|
In December 1986 the faculty resolved to establish a Task Force
on Faculty Governance and charged it with the specific responsibility
of examining our committee system and faculty meetings and, if deemed
appropriate, proposing changes in one area or the other or in both.
This report presents the outcome of that charge: recommendations
for restructuring the committee system and for clarifying procedures
and conditions bearing on the conduct of our meetings.
A word or two about the overall organization and eccentricities
of the report would seem in order. The Preamble briefly recounts
the way the Task Force pursued its business and what the faculty
might reasonably expect to gain by legislating its recommendations.
Those pertaining to faculty meetings appear in Part I, those pertaining
to the committee system in Part II. We intend to move each as a
unitary package, and separately. Yet, the bulk of the report focuses
on the committee system, our examination of it having sparked recommendations
for change as extensive as they are complicated. The report resists
casual reading, that is also to say. Persons new to the faculty
will find especially disconcerting our acronymic references to committees
they have scarcely had time to become acquainted with by their full
names. Thus, we direct your attention first to the materials appended
to the report. They are no substitute for an attentive eye and perseverance,
but they at least assemble at one's fingertips all of the external
documents germane to understanding the report: a statement of our
charge in its entirety (A), an alphabetized list of faculty committees
and their acronyms (B), and relevant passages from the Faculty Handbook
(C) the language of which our recommendations, if approved, would
require amending.
PREAMBLE
Our recommendations reflect in great measure information gleaned
from numerous sources, beginning with the written observations and
strong opinions of the faculty at large, whose counsel the Task
Force solicited early last spring, and with annual reports solicited
about the same time from committees that produce and file them.
Subsequently we conducted interviews with all of our standing committees
as composed in 1986-87, usually meeting with them in their full
complement but on occasion with only one or two of their representatives.
Detailed accounts of those interviews we duly recorded in writing.
We also interviewed CGA officers and the following administrators:
President Porter and the late President Palamountain, the Provost,
the Dean and Associate Dean of the Faculty, the Vice-President of
Business Affairs, the Secretary of the College, the Dean and Associate
Dean of Student Affairs, the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs,
the Registrar, the Directors of Admissions and Financial Aid, and
the Director and Assistant Director of the University Without Walls.
All the materials mentioned above--responses from the faculty at
large, annual reports, the content of our interviews--became the
springboard to our deliberations. From the day we began collecting
information to the day we distributed this report the Task Force
has met 37 times, apart from sessions devoted to interviews.
Part I--the section devoted to the faculty meeting--reflects the
character of the questions posited in our charge, which are in the
main quite specific, discrete, and blessedly few: they call for
no lengthy disquisition. Yet we received only a handful of replies
from colleagues who took up the questions in earnest, and only a
few of these expressed firm preferences, not all of them the same.
Our assessment of faculty opinion yielded no clear consensus, in
other words, and our debates yielded no compelling reasons for recommending
radical departures from the way we conduct our meetings now--thus
the brevity of Part I, which sets forth only a few proposals for
modest reforms.
In accordance with our charge, we also considered the relationship
of college committees to the administration and to each other, as
well as the relationship of CAPTS, CAFR, CEPP, and Financial Planning
to the Board of Trustees. We have incorporated our conclusions about
committee and administrative relationships in Part II. We have little
to report on 'the relationship of key faculty committees to the
Board other than to remark that the Board altered the relationship
when it reorganized its own committee structure several years ago.
The old structure paralleled the faculty committee system in areas
of common concern, making communication with the Board relatively
simple and direct. The new trustee committees do not correspond
to CAPTS, CAFR, CEPP, and Financial Planning. Although the faculty
has no prerogatives in this matter, we would urge the President
to discuss it with the Board.
From the very start, grappling with the committee system proved
to be much more complex. We felt justified in interpreting our charge
as a mandate for radical thinking. Thus we entertained for a time
the merits of installing a system structured on hierarchical or
pyramidal lines peaking with a Faculty Senate, but decided finally
that such a configuration is more enticing for its symmetry than
it is conducive to realizing Skidmore's immediate and foreseeable
needs; and that upon second thought, moreover, this faculty, long
accustomed to speaking out as individuals, would hardly be disposed
to surrendering its will to a single executive body empowered to
make autonomous decisions binding on everyone. We then turned outward.
We secured from other colleges' descriptions of their committee
systems hoping to discover among them models Skidmore might conceivably
adopt to its advantage. None leaped forth, to say the least. What
we discovered instead proved somewhat daunting, in some instances
downright appalling: many of the colleges we consulted have systems
as elaborate and amorphous as our own. That experience turned us
inward again, plunging us back into our data bank. Shortly thereafter,
in accord with the collective preference of the faculty, we set
our minds to overhauling our present committee system -- locating
and tossing out worn, superfluous, or malfunctioning parts, realigning
others and plugging in new ones--so as to make it both more efficient
and effective.
Our recommendations, it follows, do more than tinker with the system.
