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Bylaws of the Department of English

  1. THE DEPARTMENT HEAD
    The Department Head is a member of the faculty who has been given certain administrative responsibilities and the authority to carry them out in consultation with the faculty.

    1. The Head is responsible for

      1. Care of the academic program through
        1. recruitment and development of the faculty, including recommendation for hiring, promotion and salary increases, assignment of courses, and assignment of office space;
        2. development and review of the curriculum;
        3. encouragement and support of faculty teaching and research;
        4. encouragement and support of faculty in departmental and university service;
        5. representation of the department in the college and university and in the community outside the university.

      2. Support of the academic program through
        1. employment and supervision of clerical and supporting personnel;
        2. management of departmental physical facilities and equipment;
        3. preparation and defense of the departmental budget;
        4. authorization of any expenditures from the departmental budget.

    2. The Head is appointed by the Chancellor upon recommendation of the Dean of the College and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs after the Dean has consulted the Department and heard its recommendations. The headship carries no tenure. It is renewed at the discretion of the Dean, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and the Chancellor, in consultation with the faculty. Procedures for selection of the Head and review of the performance of the Head are described in the Faculty Handbook and/or other campus-level directives.

  2. FACULTY

    1. The Faculty Voice in Administration: The most direct responsibility of the faculty in the departmental governance is to determine the shape of the academic programs. A less direct but no less important role of the faculty is to advise the departmental administrators concerning administration of departmental programs.

      These matters include:
      1. Appointment and retention of faculty;
      2. Promotion of faculty and awarding of tenure;
      3. Assessment of faculty performance;
      4. Adjudication of disagreements, grievances, or conflicts in faculty affairs;
      5. Selection of departmental, college, and university officers;
      6. Determination of departmental, college, and university priorities.

    2. Definition of Faculty: The faculty as a deliberative body, discussing and voting on curricular matters and priorities for appointment, consists of the professorial staff.

      Those eligible to vote on appointment, tenure, and promotion are specifically designated below, section IV.B. Other groups (for example, the staff of the composition program or of multiple-section courses) will meet when necessary to discuss those courses or programs with their directors; meetings may be called by the director of the course or program or by petition of 20% of its staff. That staff will probably include, in addition to the faculty described above, teaching assistants and instructors holding annual or semester-by-semester appointments.

  3. ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE

    1. Administrative Committee

      1. Function: The Administrative Committee is the main advisory committee to the Head. It helps formulate and implement departmental policy and personnel matters not delegated specifically to other committees or to the faculty at large. At the discretion of the Head, all members have access to the budget, personnel folders, and other departmental information.

      2. Members
        1. Appointed: administrators of certain departmental programs, appointed by the Head in consultation with the faculty. The faculty will accept or reject the Head’s nomination by a majority vote. With a change in Headship, these positions are vacated.

          Associate Head
          Director of Graduate Studies
          Director of Undergraduate Studies
          Director of Composition
        2. Elected by the faculty

          Members: 3 elected members: two drawn from the faculty described in II.B, no more than one to be a full professor; and one drawn from the untenured faculty (including permanent part-time instructors and instructors on continuing contracts). The two drawn from the professorial staff in general will be elected by that staff. The non-tenured member will be elected by the professorial staff and those others eligible for the position. All three members will serve for two-year terms. No member may be elected to successive two-year terms, although a member elected to a one-year term (as defined below) may be re-elected and serve a two-year term.

          Election procedures: terms are to be staggered so that no more than two members are elected in a given year. If a position becomes vacant through resignation or promotion to another rank and only one other position is vacant, the replacement position shall be for two years. If, however, both of the other positions are up for election, the replacement position shall be for only one year. Faculty of all professorial ranks are eligible to vote for each position. The first ballot for each position will list all those eligible to serve and ask the voters to vote for two; the next ballot will list the two (or more, if a tie) receiving the most votes and ask voters to choose one. If no one receives a majority, a further run-off will be held. Normally, the retiring member(s) of the committee will conduct the election.

    2. Other administrative positions, appointed by the Head as departmental need arises: for example, Director of ESL, Director of African-American Literature, Director of Creative Writing, Associate Director of Graduate Studies.

    3. The Graduate Supervisory Committee, normally consisting of the Head, the Associate Head, the Director and the Associate Director of the Graduate Studies, the senior person in each field in which preliminary examinations are regularly offered, and one member of the Graduate Student Steering Committee. At the Head’s discretion, one or two additional persons may be appointed to the committee by the Head to expand representation. Such persons shall serve for one year, but may be reappointed at the Head’s discretion.

    4. The Endowed Funds Committee (for the Hodges and Emperor Funds and other endowment income): this committee consists of all full professors and full professors emeriti.

    5. Other committees, appointed by the Head or by other administrators.

  4. DEPARTMENTAL PROCEDURES FOR FACULTY MEETINGS

    1. For faculty meetings in which the faculty has the initiative and in which a majority vote is binding on the department, such as developing and reviewing curriculum, and establishing priorities for staffing.

      1. Head should normally circulate the meeting time and agenda ten days in advance of the meeting.
      2. Normally, the meetings are open to instructors and to elected graduate or undergraduate student representatives, who attend in a non-voting capacity.
      3. Minutes are kept by the secretary to the Head and are available in the main office to all faculty.
      4. Meetings may be called by petition of 20% of the faculty.

