Faculty of Arts & Sciences Bylaws

Name

The name of this body shall be the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Purpose

The purpose of the Faculty in assembly and in its committees shall be to establish academic policy and procedure for the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and to act upon other matters affecting undergraduate and graduate education, and to consider matters of policy that concern the Faculty in its instructional duties, its research efforts, its governance, its rights and responsibilities and its professional interests.

Membership and Voting Rights

Membership in the academic faculty shall include all persons who have a faculty appointment within Arts and Sciences and whose primary duties are teaching (graduate and/or undergraduate) and/or research. Individuals in Arts and Sciences who hold general faculty appointments and whose role at the University is that of instruction and/or research are included in this definition. Voting rights shall belong to each member, save that full-time faculty members in Arts and Sciences below the rank of Assistant Professor and with fewer than three years of service shall become voting members only after three years’ service in the University.
Non-Voting Membership
Administrative officers of the University (unless they possess an independent faculty appointment in Arts and Sciences), full-time faculty below the rank of Assistant Professor who have fewer than three years’ service, and professors emeriti shall have voice but not vote in this body.

Officers

The Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (hereinafter the Dean) is the executive officer of the Faculty.
Duties of the Dean shall be:
1. To consult with the Steering Committee as it sets the dates and times of faculty meetings, prepares and distributes the agendas of faculty meetings, and notifies the membership of meetings;
2. To appoint, in consultation with the Steering Committee, such ad hoc committees as circumstances may require;
3. To serve as an ex officio member of the Steering Committee;
4. To present to the Faculty all appropriate communications from outside that body;
5. To sign, authenticate and forward, as appropriate and/or necessary, such resolves, votes and formal acts as the Faculty may present;
6. To maintain in a public and easily accessible form archives of the Faculty, including the Bylaws with all current revisions, all minutes of faculty meetings, and all committee reports, communications and papers concerning the affairs of the Faculty.
7. To appoint Associate Deans who, as agents of the Dean, are, together with the Dean, de facto officers of the Faculty.
  1. The Dean shall appoint a committee from members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to advise the Dean on nominees for positions as Associate Deans; and
  2. When considering possible changes in the decanal structure of the administration of Arts and Sciences, the Dean shall solicit advice and recommendation from a representative ad hoc committee of Arts and Sciences faculty members.
Secretary of the Faculty
1. Appointment
  The Secretary of the Faculty shall annually be nominated by the Dean in consultation with the Steering Committee, and elected by the assembly in its last regular meeting of any given academic session. The Secretary may serve successive terms.
2. Duties of the Secretary shall be:
  1. To keep accurate minutes of meetings of the Faculty, which upon their approval by voice vote shall be the official record of all actions of this body;
  2. To incorporate in the minutes all documents, papers, committee reports and other communications laid before the Faculty;
  3. To transfer the minutes of Faculty meetings, including all relevant documents, to the Office of the Dean and its archives;
  4. To supervise, in assistance to the Nominating Committee and the Steering Committee, nominations and elections for membership on Committees of the Faculty.
Parliamentarian of the Faculty
The Dean, in consultation with the Steering Committee, shall appoint a Parliamentarian, whose duty shall be to advise the presiding officer on questions of parliamentary procedure.

