Marketing), Watson School of Education
(Early Childhood and Special Education; Educational
Leadership; Elementary, Middle Level and Literacy
Education; Instructional Technology, Foundations and
Secondary Education), School of Nursing”
(Discussion: This apportionment of departments and schools to
the four voting divisions reflects the current names of these units
and a realignment of some units to have the number of faculty
members per division more equitable. History is moved from
Division I to Division III and Psychology is moved from Division
III to Division II. With the current allocation of units to divisions,
I, II, III and IV have respectively 28%, 21%, 25%, and 25% of
the total faculty. With the proposed realignment, these
percentages would be 24, 26, 24 and 25. )
4. To amend Paragraphs 2.A.5, 2.B.5, and 2.C.5 of that appendix
of the Faculty Senate Bylaws entitled Election Procedures for
Autonomous Faculty Committees to read respectively as follows:
2.A.5(Hearings Panel): “No more than three members from the
same department or same school may serve concurrently.”
2.B.5(Faculty Professional Relations Committee): “No two
members from the same department or the same school may
serve concurrently.”
2.C.5(Committee on Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion):
“No two members from the same department or the same school
may serve concurrently.”
(Discussion: These are technical amendments that reflect that
schools exist in more than one division. These sections insure
that the Hearings Panel, FPR and RTP committees have a
diversity of units represented on them,)
5. To amend Paragraph 8.ii of that appendix of the Faculty
Senate Bylaws entitled Election Procedures for Autonomous
Faculty Committees to read as follows:
ii.
“For divisional nomination to the Hearings Panel,
the twelve individuals receiving the highest
number of votes become the candidates as long
as no more than three (3) faculty members are
nominated from a single department or single
school. Should more than three of the twelve
highest vote-getters be from a single
department or single school, only the three
highest vote-getters from that unit shall be
nominated; the other(s) shall be replaced by the
next highest vote-getter(s) not from that unit.”
(Discussion: This is a technical amendment. Currently the
italicized phrase single school in the language above reads the
School of Nursing. )