Our aim has been to eliminate needless or excessive faculty involvement,
avoid replication of effort, diminish clerical work, and keep administrative
and faculty groups from splintering financial and academic policies,
problems, and decisions. To these ends, the recommendations seek
to deflate the numerical membership of certain committees, abolish
more than a few of them, create a minimal number of new ones, classify
as elected or appointed several others, and consolidate or redistribute
the functions of several more. We had occasion even to assign new,
more apt names to three committees. Part II specifies which committees
our recommendations affect. The chart appearing immediately below
compresses the overall results, that is, conveys what the system
in toto would amount to on paper, though it is not meant to suggest
that the results necessarily conduce to a neat schema with leak-proof
categories (a hopeless goal the Task Force chased in vain). It should
be added that the chart makes no mention of Faculty observers nor
reflects the faculty's participation on CGA committees. (Return
to the Beginning)
|
Educational Affairs
CEPP
CURRICULUM
LIBERAL STUDIES (to be dissolved in two years)
UWW
ACC
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT (now Research Grants and Lectures)
CAS
|
Faculty Governance
CAPTS
CAPTS REVIEW
CAFR
FACULTY GOVERNANCE (now Faculty Council)
|
|
College-Wide Concerns
INSTITUTIONAL PLANNING (new)
CO-CURRICULUM POLICY (new)
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
ADMISSIONS
FINANCIAL AID
ATHLETIC COUNCIL
|
Financial Affairs
COLLEGE BENEFITS
FINANCIAL POLICY AND PLANNING (now Financial Planning)
|
The chart should arrest the attention of colleagues who have watched
with dismay the proliferation of committees over the years: more
compact, greatly more manageable, the system envisioned by the Task
Force would decrease the number of committees from 36 to 19. One
should also be wary of course of quantifying savings in time and
energy. Considered by itself, the chart can be deceiving inasmuch
as our recommendations would actually expand the current functions
of several committees (those of the Curriculum Committee especially)
even as it would abolish others, a few of which perform only modest
chores and gather together only rarely. However, in the absence
of a more accurate measure of efficiency, comparative figures will
have to suffice, and they augur appreciable gains in any case, notwithstanding
their crude reliability. Perhaps an even more impressive gauge of
what our recommendations promise is the number of committee seats,
or slots, that must be filled to put the system in gear and keep
it humming--now somewhere between 164 and 168 by our count, including
2 Faculty Observers, 6 slots on CGA committees, and the equivalent
of 7 more taken up in cross-representation between committees. The
new system would require approximately 83 slots--a reduction of
roughly 50 percent.
Faculty influence and effective governance being of a piece, the
potential hazard in cutting down the number of committees did not
escape the Task Force. It seems to us fair to say that, conjuring
with both mechanical and inventive means to our end, we have extended
and reinforced faculty influence where it counts most. The most
obvious examples are the two new major committees we seek to incorporate
into the system, the Institutional Planning and the Co-Curricular
Policy Committees. Equally important, reflective of a recurring
worry among faculty members and administrators alike, our recommendations
mandate the presence of more tenured faculty on key committees while
allowing space for the integration of the junior faculty. The worry
derives from the recent history of elections and committee membership
in consequence of which junior faculty members have sometimes had
to endure the pressures of premature leadership and the unenviable
posture of representing the whole faculty in matters of great academic
magnitude.
It is that observation that moves the Task Force, finally, to remark
the obvious: the success or failure of faculty governance depends
on the spirit underlying and fueling it, a sense of citizenship,
the judicious concern of each faculty member for the proper operation
of the system as manifested in serving on committees and voting
for one's colleagues in the awareness of the specific role of each
committee. That service must be weighed thoughtfully, to be sure,
in light of one's own career and productivity and continuing growth
as a teacher. Still, the point deserves to be stressed: as committee
service becomes merely symbolic in the absence of an effective system,
faculty members mere laborers in the vineyards rather than true
participants in the common purposes of higher education, so the
system works best only as persons from every program, every rank,
and every stage of longevity bring their diverse perspectives to
bear upon the cooperative decisions that shape the activities of
the College. Some committees call upon considerable experience,
the institutional memory of Skidmore's veterans; others profit from
fresh experiences; most need a balance between relative veterans
and relative novices. (Return to the Beginning)
PART I: THE FACULTY MEETING
The faculty has asked the Task Force to examine the faculty meeting
with regard to five issues:
- who shall preside;
- who shall attend the meeting;
- who shall vote;
- when non-voting faculty shall have the privileges of the floor;
- all procedures and rules used in "legislating."
As part of our examination we carefully read the letters from those
few colleagues who addressed themselves to the faculty meeting,
explored the faculty governance system of more than a dozen other
colleges, and raised the issues listed above in our interviews with
administrators. After considerable discussion of our mandate, the
Task Force wishes to recommend a few modest reforms.
We believe that the President should continue to preside over the
faculty meetings. The most obvious reasons relate to the President's
stature and role as the executive head of the College. No one else's
leadership could have as strong an impact on the tone of our meeting,
or on the collegiality of the institution. To put it another way,
exposure to the President nourishes an essential sense of community
and confidence in our collective enterprise, and many if not most
faculty members come to experience the quality of the President's
leadership only by interacting with the President or by observing
presidential interactions in the same public forum with representatives
from each area of the College. Otherwise, in the nature of things,
our contact with the President might well be limited to ceremonial
affairs.
