The
University Senate of Michigan Technological University
Proposal 5-11(revised)
(Voting Units: Full Senate )
"Redefining
Departmental Governance"
Background:
The senate and the administration have failed to reach agreement on
revision of the university’s charter policies for five years while the key
document that defined the charter process is now 18 years old. Points of
conflict became complicated by the faculty’s creation of the AAUP collective
bargaining unit and the administrative response to that action. The
Senate advanced two proposed updates to the policy, 11-06 and 22-08. Both of
these were rejected by the administration.
This document updates the existing policies (16-92 and amendments
and related policies) with most proposed revisions sought by the faculty.
The controversial issues were identified through a series of discussions and
correspondence with administrators and various units. The Academic Policy
discussed the issues during 2009-2010 and proposed this compromise during the Spring of 2010. The University Senate deliberated and
decided to hold this proposal until units could consider these revisions
side-by-side with a parallel proposal that would establish university-wide
policy covering searching for, hiring, and evaluating unit chairs and school
deans.
Key points of contention and proposed resolution:
1. Search for, selection of, and review of Chairs: This proposal
calls for units to remove these provisions from their charters. The
University Senate proposes to establish new policy to govern
the process of evaluating and searching/selecting new chairs. In the
past, the senate wanted to allow units to establish charters so those units
could make binding recommendations to the administration regarding the
selection and retention of department chairs and deans. No matter the faculty
preference, the administration hire deans, directors, and chairs, which they
believe serve “at the pleasure of the president.” In shared governance,
however, units have the power to recommend preferred candidates or individuals
under review, or rank the individual as acceptable/unacceptable. If
members of a unit are unhappy with the president’s decision, that department,
unit, or individual can rely upon the university’s grievance policy, which is
also defined by the Senate.
2. Time until approval: The Provost agreed that charters deserve prompt
response from the administration but the 60 day deadline set forth in 22-08 was deemed
unreasonable. The Senate agreed that the regular period of 90 days as
defined in the senate constitution was a good compromise.
3. Policy for creating new charters and sending reps to the senate:
This document establishes this procedure.
4. This Policy includes more specific instruction on defining
governance within the unit, requiring the charter to define the rights
and responsibilities of faculty, professional staff, non-tenure
track persons, and others in the unit.
5. Conflicts with university-wide policy: While
there was much concern on this issue, everyone actually understood that nothing
in a unit charter could be in conflict with university-wide policy or senate
policy. This makes that explicit again.
6. Updating the charters: This provides for SHARED responsibility in
maintaining charters. It is unrealistic of the faculty to expect that an
administrative assistant will catch every conflict with evolving policy.
At the same time, the administration cannot reasonably expect the units to
monitor policy changes that marginally relate to our day-to-day activities.
Shared governance means that we must all make best-faith efforts to keep the
policies up to date. When discovered to be in conflict, everyone must
agree to fix charter-related conflict in a timely manner.
7. Grievance regarding charters The University’s grievance procedures are
currently detailed in Senate Procedures 704-1-1.
Proposal Preface:
Since 1994, each department, school, research, or academic unit at
Michigan Technological University has been required to maintain a written
charter. The charters were originally created by Senate proposal 16-92 and then
subsequently modified by a series of proposals clarifying specific issues,
including policies on the evaluation of teaching 12-03, procedures regarding sabbatical leaves 09-05, for recommending Emeritus/Emerita status
20-02, and defining university grievance
processes 23-00.
In order to restore the normal process of updating existing documents
and provide for the creation of new charters, this proposal replaces proposal 16-92 so that charter
policy better reflects best current practices and meets concerns identified in
the proposals listed above, specifically point 6 regarding university wide
procedures for the selection and evaluation of Chairs and Deans. This
document therefore supersedes and replaces 16-92.
Units are encouraged to simply cut-and-paste existing charter language
into their new charter proposal and operating manual as appropriate. This should ensure rapid approval.
Proposal Text:
Redefining Departmental Governance
Being necessary for the conduct of shared governance, every
department, school, library, and other research or academic units (hereafter
all called “university units” or “unit”) will establish and maintain a written
charter. The charter should address issues that cannot constructively be
defined in a university-wide manner, specifically including required policies
and practices defined below (originally 16-92).
A unit’s charter cannot conflict with University or Senate policies
and in cases where this occurs the higher-level
governing document has priority and the lower-level document must be brought
into compliance. Any language found not to be in agreement will immediately be
considered invalid, but this will have no effect on the rest of the charter’s
language.
