Faculty Handbook

The Faculty

• Classes
• Assemblies
• Faculty Meetings
• Listing In Catalogue
• Order in Academic Procession
• Secretary of the Faculty

     All Faculty members are expected to meet all scheduled classes regularly and promptly, within the limits of reasonable possibility. If for any reason they must be absent from class, they are expected to notify the head of their department or the appropriate dean as far in advance as possible.

     Attendance of all Faculty members is expected at University assemblies. Members of the respective faculties are expected to attend Graduation exercises. Undergraduate faculty members are expected also to attend Baccalaureate. An assembly is held on or about January 19 (Founders’ Day). Academic costume is worn by the respective faculties at Fall Convocation, Founders’ Day, Baccalaureate, and Graduation.

     1. The University Faculty meet early in the fall after classes have begun and whenever an agenda item requires participation by all Faculty. The regular meeting of the undergraduate faculty falls on the first Monday of each month from October through May. The law faculty meet at the call of the Dean of the School of Law or the President. Special faculty meetings may be called by the President. All members of respective faculties are expected to attend the appropriate meetings.

     Only University employees who are designated as members of the faculty shall have the privilege of attending faculty meetings. At the discretion of the Chair of the Faculty (President), non-faculty employees may have a standing invitation to attend regular faculty meetings if he or she satisfies one of the following two criteria: i) the employee needs to be at the faculty meeting to facilitate discussion and University business generally; or ii) the employee needs to be informed about matters that come before the faculty in order to better perform his or her responsibilities for the University. The President will handle other requests for exceptions on a case-by-base basis upon his or her receipt of a written request from the Vice President to whom the employee reports addressing the need for the exception based upon the criteria noted above.

     2. The President of the University shall preside at all University, undergraduate and special faculty meetings. The Dean of the School of Law or the President shall preside at all law faculty meetings. In the President’s or Dean’s absence, the presiding officer shall be the Provost, other deans, or the senior professor in rank.

     3. Parliamentary rules for University and undergraduate faculty meetings:

     a. Any motion or amendment which is of the nature of a change in the permanent rules shall be submitted by the maker in writing to the Secretary of the Faculty. This written motion or amendment thereto shall state the Article and Section of the Rules which it amends.

     b. In all other matters, Robert’s Rules of Order shall be the rules of procedure.

     c. Any proposal on which the University or undergraduate faculty is empowered to act that involves (1) a change in rules, regulations, and courses in the catalogue; or (2) a change in an established policy of the University (the definition of "an established policy" to be determined in each case by a ruling of the presiding officer in the faculty meeting) must (a) be acted upon by the appropriate committee and the action appear in the minutes of that committee and be circulated among the appropriate faculty members prior to the next regular or special meeting of the respective faculty; or (b) be circulated in written form among the appropriate faculty members at least one week prior to the regular or special meeting of the faculty; or (c) be presented for the first time at a faculty meeting and tabled for further action until the next regular or special meeting of that faculty. A change in this procedure can be made only by a majority vote of the faculty present at the respective meeting.

      4. Voting members of the faculty meeting shall have the right to stand and orally deliver short announcements in the monthly faculty meeting, provided the content of such announcements is both substantially related to the scholarly and/or pedagogic missions of the faculty and conceivably of interest to faculty in a broad range of disciplines.

     1. The listing of the Faculty in the catalogue will be in the following order: emeritus professors; professors; emeritus associate professors; associate professors; assistant professors; instructors. Following the Faculty listing, lecturers will be listed. Within rank, the order is to be determined by the date of appointment to that rank. When two persons are appointed to the same rank simultaneously, the person who has been longer on the faculty should be listed first regardless of the time each has spent in the previous rank.

     2. a. After the name of each member of the Faculty there will be given, first, the date in brackets of his or her original appointment to the Faculty in the grade of a full-time instructor or higher; and second, the date of his or her appointment to the particular rank under which he or she is listed.

     b. After the name of a Faculty member no degree will appear that is included in another degree.

     The order of the academic procession of the Faculty is to be the order as it appears in the catalogue.

     1. The University Registrar shall act as Secretary of the Faculty.

     2. The Secretary shall write the minutes of the proceedings of all University, undergraduate and special faculty meetings as they occur, and shall transcribe them promptly into a permanent book of records, with such other records and documents as the Faculty may order to be recorded. The Secretary of the Faculty shall make such changes, additions, or deletions in policy as may be adopted from time to time by the Faculty.

Revised May 2003