We also argue that the President should preside because presiding
creates links between the President and the faculty on crucial issues,
helping the President to carry the desires and judgment of the faculty
to the Board of Trustees whenever the approval of the Board becomes
necessary. Were the President deprived of this opportunity to interact
with the entire faculty, we would have to establish some other mechanism
for communicating our will to the President. We would also be putting
ourselves in the position of having to convince him or her in the
first place of the "rightness of the faculty's cause," and this
might engage the faculty in an unnecessarily adversarial relationship
to the President. Therefore, we prefer to see the President take
an active leadership role by presiding at the faculty meetings--though
all the while observing protocol, of course: before taking part
in debate, for example, the President must vacate the chair.
Our deliberations as to who shall attend the meeting focused on
past amendments to the Faculty Handbook gradually permitting
more and more diverse groups to attend meetings and prompting the
perception among some colleagues that our meetings have become affairs
with a "cast of thousands." As recently as the 1982-83 Faculty
Handbook, attendance at faculty meetings was limited to full-time
teachers, ten administrators specified by title (the President,
Provost, Dean of the Faculty, Associate Dean of the Faculty, Dean
of Student Affairs, Associate Dean of Student Affairs for Academic
Advising, Dean of Special Programs, the Registrar, the Director
of Admissions, and the Chaplain), librarians, part-time faculty,
and staff members invited by the President on a permanent or temporary
basis, and any administrator appointed to the faculty by the Board
at the recommendation of the President. By the ninth edition of
the Handbook, departmental assistants and administrators
without faculty rank had been added, increasing considerably the
potential number of persons in attendance. When we enquired into
the basis for the presence of administrators beyond the ten specified
by title, we discovered that those who attend regularly are, in
the main, persons the faculty turns to habitually for information,
and that other administrators attend meetings only sporadically--when
the agenda seems immediately relevant to the informed execution
of their responsibilities, say, or when asked to respond to questions
or to make announcements on the faculty floor. We have also been
led to believe that most administrators who attend our meetings
do so at the invitation of their supervisors. This strikes the Task
Force as according perfectly with our procedures. We suggest, however,
that the Dean of the Faculty make a stronger effort to establish
the agenda for each faculty meeting several days in advance, and
to distribute that agenda at least one day in advance of the meeting.
Thereby administrators could know if an item relevant to their particular
concerns was likely to be discussed at the meeting, and the faculty
could come to meetings prepared for the business at hand.
Perhaps the greater number of administrators now attending faculty
meetings has fed the mistaken perception that administrators with
the right to vote have also increased in number--who shall vote
being the third item the faculty asked us to consider. The Task
Force found, to the contrary, that the ten administrators listed
in the 1982-83 Faculty Handbook as having faculty status,
including the vote, are the same ten cited in the 1986, or ninth,
edition: there have been no additions to this list. The only persons
who may vote at faculty meetings are full-time members of the teaching
faculty, the librarians, and the ten administrators specified in
the Faculty Handbook. And since the 1982-83 version reflects
the status quo dating back to 1978-79, at least in terms of numbers,
it can be fairly said that the list of "eligibles" among administrators
has not increased in nine years. What is more, the Task Force learned
during its interviews that among administrators eligible to vote,
a few actually choose not to do so, "out of respect for the faculty."
Thus, the perception that administrative votes have grown appreciably
is scarcely true. We advise that the vote at faculty meetings continue
to be exercised by members of the full-time teaching faculty, librarians,
and those ten administrators already defined as faculty of the College.
The number of administrators with voting power is one thing. Who
shall determine which administrators have faculty status is quite
another. Hence the Task Force proposes altering the language identifying
the voting faculty in both the ninth and the 1982-83 editions of
the Faculty Handbook (p. 42 and p. 1, respectively), in particular
the statement which permits the Board of Trustees to appoint to
the faculty any administrative officer the Board desires, upon the
President's request. Though we have been informed that this privilege
has never been exercised, the statement exercises some of our colleagues
who are chary of the faculty's prerogatives. We recommend that the
statement be modified so that it reads as follows: "and such other
administrative officers as may be appointed to the Faculty by the
Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the Faculty in consultation
with the President."
The fourth item in our charge, the issue of when the non-voting
faculty should have the privilege of the floor, involves an interesting
question of terminology. The non-voting faculty, strictly defined,
includes part-time faculty and departmental assistants. Surely,
these members of our community should have access to the floor.
But we suspect that those colleagues who drafted our charge had
in mind a somewhat broader definition of the faculty, and meant
here to include administrators who do not have the vote. Again,
the Task Force has taken a liberal position: it seems to us that
persons attending faculty meetings, as long as they observe the
rules of meetings, should have the privilege of the floor, even
if they cannot vote.
Finally, the last item in our charge concerning the faculty meeting
has to do with the procedures and rules to be used in legislating.
Except that 20 percent of the faculty shall constitute a quorum,
this faculty's rules are contained in Robert's Rules of order, and
in the Faculty Handbook. Copies of both documents need to be made
available to every faculty member. We were discouraged during our
deliberations by the length of time it has taken us to come up with
a current edition of the Faculty Handbook and by the errors and
omissions we found in the ninth "edition. (Return
to the Beginning)
PART II: RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR RESTRUCTURING
THE COMMITTEE SYSTEM
Recommendations in this section are categorized as follows: (A)
general guidelines and rules pertaining to elections, committee
membership, and conditions of service; (B) proposals for forming
two new major committees; (C) proposals for abolishing or transforming
committees; (D) changes in committee functions and/or membership;
and (E) implementation.
