Faculty Governance Committee Report
COMMENTS FOR SENATE MEETING OF 10/9/2007
As Dr. Ballard rightfully
states in the framework for the Leadership development taskforce: “
I will speak here only about
number 4 in his list.
In March 18, 2003 Bob
Morrison, then chair of the Faculty, asked the Faculty Governance committee to
review the current ECU Policy on Review of Administrative Officers to address
issues of membership in the committee, both of faculty and administrators,
confidential or anonymous material, the need for a reasonable, well-published
time frame.
It was not until March 1,
2006 that Faculty Governance was able to address this request. According to the Faculty Constitution: “The Faculty Senate and the
various committees on which the faculty serve shall be the primary media for
the essential joint effort of faculty and administration in the government of
As
it is our regular procedure, we examined materials regarding best practices for
review of administrative officers, in particular recommendations by AAUP,
existing approved policies in our GA approved peer institutions, Chapel Hill, NCState and
The
following elements emerged from our examination of all these documents:
Using
all these broad principles, the Faculty Governance committee drafted a policy
for the Faculty Input in the Evaluation of Administrators. As members of the
committee, then Provost Smith was instrumental in helping us think about
confidentiality issues, Vice Chancellor Horns reminded us that the review of
administrators should be a joint effort, Vice Chancellor Mageean shared her
expertise in drafting surveys and defining constituencies. All the members of
the committee were concerned of the need to create a policy that was scrupulous
and fair.
The
chancellor received a first draft in April 2007; the ECU community received it
in June 2007. Using input received over the summer, the Faculty Governance
drafted a second version, which was circulated in September. We held three open
hearings regarding this second draft. The feedback received in the open
hearings was overwhelmingly positive, but attendance was lower than expected.
We
are here today with a double purpose,
Whatever
the results of today’s discussion or the conclusions of the task force, one
thing is certain: at the end of this academic year may be even this semester,
thanks to a multitude of efforts, ECU will finally have a 360 degrees
evaluation of administrators and with that we will be a step closer to become
the leadership university that Dr. Ballard and all of us want to be.