Transitional College Faculty Committee

September -November 2003: Faculty Advisory Committee

In August 2003, Dean Jerry Niles asked each department head in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences to submit the name of a senior faculty member for a Faculty Advisory Committee to serve the immediate purpose of advising him on faculty appointments to university committees and the structure and membership of college committees, as well as to serve the slightly longer range purpose of suggesting structures and procedures that would bring the two former colleges into conformity in key areas of concern to faculty. Some department heads nominated an individual; some departments elected a representative. The group met once a month from August through November in this capacity. The Dean informed faculty in the college of the group's work in an electronic letter of September 5, 2003. The immediate purpose (nominations, general advising) was well met by brainstorming as a group in these monthly meetings, but as the group moved into discussions of the more complex issues that would involve drafting procedures and structures to present to the college faculty, it became obvious that we would need to work somewhat differently. At the close of the October meeting, two committee members, Julia Beamish and Terry Kershaw volunteered to draft a short document reflecting our discussions on how to proceed on key issues. As this document was discussed at the November meeting, it became clear that not every member of the committee felt that he or she was legitimately designated to represent the faculty of the department. After a discussion of how to proceed it was decided that the Dean would draft a letter to the college faculty and circulate it to all committee members in advance for editing. This electronic letter, sent to the college faculty on November 18, 2003, asked each department to consider its representation on this committee, either affirming the current representative or choosing a different representative, and to report this decision to the Dean's office by December 4, 2003.