A. Guidelines and Rules Pertaining to Elections,
Committee Membership, and Conditions of Service
1. Faculty should serve on committees for staggered terms.
2. On general principle cross-representation between
committees should be eschewed, though in some instances
it has proved to be efficacious and in very rare instances may
even be indispensable.
All current cross-representation is to be eliminated.
3. The omnibus ballot should be circulated after all
elections have been completed, and the election schedule should
allow ample time for its circulation before the end of the year.
4. Special elections should be held for replacements
on major committees, such as CAPTS, CAFR, CEPP, and Financial
Planning, and efforts made to ensure, when possible, that replacements
will have had previous experience on those committees.
5. A junior faculty member who receives tenure while
sitting on a committee requiring the presence of one or more tenured
faculty shall be counted as one of its tenured members in the
next election.
6. All committees should have operating codes and, together
with the latest annual report, make them available to new committee
members at the beginning of the academic year; and except for
committees receiving confidential materials, all should maintain
easily accessible files of minutes, which new members are encouraged
to read.
7. All committees have the discretion to appoint to their
own subcommittees members of the faculty at large, students, or
administrators, but all are encouraged to consult the Committee
on Faculty Governance beforehand, and all, in any case, must apprise
CFG of such appointments.
8. A half-time faculty secretary shall be employed to
alleviate the burden of clerical work on all committees but especially
that of CAPTS and the Committee on Faculty Governance, and shall
be housed in the Dean of the Faculty's office.
9. Contingent upon departmental needs, persons chairing
CAPTS, the Curriculum Committee, and CEPP shall have reduced teaching
loads. (Return to the Beginning)
B. Proposals for Forming Two New Major Committees
1. The Co-Curricular Policy Committee, chaired by the
President, shall be concerned with the cultural and intellectual
atmosphere on campus, with co-curricular and recreational activities,
and with broader issues having campus-wide, national, and international
import. It shall function as a forum for exploring and elevating
the quality of life at Skidmore and will set policy for the co-curriculum
and for the shaping and scheduling of extracurricular events.
Membership: The President, the Dean of Student Affairs,
the Dean of the Faculty, the CGA President, the CGA Vice-President
for Co-Curricular Affairs, the Director of Minority and International
Students, and three elected faculty members for staggered three-year
terms (two tenured, one untenured). If necessary, or if deemed
appropriate, the committee shall convene other administrative
officers. The Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, the Director
of College Events, and the Director of Community Education and
Summer Conferences shall serve as the staff of this committee.
Rationale: Just as we have a committee devoted to educational
planning and policy, so It behooves the faculty to support a committee
devoted to co-curricular planning and policy in recognition of
the importance of co-curricular experiences in students' lives
and the classroom benefits to be derived from nourishing a rich
cultural and intellectual community. In addition to its serving
some of the functions Community Council covered in Its heyday,
we would expect C-CPC to bring to the entire community's attention
ethical, social, and political issues that periodically need to
be addressed and that indeed periodically threaten to fracture
the community--to serve as both catalyst and forum, as both goad
and haven. More pressing still, we need to focus the diverse and
bountiful activities of the college and the energies of persons
and departments responsible for them--athletic events, exhibits,
lectures, conferences, concerts, films, and theatrical productions
that fill the Skidmore calendar to overflowing. As the calendar
takes shape now, many members of the community are torn between
conflicting possibilities, between equally attractive events scheduled
at the same hour, many of which go unattended in consequence,
even premier events, much to the embarrassment of guest lecturers
or performers and their sponsors. In brief, as the hub of informed
scheduling and collaborative programming, C-CPC would serve all
of us in good stead. The Task Force believes that having the President
chair this committee is one of the keys to its success--an appropriate
way of acknowledging the President's critical role in generating
a lively cultural and intellectual atmosphere and of demonstrating
a commitment to Integrating the curricular and co-curricular life
of the College. As broader, more sensitive issues arise and must
be confronted, such as investment in South Africa, the President
can be a potent moral force in this important area, but needs
to be ii a position to exert leadership, and this of course the
President can do if ensconced as Chair of C-CPC.
2. The Institutional Planning Committee, chaired by the
President, shall engage in strategic, tactical, and environmental
planning for educational, financial, and co-curricular affairs.
Membership: The President, the Provost, the Vice-President
for Business Affairs, Chairs of CEPP, Financial Policy Committee,
and a faculty representative from C-CPC, two additional faculty
members (to be elected), one of whom is tenured, the other not,
two students chosen by CGA, the President of CGA, and the Director
of institutional Research as the staff of this committee. Since
it would be helpful to keep intact the institutional memory of
the committee among faculty members, the two elected ones will
serve staggered four-year terms.
Rationale: We now have a committee dedicated solely to
educational planning, and another dedicated solely to financial
planning; we have a task force on long-range planning, and have
had, until recently, an Institutional Planning Group (Group,
not Committee). Yet most observers of the college agree
that-lack of planning has been and continues to be one of our
major weaknesses as an institution, so that too often we find
ourselves pitched back on our heels and reacting to change instead
of anticipating it. The diversity of planning groups has also
often resulted in fragmentation: educational plans being formulated
without sufficient attention to financial issues, on the one hand,
and financial plans being formulated without thought to their
co-curricular or educational implications, on the other hand.
