II. The Faculty Grievance Committee

A. Membership

The Faculty Grievance Committee shall be composed of eight members and two alternates, each of whom is a full‑time voting faculty member without administrative appointment. All committee members must have tenure or a probationary appointment. All professional ranks except instructor shall be represented on the committee. The chair of the faculty or, as his or her delegate, the vice-chair of the faculty or the chair of the Faculty Governance Committee shall serve as an ex‑officio member of the committee. Members shall be elected in accordance with the procedures for election of committees specified in the Bylaws of the East Carolina University Faculty Senate. Members and alternates shall be elected to three‑year terms. A quorum for the committee shall be five elected members or alternates. Except where otherwise stated in this appendix, the committee shall conduct its business in accordance with the most recent edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised.

B. Authorization and Powers

The Committee shall be authorized to provide access to mediation services or Chancellor Review; provide a hearing; and, based on such hearing, to issue reports and recommendations in an effort to resolve the grievances of faculty members.

The committee holds the grievant responsible for progressing through the grievance steps in a timely manner. Excessive delays in the completion of Steps One through Three may result in the committee’s decision to terminate the grievance process, with no further review available under this Appendix. If time delays are encountered because of the respondent, the grievant shall bring this to the attention of the committee chair.

Documentation necessary to put forth or defend a grievance requires that each party to the grievance have available to him or her information that may be controlled or in the possession of another party to the grievance or the administration. Upon request by a party to the grievance, the other party to the grievance or the administration shall provide the requesting party with information bearing on the grievance that is not otherwise privileged⁴ The requested information shall be distributed to all parties to the grievance. The committee chair shall be informed of any request for information among the parties to the grievance.

The committee may seek such information or documentation not provided by the grievant or respondent but considered necessary by the committee to provide a fair and complete peer hearing of the grievance. Should the committee seek such information or documentation, it shall ask the party most likely to have custody of the documentation or in the best position to obtain it. Such information will be shared by the committee with all parties to the grievance.

The committee chair shall inform the respondent, when the respondent has administrative responsibilities for grievant’s Personnel File, that information gathered to respond to grievant’s charges shall not be placed in grievant’s accumulated Personnel File. Any information collected as part of this grievance shall be placed in a physically separate part of the file, especifically established for this purpose. At the conclusion of the grievance process, this separate file shall be forwarded to the Faculty Senate Office where it will become a part of the grievance file maintained by that office.

The committee and the committee chair shall not function as an advocate for either party to the grievance. The committee chair shall provide only procedural information to the parties of the grievance⁵. The committee's responsibility is to provide the grievant and respondent a process for a possible resolution of the grievance.