Committees of the Faculty

The standing committees of the Faculty shall be six: the Steering Committee, the Nominating Committee, the Committee on Educational Policy and the Curriculum, the Committee on Budget and Development, the Committee on Personnel Policy, and the Committee on Faculty Rules.
The standing committees of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences shall be advisory to the Faculty, and (except as hereinafter noted in the case of the Committee on Faculty Rules) shall act ultimately by means of recommendations and reports to the Faculty. Their primary function shall be to consider matters, motions and resolutions directed to them by the Faculty, by the Steering Committee or by the Dean, or raised on a committee’s own initiative. Reports and recommendations from the committees shall be presented to the Faculty in such form as will enable orderly discussion and ready decision. Standing committees or their chairs may be directed by the Faculty to represent it in discussions or negotiations with other groups within the University.
All committees shall report to the Faculty annually and in writing upon their activities during the session, and, if called upon to do so, a committee shall additionally offer a report orally. These reports will normally be provided near the end of any given academic session, and will be submitted by the Secretary to the Office of the Dean.
Functions of the Standing Committees
1. The Steering Committee (nine elected members) shall serve as the executive committee of the Faculty. It is the committee most broadly and directly responsible for representing faculty concerns, and its principal goal shall be to promote and facilitate effective participation of the Faculty in the conduct of College business. It shall also be advisory to the Faculty and advisory to the Dean, representing the Faculty in communications and negotiations with the Dean.
  1. The Steering Committee shall have as its purview all matters of policy that concern the Faculty in its instructional duties, its research efforts, its governance, and its rights and responsibilities. It shall serve as a forum and clearing house for faculty ideas and concerns, and shall take an overall view of the College in respect of planning, setting priorities, allocating resources and insuring the welfare of the College.
  2. The Steering Committee shall meet regularly according to its own schedule, and shall also meet periodically with the Dean to communicate concerns, exchange information and correlate faculty interests with administrative interests.
  3. The Steering Committee shall have special responsibilities for the oversight and co-ordination of the other standing committees. To this end, a member of the Steering Committee shall serve ex officio on each of the standing Committees. In the late spring of each academic session the Steering Committee shall call a meeting of all outgoing and incoming committee chairs in order to clarify committee charges, transmit records, review current business and discuss priorities. The Steering Committee shall also be responsible for recommending changes in the size and constitution of the other standing committees.
  4. The Steering Committee, at its own initiative or at the request of the Dean, may charge the standing committees to develop advisory statements on relevant subjects, and may take any initiative it sees fit on matters that fall outside individual committee functions as stated in these Bylaws, or that extend across the jurisdictions of two or more committees.
  5. The Steering Committee shall be responsible for periodically reviewing and recommending revisions of the Bylaws of the Faculty.
  6. The Steering Committee, in consultation with the Dean, shall decide the agenda for regularly scheduled meetings of the Faculty.
2. The Nominating Committee (six elected members), shall solicit nominations from the Faculty for all Committees except the Nominating Committee, and, taking into account the representation of disciplinary areas and academic ranks, shall in February of each session present a ballot with nominees for all committee assignments that are to be filled (again excepting those on the Nominating Committee). In addition, the Nominating Committee shall nominate candidates for seats on the University’s Faculty Senate that are in excess of the number of departments in Arts and Sciences (see VII.B. below). One member of the Steering Committee will serve as an ex officio and non-voting member of the Nominating Committee.
3. The Committee on Educational Policy and the Curriculum (twelve elected members) shall deal with broad policies affecting undergraduate education, and with such specific matters as course changes, new courses, new major and minor programs, degree requirements, special programs such as distinguished major programs and programs leading to the degree with honors, and rules governing the academic status of students. To these ends it shall receive and transmit to the Faculty, with the Committee’s recommendations, proposals from departments and others sources. The Committee may also advance proposals of its own. The Committee shall endeavor to keep the rules simple and coherent and the curriculum free of unnecessary duplication. The Committee shall make no recommendation to the Faculty without review by the whole Committee, even when some of its work is delegated to sub-committees. The Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs and the Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Programs and one member of the Steering Committee shall be ex officio but non-voting members of the Committee on Educational Policy and the Curriculum.
4. The Committee on Graduate Educational Policy and Curriculum (six elected members) shall deal with broad policies affecting graduate educational policy and the graduate curriculum, and with such specific matters as course changes, new courses, new programs, degree requirements, changes to any programs that lead to a graduate degree or certificate, and rules governing the academic status of graduate students. To these ends it shall receive and transmit to the Faculty, with the Committee’s recommendations, proposals from departments, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and other sources. The Committee may also advance proposals of its own. The Committee shall endeavor to keep the rules simple and coherent and the curriculum free of unnecessary duplication. The Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Programs and one member of the Steering Committee shall be ex officio but non-voting members of the Committee on Graduate Educational Policy and Curriculum.
5. The Committee on Budget and Development (six elected members) shall advise the Dean on budget and resource allocation policies affecting curriculum, instruction, research and staffing within Arts and Sciences, and on goals and strategies of development efforts. The Associate Dean for Administration and Planning and the Associate Dean for Development and one member of the Steering Committee shall be ex officio but non-voting members of the Committee on Budget and Development. The Dean shall meet with the Committee as either deems necessary.
6. The Committee on Personnel Policy (six elected members) shall advise the Dean on all policies affecting faculty appointments and their termination, promotions, tenure, salary ranges, benefits, and other policies related to the professional performance, evaluation and welfare of the faculty, as administered by the Dean. One from among the Associate Dean for the Humanities and the Arts, the Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, and the Associate Dean for the Sciences, and one member of the Steering Committee shall be an ex officio but non-voting member of the Committee on Personnel Policy.
7. The Committee on Faculty Rules (six elected members) shall be empowered to interpret the academic rules of the Faculty and to determine how they are to be applied to individual undergraduate students who appeal decisions made in their cases by the Association Deans. From the decisions of the Committee on Faculty Rules there ordinarily shall be no appeal. If an appeal from a decision of the Committee is to be heard, it shall be heard by the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs. One member of the Steering Committee will serve as an ex officio and non-voting member of the Committee on Faculty Rules.
8. No Committee of the Faculty shall be precluded by a lack of specific directions from considering any matter lying within the area of its concern if such matter may reasonably be inferred from the name of the Committee.
9. Committees shall deal promptly and efficiently with resolutions or enactments referred to them for study and/or recommendation, and shall ordinarily report back to the Faculty at its next regular meeting, unless the Faculty has set a more distant reporting date.
10. Committees of the Faculty shall meet at the call of the chair, or upon written request to the chair by one-third of the members of the Committee, or upon written request by the Steering Committee.
11. The chair of each Committee shall convene the Committee, including its newly elected members, in the late spring of any given session for the purpose of electing the chair for the succeeding year. Outgoing members shall not vote in electing the chair for the succeeding year.