The artificial separation of long- and short-term planning has
made long-term plans either impossible or so vague as to be meaningless,
whereas short-term plans tend to turn inward, without eyes for
the larger context of institutional goals.
We propose to centralize planning in one important Institutional
Planning Committee, and to seat representatives from three main
policy committees (CEPP, C-CPC, and FPC) on it. The new committee
will engage in both short- and long-term planning, and will do so
with the interests of all three areas--educational, co-curricular,
and financial--in mind. Although IPC will not make financial, co-curricular,
or educational policy, it will provide a forum for timely discussions
of policy, discussions which will recognize perforce the impact
of each policy area upon the others. In the language of CLRP's last
annual report, such a new committee would not only command the information
and resources to formulate strategic plans; it would also have a
"heightened" perspective of the College's needs and the instrumentalities
necessary to achieve them. It is also worth remarking that IPC would
continue the work of the Commission on the '90s, which intends to
produce a "white paper" that could lift IPC off the ground even
as the commission expires.
It also seems to us self-evident that space allocation and issues
bearing on campus environment must be looked upon as an integral
parts of institutional planning, and not merely as isolated stages
to be taken up any time during or at either end of the planning
process. We therefore recommend that IPC appoint a subcommittee
which will subsume the combined obligations of the Campus Environment
Committee and the Space Task Force. The subcommittee chair shall
be one of the faculty members elected to IPC, and shall appoint
to the subcommittee another faculty member, from the Biology or
Geology or Chemistry and Physics Departments, for his or her environmental
expertise. (Return to the Beginning)
C. Committees that Shall be Abolished
or Transformed
Standing faculty and CGA committees falling into this category
conveniently subdivide as follows: (1) those that shall be eliminated
entirely; (2) those whose present role and/or functions shall be
subsumed by other committees; and (3) those that shall be converted
into subcommittees.
1. COMMITTEES TO BE ELIMINATED ENTIRELY
a. Committee on Academic Prizes and Fellowships: Criteria
for new academic prizes having been established, it no longer
seems necessary to have a formal committee to evaluate such
prizes. If a new prize is proposed, CEPP can simply review
the proposal to make sure it conforms to the criteria now
in place. Helping students secure graduate fellowships seems
to us best accomplished by having the Associate Dean of Student
Affairs for Academic Advising appoint specific faculty members
with relevant interests and experience as "Fulbright advisor,"
etc., or by relying on Academic Advising to continue maintaining
files of Information and to track applications. Obviously,
all departments should have some mechanism for advising students
considering graduate study, and we already have pre-law and
pre-med advisors. We do not really need another committee
to do this.
b. The Health Professions Advisory Committee and the Teacher
Education Coordinating Committee: Judging from their infrequent
meetings and their narrowly restricted duties, these committees
do not need to be regular faculty committees. HPAC can function
as an interdepartmental committee, chaired and assembled as
needed by the Chair of Biology or of Chemistry and Physics.
The Dean of the Faculty shall chair and assemble TECC when
necessary for altering teacher education programs.
c. Performing Arts Committee: In December 1987 PAC
met for the first-time in a year and a half, only to learn
that it has no budget for 1988-89, and its budget has been
its raison d'etre. The Task Force champions its purpose
but not its existence; it makes more sense to us, and also
to the Dean of the Faculty, to tap into the College Lectures
Budget and allocate monies directly to the four or five departments
responsible for bringing performing artists to campus.
d. Religious Life Committee: It seems pointless to
maintain a committee that, beyond a pro forma gathering
at the beginning of the academic year, has had no occasion
to meet since 1975. Instead, the Chaplain shall have access
to the Co-Curricular Policy Committee, a singularly congenial
assembly for addressing emergencies or, if need be, bringing
to our attention problems bearing on the religious life of
the community.
e. Honor Code Commission: Many faculty members believe
that honor code would be more effective were students to assume
full responsibility for the operation of the system. We suggest
just that -- turning the system over to the students and encouraging
them either to design an effective mechanism for an honor
code or to abandon the code entirely.
f. Library Committee: The faculty stands more to gain
by permitting librarians to make decisions on their own in
areas calling for expertise in the field than by sitting on
a committee that chiefly reacts to the Head Librarian's initiatives.
Brought together almost randomly, having no special knowledge
In library administration except perhaps by happenstance,
faculty members have little advice to offer librarians toward
conceiving and realizing nuts-and-bolts plans for redesigning
space, say, or expanding library facilities. Some such matters
should go before the Institutional Planning Committee to begin
with, once that committee is in place; and larger questions
of policy should go to CEPP. This is not to overlook the faculty's
vested interest in joining forces with the library staff toward
building up acquisitions. In the Task Force's view, a more
enlightened and direct way of satisfying that interest is
to appoint liaisons to the library along lines paralleling
departmental liaisons now plugged into and drawing upon computer
services--that is, to appoint a colleague who shall be responsible
for keeping abreast of acquisitions and of apprising the library
staff of his or her department's shifting or projected needs
as they develop. What is more, the present structure of assignments
among reference librarians--each oversees the needs of a specific
group of departments--lends itself happily to routinizing
meetings with departmental liaisons by way of ensuring a continued
high level of service.
g. Orientation Committee: In effect this committee
no longer exists, though it -remains on our roster. The Assistant
Dean of Student Affairs and staff are willing to handle Skidmore's
orientation program on their own, and have already showed
they are perfectly capable of doing so.