    2. For faculty meetings in which the faculty vote is advisory to the Head: those concerning appointment, promotion, and tenure.

      1. General Procedures: a positive recommendation requires a two-thirds majority of those present voting yes or no by secret ballot, provided this is a majority of those in the department eligible to vote. All votes are advisory to the Head, who will normally follow the faculty’s recommendations. The Head is specifically obliged in all tenure and promotion considerations to make sure that all relevant materials about candidates are available to the appropriate faculty in reasonable time for careful study and deliberation; to call the appropriate faculty together as a group and to allow full discussion of the merits of the candidacy; to receive from the appropriate faculty a collective recommendation; to take note of any and all such recommendations, along with those given individually or privately, in his/her recommendation to the Dean.

        The Head is not obliged to follow the majority recommendations of the appropriate faculty, but in the event of disagreement, the Head must explain to the faculty frankly and openly the decision he/she has reached; and the Head, further, must give them an opportunity to submit, along with his/her recommendation, a dissenting report if they so desire. In any event the appropriate faculty vote must be reported and explained to the Dean.

    3. Special Procedures:

      1. Appointment: the faculty as a whole will decide by majority vote upon tenure-track or continuing full-time positions to be requested from the Dean. Searches for and evaluation of candidates will be conducted by select committees of those in relevant fields, assisted by the Administrative Committee. Appointment of specific persons to fill these positions is by a vote of the faculty as a whole, following the procedures described above under IV. B. 1. If a choice is being made among two or more candidates, a simple majority will determine the candidate of choice, who must then receive a two-thirds positive vote. This vote then constitutes a recommendation to the professors within and above the rank of the position being filled, who then vote, following the same procedures, as a recommendation to the Head. Appointment of temporary staff members may be recommended directly by the Administrative Committee.
      2. Tenure: all tenured members of the department vote on tenure for non-tenured faculty members, the procedures to be those described in IV. B. 1.
      3. Promotion: those faculty members within and above the rank for which the candidate has been proposed will vote on his or her promotion, the procedures to be those described in IV. B. 1.

  5. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

    The following guidelines for performance evaluation are specific to the Department of English. They are designed to supplement, not repeat, the criteria and procedures for implementation of formal evaluations set down for the university in general in the Faculty Handbook (Sec. 2.14) and in the Handbook for Promotion & Tenure. These guidelines should inform and be reflected in (A) annual reviews by the Head of individual faculty members and (B) intermittent reviews by the faculty, or by components thereof, and by the Head on specific, formally prescribed occasions when faculty are considered for the granting of tenure, of promotions, and for cumulative post-tenure review ratings.

    Faculty should be able to assume that discussions center on, and judgments follow from, performance in three areas--research, teaching, and service--and are based on evidence made available before and during deliberations. Needless to say, rigorously objective standards as to what in each area is or is not acceptable performance, as to what meets or exceeds expectations, cannot be set down. Here are presented specific criteria (benchmarks, goals) in one area, research, and then are listed general attitudes, about which precision is not possible, that will always inform evaluations in all areas, including research.

    The Department normally expects that a candidate for tenure and promotion to associate professor will have published at least a book or, in the judgment of the evaluator(s), the equivalent thereof. Usually an additional publication record of comparable quantity is expected for promotion to full professor and still another for the highest cumulative post-tenure review rating. Normally it is assumed that a tenured member, as evidence of an on-going research or creative agenda, meets expectations by producing each year an article or the equivalent thereof. For purposes of the cumulative post-tenure review as regards the area of research, a faculty member who publishes more than one article a year or the equivalent thereof in the period since the last major review, a publication record having been otherwise found exceptional in the light of the relevant general attitudes set down below, may be judged to have exceeded expectations.

    It should be understood that evaluators take into account one or more of the following general attitudes:
    1. that it is the quality of publications that matters;
    2. that judgments, based as they are on the perceived value of the publications, may well be informed by such matters as length and place of publication (press, journal), readers’ reports, reviews, number and nature of citations, and so on;
    3. that expectations as to the quantity of publications may vary in accordance with views as to the degree of difficulty of the project undertaken, some projects requiring more time and effort than others;
    4. that judgments as to the quality of teaching rely on several kinds of evidence, all or in part: on student evaluations, peer evaluations, syllabi, distribution of grades, quality of exams and other assignments, the development of and experimentation with courses, and on impressions otherwise received by faculty evaluators;
    5. that the teaching that goes on other than in assigned courses counts as well, that is, for example, the direction of dissertations, of theses, graduate and undergraduate, and of independent studies;
    6. that it is the quality of the service that matters most, that is, whether it has been done willingly and well, though quantity counts;
    7. that there are various kinds of service for which faculty should be rewarded: to the department, university, profession in general, and local community;
    8. that, because levels of achievement in each of the areas are apt to vary from year to year, it is the pattern in the period at issue (that is, the average during a sequence or cycle) that matters most;
    9. and that in cases of extraordinary achievement in one or two of the three areas, and expectations met in the other area(s), the highest rating may be the appropriate evaluation.

  6. AMENDMENT

    These bylaws may be amended at a meeting of the faculty as defined in section II called especially for that purpose, provided that the proposed amendment has been circulated to all such staff at least two weeks before the meeting. Amendments to the bylaws must be approved by two-thirds of those voting yes or no by secret ballot. In addition, the total number of those voting on the amendment must constitute a majority of those eligible to vote.