coe-staff: College-Wide Internal Governance Revisions

[Shaun Haskins]

Dear COE Community:

Over the summer, the Provost and the Office of Academic Affairs indicated that our college-wide internal governance policy was provisionally approved, pending adjustment of a small number of items that should be added or changed.  Because these changes are at the request of the Provost, they are not subject to re-ratification at the college-level; however, because Dean Kamphaus is committed to internal governance as an ongoing dialogue and process, the changes made may not be the final word on a subject. I have worked with him, the department heads, and other members of the COE leadership team to make adjustments as requested. I have attached the most recent version of our internal governance, with the new changes tracked for your information. I would like to take a moment to describe some of the requests made on behalf of the Provost and how the changes you see are intended to address them.

First, an item of concern for the Provost across a number of unit policies, and endemic to our overall approach based on language in the college-wide policy, was the limitation of participation in governance based on a specific FTE limitation for some faculty. Specifically, NTTF were accorded full voting rights across appropriate areas only once they hit the 0.5 FTE appointment threshold. This was, at least in part, the result of old definitions of "Career NTTF" which included an FTE minimum, but did not directly address the purpose of that limitation. Instead, in conjunction with department heads and Academic Affairs, we have included new Core Faculty language in the document which outlines the areas of responsibility within a department, program, or unit that qualify a faculty members as having "Core Faculty" status. In practice, I anticipate that this change will not affect many, though it will hopefully foster and build upon our inclusive approach to governance participation moving forward.

Second, the Provost asked that we add specific language about the opportunities and expectations for service among funding-contingent (usually grant-funded) faculty, and we have done so. We hope that this will address some lingering concerns about compliance with applicable regulations.

Finally, a number of minor inconsistencies in terminology and inappropriate usage crept into the document over the course of its development, and we've attempted to clean those up in this version.

Your unit directors and department heads should be sharing similar information with you in regard to your unit policies soon, if they have not already done so. Thank you once again for your contributions to this and all other areas of shared governance at the COE. Once we receive formal approval of these changes, which should happen soon, they will be posted at:

https://coe.uoregon.edu/governance

Warmly,

Shaun Haskins
Executive Assistant to the Dean
College of Education
1215 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
541.346.1218

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