2. COMMITTEES WHOSE FUNCTIONS SHALL'BE SUBSUMED BY OTHER COMMITTEES
a. College Events Committee: The functions now carried
out by CEC shall become the responsibilities of the new Co-Curricular
Policy Committee, on which the Director of College Events
(as part of the staff) shall sit.
b. Committee on Long-Range Planning: on the testimony
of annual reports, CLRP has largely been "spinning wheels"
over the years, in its 1985 incarnation no less than in its
original form. Obliquely we have attempted to explain why
above, in our rationale for creating a new Institutional Planning
Committee: long-range planning is difficult to define, owing
to its relatively abstract vagaries, and even more difficult
to sustain in face of short-term exigencies; and the simultaneous
yet independent existence of the Institutional Planning Group,
an administrative body which, having more authority in final,
overall college planning, has subtracted from CLRP's role
as an initiator of plans. Combining forces, so to speak, the
new Institutional Planning Committee will replace both CLRP
and IPG and ensure faculty representation at the highest level
of strategic planning.
c. Community Council: By all accounts--that of faculty
members, administrators, and students alike--Community Council
in recent years has spent its time on pets and parking, unable,
for various good reasons, to address itself to more meaningful
pursuits. Hoping to revive it under the aegis of the Co-Curricular
Policy Committee, we will move a constitutional amendment
to replace it, an idea we have discussed with CGA officers.
d. Programs Abroad Committee: This most recent addition
to the community system originated, in part, because of the
different standards being applied to students seeking admission
to Skidmore and non-Skidmore programs abroad. One of its main
goals has been to arrive at some sort of uniform standard,
to ensure equity as well as to preserve the strengths and
uniqueness of our own programs abroad. That should be accomplished
soon, or in any case before the new committee system could
be inaugurated. The other major function of this committee
is to have oversight over the courses of study offered abroad,
a function the Curriculum Committee can perform. Thus we propose
to continue PAC until it has established a uniform standard,
and then "sunset it," shifting Its functions to the Curriculum
Committee.
e. Schedule and Calendar Committee: SCC's tasks will
be divided between two committees, CEPP and the new Co-Curricular
Policy Committee. CEPP will delegate a representative to design
the calendar, in consultation with the Registrar and the Dean
of Special Programs, and bring it back to the full committee
for further refining before CEPP presents It to the faculty
as a whole. C-CPC will be in a happy position to schedule
events on campus since it will be staffed by the Assistant
Dean of Student Affairs as well as by the Director of College
Events.
3. COMMITTEES THAT SHALL BE CONVERTED INTO SUBCOMMITTEES
a. Campus Environment Committee and Space Task Force:
The important functions executed by these two committees will
become the responsibility of the institutional Planning Committee,
as indicated above. Their functions are to be fused, the two
committees becoming a single subcommittee of IPC, the right
home for them inasmuch as IPC will represent, appropriately,
all the constituencies of the College. Moreover, the merger
will strengthen the faculty's hand: now on its own, operating
independently, the Campus Environment Committee, repeatedly
ignored or circumvented, has suffered one frustration after
another. By integrating environmental issues into the responsibilities
of IPC, we expect that those issues will receive the consideration
they deserve.
b. Self-Determined Majors Committee: S-DMC shall become
a subcommittee of the Curriculum Committee, which as the authority
at the college level on majors and minors is singularly prepared
to shepherd students with self-determined majors through a
regimen of studies. CC shall make certain that one of its
elected members will chair this subcommittee, and that it
will consist of other appointed members whose disciplines
differ. Ideally, their disciplines should also be wide-ranging.
(Return to the Beginning)
D. Changes in Committee Functions or Compositions
1. Affirmative Action Committee
Proposal: Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description.
Two members of the faculty, two students, two administrators,
and two members of the support staff, to be appointed
by the President for two-year terms. Normally a committee
member may serve only two successive terms.
Rationale:
This change is intended to balance representation among
segments of the College and to streamline the committee
for easier functioning.
2. Athletic Council
Proposal: Function
The phrase "to the Co-Curricular Policy Committee"
shall be substituted for "to the Athletic Director and,
through the Athletic Director to the President ,..." in
the description of Athletic Council's functions.
Rationale:
The new Co-Curricular Policy Committee is to be charged
with policy oversight of all co-curricular activities.
3. Animal Care Committee
Membership:
This committee is mandated by New York State. Since
it has little busines and applies to only two departments,
the Dean of the Faculty shall chair and be responsible
for assembling the committee in accordance with the
law.
4. Committee on Academic Standing
Proposal: Membership
The following addition to the description of membership
is to be inserted between "the CAFR," and "appointed...
":
and at least one of whom is tenured.
Rationale:
The decisions made by CAS often affect the lives of
students in important respects. Therefore, it seems
advisable that an experienced faculty perspective be
available in such cases.
