The University Senate of Michigan Technological University
Proposal 5-11
(revised by admin 8 March 2011)
(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 if they feel that
are defined in they warrant being included 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
Amended by Administration (in green): 11 March 2011
Amendments Adopted by Senate with Friendly Amendment (in purple): 23 March 2011
Senate Amendment Approved by Administration: 31 March 2011