Nominations and Elections to Faculty Committees

Members of all Committees shall be elected for three-year terms, to commence on the first day of classes in the fall semester, and one-third of the membership of each committee shall be elected each year. Members of the Committees shall be eligible for re-election, except that it shall not be regarded as normal for any elected member to serve more than two consecutive terms on any one Committee, nor shall it regarded as normal for any elected member to serve on more than one standing Committee at the same time.

The membership of each Committee shall be equally divided among the three principal disciplinary areas: the natural sciences, the social sciences, and arts and humanities, and each Committee shall have no more than one member from any single department.
Nominations for membership on the Committees of the Faculty shall be conducted as follows:
1. Before the end of the fall semester of any given session the Nominating Committee shall solicit from the Faculty nominations for pending vacancies on each Committee, with the single exception of the Nominating Committee itself, and the Faculty shall receive two notices, approximately one month apart, calling for such nominations. In addition to nominations made at large, the Nominating Committee may also make nominations. From the nominations thus acquired the Nominating Committee shall propose a slate of nominees for each Committee (again with the exception of itself). Those slates shall normally contain at least twice as many names as the vacancies to be filled, and those names shall be allocated as the disciplinary areas to be represented require (see VI.A. above), and in proposing its slates the Nominating Committee shall also have an eye to gender and ethnic diversity.
2. Nominations for membership on the Nominating Committee shall be acquired, and a slate of nominees developed, by the same procedures and with the same conditions, except that the Steering Committee shall operate as the Nominating Committee for the Nominating Committee.
Elections to Membership on the Committees of the Faculty shall be conducted as follows:
1. During the spring semester, ordinarily no later than March, the slates of nominees developed by the Nominating Committee and the Steering Committee shall be presented by electronic mail to the Faculty by the Secretary of the Faculty.
2. Voting shall be by electronic mail during a one-week period following the presentation of the slates.
3. The results of the elections shall be promptly announced to the Faculty by the Secretary of the Faculty.
4. In the event that an elected member of any committee is unable to complete his or her term by reason of academic leave, illness, retirement, or other cause, the Nominating Committee shall propose a slate of at least two names and the Secretary shall conduct an ad hoc election of a substitute for that interim. If the period of service so vacated is less than one year, then a replacement may be appointed until the next full election, as per the arrangement for temporary arrangements, below.
5. Any nominee who is not elected to a given standing committee will be considered an alternate for the next academic year for any elected member of said committee who is unable to serve for one or both semesters by reason of academic leave, illness, retirement, or other cause. Alternates will be chosen in the order of votes received in the election. This provision does not preclude the alternate from renomination to this or any other standing committee in the subsequent election.
When an issue arises that does not fall within the purview of a standing committee of the faculty, an ad hoc committee of the Faculty may be appointed by the Dean or by the Steering Committee, or may be elected by the Faculty, as it determines.

Faculty Senate Election

Each department shall elect a member from its faculty to a four-year term on the University’s Faculty Senate. A departmental representative can be re-elected at the end of his/her term if the faculty in the department so vote. The result of the departmental election shall be communicated to the Office of the Dean by the end of February in the last year of the departmental representative’s term.
Senatorial seats assigned to the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in excess of the number of departments (approximately ten seats) shall be filled by a college-wide election. Candidates for these positions will be nominated by the Nominating Committee. When the terms of these senators expire, they shall not be eligible for re-election until a year has elapsed.

Meetings of the Faculty

Regular meetings of the Faculty shall ordinarily be called by the Steering Committee in consultation with the Dean, but may also be called by the Dean as necessary. Written notice and the agenda of each meeting including drafts of any substantive proposals shall be provided at least one week prior to the meeting.
Meetings of the Faculty may also be called upon resolution made in a scheduled meeting of the Faculty, or upon written petition to the Steering Committee by twenty-five members of the Faculty. The Steering Committee shall then call a meeting within ten days. Petitions must include signatures from members of at least two departments.
In the event of an emergency, rules governing advance call for the meeting may be waived by the Steering Committee or by the Dean, except that action taken by such a meeting shall not be valid unless the members present, by two-thirds vote, confirm the existence of such emergency.
Under normal circumstances, the Chair of the Steering Committee shall preside at meetings of the Faculty.
A quorum shall be assumed unless called from the floor. If called, a quorum shall consist of forty persons qualified to vote.
Voting shall be limited to the eligible members present, and a majority determined by voice vote or, at the request of two members, by secret ballot. A mail ballot by the entire faculty shall be conducted if requested by a majority of those present.
The Faculty shall have the right to invite administrators and advisors to its meetings. Such persons shall be entitled to speak at meetings to which they are invited, but they shall not be entitled to vote.
The Faculty shall have the right to move into executive session under the conditions and by choice of method delineated in Robert’s Rules of Order, Revised.
Robert’s Rules of Order, Revised shall govern meetings of the Faculty in all cases in which they apply and do not conflict with these Bylaws.

Amendment of the Bylaws

Amendment of or addition to these Bylaws may be made at any meeting of the Faculty by two-thirds vote of the members present and voting, provided that notice of the proposed amendment or addition shall have been sent forth with the notice of the meeting.

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