5. Committee on Appointments, Promotions, Tenure, and Sabbaticals
Proposal: Functions
The first sentences describing CAPTS' functions shall
be revised as follows:
To represent the faculty on administrative appointments
and reviews and on faculty appointments, promotions,
tenure, sabbaticals, and termination of service, and
to make recommendations on these matters to the appropriate
administrative officer. The administration shall consult
CAPTS to determine which administrative personnel decisions
the committee judges to require faculty representation.
Rationale:
The present system for reviewing major administrators
was worked out by CAPTS in conjunction with administrative
officers. The present description does not make reference
to administrative reviews (nor does it coincide with
what CAPTS actually does). Also, CAPTS has been called
upon to interview a growing number of candidates for
administrative appointment. It is the sense of the recent
members of the committee that the administration should
consult with CAPTS in advance to determine which appointments
the committee should be involved in.
6. Committee on Educational Policy and Planning
Proposal: Functions
The following sentences shall be inserted in the description
of functions between "practices and goals." and "CEPP
meets...": CEPP shall exchange minutes of meetings with
the Admissions Committee, Curriculum Committee, and the
UWW Committee; and the chairs of any of these committees
may be invited to sit or request to sit with CEPP when
consultation is desirable. The chair of CEPP also shall
sit on the Institutional Planning Committee.
Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description:
Six faculty members, each from a different department,
elected to serve three-year terms, two of whom must
be tenured; the Provost, the Dean of the Faculty, the
Dean of Student Affairs, and two students selected by
CGA. CEPP may appoint such subcommittees from among
its members or from the College community at large as
it deems helpful to facilitate its work.
Rationale:
The aim here is to eliminate cross-representation between
CEPP and the Admissions and the Curriculum Committees
and CEPP's participation on the UWW committee. The burden
of serving on CEPP itself has been quite heavy, and
the required attendance of some CEPP members on other
active committees has measurably increased that burden.
Communication with closely related committees can be
achieved by exchanging minutes and by conversing with
committee chairs when needed. On the other hand, the
representation of CEPP by its chair on the institutional
Planning Committee seems an obvious need for the proper
functioning of that body. Problems arising over sensitive
issues when CEPP was composed entirely of untenured
faculty have prompted the revision in membership. It
seems wise to institute a formal requirement for tenured
members on this vitally important committee, even though
more tenured faculty have been running for CEPP in recent
years.
7. Committee on Faculty Governance
Proposal:
That the name of Faculty Council be changed to the
Committee on Faculty Governance.
Functions
The following description of functions shall replace
the current description: To act as a committee on committees
for the faculty, coordinating committee work and promoting
cooperation among members of the college community; to
conduct nominations and elections for and make appointments
to faculty committees; to oversee faculty appointments
to administrative and trustee committees; to keep up-to-date
a survey of the distribution of faculty members on all
committees with the purpose of furthering democratic representation
and committee efficiency; to encourage faculty to run
for committees when there is a shortfall of candidates;
to convene the Committee of Committees (CAFR, CAPTS, CEPP,
the Curriculum Committee, Co-Curricular Policy, CFG, Financial
Policy, and IPC) at least three times a year to discuss
ongoing issues and any special problems in committee operations;
to review operating codes of all faculty committees, maintain
files of annual committee reports, supervise the orientation
of new committee members, and otherwise administer the
faculty governance system; to act as faculty watchdog
in seeing that the language of the Faculty Handbook
appears precisely as it was approved by the faculty and
that the language thereafter remains intact.
Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description: Six faculty members elected
to serve three-year terms, at least two of whom are
tenured and all of whom have had experience on one of
the committees Included in the Committee of Committees.
Rationale:
It is envisioned that this committee will replace the
Task Force on Faculty Governance. The new name is more
descriptive of the functions of the committee than is
the present name. The more extensive description of
functions spells out the tasks involved in overseeing
the entire faculty governance system and relieves the
committee of the burden of rewriting The Faculty
Handbook and of entering new legislation into
it, although retaining its responsibility as guardian
of the Handbook.
The Dean of the Faculty has agreed to supply CFG with
secretarial help for the burdensome work of running
elections and maintaining files in view of which it
becomes feasible to reduce the size of the committee
for more efficient operation. And with the extensive
governance responsibilities of this committee, it seems
advisable that its members bring some committee experience
with them, and hence the need to include two tenured
members.
8. Curriculum Committee
Proposal: Functions
The following description of functions shall replace
the current description:
To act for the faculty in reviewing curricular matters
including those which implement educational policy concerning
all-college requirements; to generate recommendations
concerning immediate and long-range curricular matters;
to administer the self-determined majors program; to
make recommendations to the faculty concerning other
curriculum matters brought before it by the faculty,
students, and the administration.
Membership
The following membership description shall replace
the current description: Six faculty members, each from
a different department, at least two of whom are tenured,
elected to serve three-year terms; the Associate Dean
of the Faculty; and two students selected by CGA. Non-voting
members of the committee are the Registrar and the Associate
Dean of Student Affairs. An elected member of the committee
shall chair a self-determined majors subcommittee, composed
of other members appointed by the Curriculum Committee
to represent a reasonable range of academic disciplines.