A new unit may approve a new charter with a simple majority vote of
the academic constituency of that unit. The unit may send representatives
to serve as voting members of the University Senate as soon as it begins
operating under a provisional charter. Those representatives should be
selected by a simple majority of the voting members in the unit, as defined in
section I.1.a below. These representatives serve while the new unit
charter is under review by the administration.
When a new unit creates its first charter or an established unit
revises their current charter, the document is registered with the University
Senate and advanced, without further discussion or debate, to the
administration as a senate proposal. The administration has three months
to provide written response to the proposal (as defined in Senate Constitution,
Article
III, E.4-6). If after that time the charter proposal is neither vetoed nor
approved by the president, the proposal is considered approved and goes into
effect.
Charters are intended to be concise documents covering major issues of
governance requiring approval by the University administration. All units
have the discretion to establish operating procedures and/or policy manuals
distinct from the charter process that guide or govern internal business and
issues not listed among the following six items. The process for creating
and revising those documents should be defined within the charter. As
indicated above, no individual unit governing policy may conflict with those
policies or procedures defined in university-wide or senate policies.
I. Required Charter Contents to be Stated in
the Following Numerical Order:
1. a. A procedure for changing and approving the charter, including a
definition of the voting members of a unit and the procedure for changing
eligibility.
b. Procedures and
responsibilities for updating the charter and keeping it in compliance with
University-wide and Senate policies. Units should propose conflict
resolutions in a timely manner once one has been identified
2. A clear definition of the duties and responsibilities of the
Department Chair or Director.
3. Procedures for recommending promotion, tenure, and
reappointment among their members. Specific areas that must be addressed
in the charter are found in Appendix I. (Tenure, Promotion and Reappointment
Procedures): Section
1. (Responsibilities
of Each Academic Unit) of the Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Handbook which
implement the Board of Control (BOC) Policy on Academic Tenure and
Promotion as decreed in the BOC’s Bylaws and Policies, Chapter
6.4 Academic Tenure and Promotion.
4. A definition of the role of professional staff and other non-tenure/tenure-track
members in unit governance.
5. A procedure for obtaining advice from the unit faculty
regarding recommendations for sabbatical leaves (Senate Proposal 09-05)
6. A procedure for recommending Emeritus/Emerita status to the President
for presentation to the Board of Control. This procedure shall include approval
by department/school faculty and an appeal system and may be initiated by the
retiree or his/her department/school (Senate Proposal 20-02).
7. A procedure
for departmental/school grievance (Senate Proposal 23-00).
8. Units may
include other policies or practices that are defined in their current
charter. Units should exhibit restraint
and include only very significant policy, such as those governing the
distribution of department or school resources, such as allocating salary
increases, teaching assistantships, travel funds, and/or office space. These
items should only be included if the unit membership feels them to be so
significant that any changes should require review by the administration.
9. If the unit opts to create an operation or policy manual, then the
unit should define the process of establishing, changing and approving the
policies and manual as in Item #1 above, including establishing a definition of
voting members of the unit, procedure for changing eligibility, the role of
professional staff and other non-tenure track members in the process, and
define procedures and responsibilities for updating the policy manual and
keeping it in compliance with University-wide and Senate policies.
II. Listing of Departmental or Unit-level policies
and practices that do not require Presidential approval and thus should need not
be part of the charter process. These items are examples of practices and
policy that could be defined in an operations manual within each unit.
Operations manual items:
A. Methods for electing or appointing Senators, members of
departmental/school committees, and members for the Senate, college, and
university committees.
B. Procedures for hiring of new faculty and the creation of new faculty
positions.
C. Establishing long-term goals for the period of appointment of the
Chair/school Dean.
D. Policies regarding admitting graduate students.
E. Guidelines for developing curriculum.
F. Guidelines for developing other administrative positions.
G. Policies for allocating departmental/school resources such as:
1. funds available for salary increases, outside
of salary changes from higher administrative officers above the unit
2. teaching assistantships
3. general research assistantships, and fellowships
4. travel funds, external funds and university
budget funds
5. office, laboratory space and equipment.
H. Procedures for making teaching assignments and allocating teaching
loads.
I. The process for hiring and supervision of staff.
Introduced to Senate: 10 November 2010
Revised and reintroduced: 23 November 2010
Senate Returned to Committee: 08 December 2010
Revised and reintroduced to Senate: 19 January 2011
Slight editing (in red) done at Senate meeting: 19 January 2011
Adopted by Senate: 02 February 2011