Rationale:
The description of functions has been restored to the
general charge stated in the 1982-83 Faculty Handbook,
which lost a crucial phrase in the transition to the
ninth edition, whose language would restrict the committee
to reviewing only those curricular matters concerned
with all-college requirements. The new language restores
the committee's power to act for the faculty iii reviewing
other curricular matters, such as new courses, major
and minor requirements, etc. In addition, the self--determined
majors program has been brought under the authority
of the committee.
The presence of more experienced faculty on this committee
has been a felt need for a number of years; hence the
requirement of at least two tenured members. Cross-representation
on other committees now required is seen by many members
as an unnecessary additional burden for one of our busiest
faculty committees, particularly as information from
other committees can be readily had by exchanging minutes
and the chairs of the Curriculum Committee and CEPP
may confer on matters of mutual interest as they see
fit.
9. Faculty Development Committee
Proposal:
That the name of the Research Grants and Lectures Committee
be changed to the Faculty Development Committee, in keeping
with the following descriptions of functions and membership:
Functions
To advise the Dean of the Faculty an faculty development
policies; to initiate ideas for faculty growth and improvement,
including programs to support both scholarly and professional
activity and the improvement of 'teaching; to allocate
such research funds as the Dean shall designate for committee
decision; and to select the annual Edwin M. Moseley Faculty
Research Lecturer.
Membership
The Associate Dean of the Faculty; four faculty members,
two of whom are tenured and two untenured, one each from
the areas of the humanities, the natural sciences, the
professional programs, and the social sciences each member
to be appointed for two-year terms.
Rationale:
There is a growing sense in the College of the importance
of faculty development, as evidenced by programs now
being implemented or considered--sabbaticals for junior
faculty, new kinds of support for research and creative
work, faculty exchanges, opportunities for enhancing
one's teaching effectiveness. The Research Grants and
Lectures Committee, under a new name, seems the obvious
group to promote and oversee the institution of such
programs.
10. Financial Policy and Planning Committee
Proposal:
That the name of the Financial Planning Committee be
changed to the Financial Policy and Planning Committee.
Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description: Four faculty members, at least
two of whom are tenured, elected to serve four-year terms;
two students selected by CGA; the Provost; and the Vice
President for Business Affairs.
Rationale:
The proposed name reflects the felt need of the faculty
to be involved in ongoing policy decisions on financial
matters in addition to planning. The planning stage
of our collective enterprise will preoccupy faculty
on the new institutional Planning Committee. The purpose
in changing the composition of the committee is to strengthen
the voice of the faculty on this important committee.
11. Institutional Review Board
Membership:
This committee also is mandated by New York State.
Like ACC, it has narrow functions that do not affect the
college as a whole. The Dean of the Faculty shall chair
and assemble the committee in accordance with state requirements.
12. Liberal Studies Committee
Proposal:
That the Liberal Studies Committee be dissolved two
years after the implementation of the new governance system.
The Curriculum Committee then will assume the responsibility
for reviewing new course proposals and other reforms in
Liberal Studies as it does now for the rest of the curriculum.
Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description for the remaining two years:
Three faculty members, each representing a different
category in the Liberal Studies sequence (LS 11, III,
or IV), appointed annually by the faculty who will teach
in that category in the next academic year or who have
taught in that category in the current academic year;
two additional members from the faculty at large appointed
by CFG for two-year terms; two students selected by
CGA for one-year terms; the Associate Dean of the Faculty;
the Associate Dean of Student Affairs; the Director
of Liberal Studies and the Coordinator of Liberal Studies
I; The representatives of LS 11, 111, and IV serve also
as coordinators of their respective categories.
Rationale:
The Liberal Studies Program will be well established
within two or three more years, at which time it seems
fitting that it fall under the all-college review procedures
of the Curriculum committee. The appointment of faculty
members to this committee during its final two years
seems the simplest method to ensure balanced representation.
13. University Without Walls Committee
Proposal: Membership
The following description of membership shall replace
the current description:
Six faculty members elected to serve two-year terms;
the Dean of Special Programs; and the Director and Academic
Advisors of UWW.
Rationale:
The UWW Committee now consists of four cross-representatives
and four elected faculty members. Since cross-representation
from other committees is to be eliminated in order to
reduce the workloads of members of busy committees,
it seems advisable to add two elected faculty members,
for a total of six. The chairs of CEPP and the Curriculum
Committee may be consulted by directors of the UWW Committee
or may be invited to attend UWW meetings when necessary.
(Return to the Beginning)
E. Implementation
Given the extensiveness of our recommendations, not to mention
their interconnections, it is obvious that the new committee system
could not be implemented before the 1989-90 academic year. Toward
effecting the most expeditious transition, we propose that Faculty
Council conduct an election this spring to establish by the end
of the semester the first Committee on Faculty Governance. The newly
elected members of that committee will work with the six members
who will remain on Faculty Council during the 1988-1989 academic
year to oversee the functioning of our current system of governance
and to fashion a timetable for soliciting nominations, conducting
elections, and making appointments to committees by the end of the
1989 spring semester. We recognize of course that present members
of Faculty Council may be elected to the Committee on Faculty Governance
and thus serve a dual role. (Return to the Beginning)
|