UWPF Chapter 3
Departments and Centers
3.01 Definitions
3.02 Departmental Faculty: Membership
3.03 Departmental Faculty: Functions
3.04 Departmental Executive Committee: Membership
3.05 Departmental Executive Committee: Functions
3.06 Departmental Chair: Method of Appointment
3.07 Departmental Chairperson: Duties and Responsibilities
3.08 Exceptions
3.09 Centers and Programs
3.01 Definitions
(1) A department shall consist of a group of faculty members recognized by the faculty and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and by the Board of Regents, as dealing with a common field of knowledge or as having a common or closely related disciplinary or interdisciplinary interest.
(2) The faculty and chancellor may establish centers to carry out other academic missions or for interdisciplinary teaching and research. Explicit approval of the faculty senate is required for interdisciplinary centers to offer courses or exercise other powers normally exercised by departments.
3.02 Departmental Faculty: Membership
(1) Departmental faculty shall consist of all members of the faculty as defined in 1.01(1) who hold appointments in the department. A faculty member who accepts one of the administrative positions listed in 3.04(5) shall retain his or her membership in the department, the right to participate in department meetings, and the right to vote on departmental matters not specifically assigned to the executive committee in 3.05.
The Departmental Executive Committee may grant to departmental academic staff members with training, experience and responsibility comparable to those in the faculty ranks the right to vote or participate otherwise in departmental faculty meetings, provided that this rule shall not be construed to withdraw any membership understanding or arrangements in effect at the time this rule was adopted.
(2) In the case of faculty members with joint appointments, the following shall apply.
(a) For the purpose of conducting departmental business under 3.03, a faculty member with a joint appointment shall be a member of each department in which he or she has formal teaching responsibilities.
(b) The faculty member’s home department shall be the one in which he or she has the greatest teaching responsibility. In cases where the teaching responsibilities are equal, the faculty member, the Departmental Executive Committees and the Dean will reach an agreement on which department shall be the home department.
(c) The Departmental Executive Committee of the home department shall be responsible for making recommendations regarding annual merit review, contract renewal, tenure, promotion and salary adjustments as specified in 3.05. The home department shall consult with the Departmental Executive Committees of the other department(s) in these matters.
(d) Upon being granted tenure, the faculty member shall become a member of the Departmental Executive Committee of the home department. He or she may be appointed to the other executive committee(s) by following the procedure in 3.08(2).
3.03 Departmental Faculty: Functions
The immediate governance of the department is vested in its departmental faculty (as defined in 3.02), which has jurisdiction over all the interests of the department, with authority to determine all departmental questions of educational and administrative policy, other than those matters which are vested in the Departmental Executive Committee by 3.05. The faculty of the department shall be responsible for teaching, research, and service, and shall carry out academic planning processes, including program assessment, on a regular basis. Each department shall meet at least once each semester, and minutes reflecting all formal actions taken shall be recorded.
3.04 Departmental Executive Committee: Membership
(1) Each department shall have a Departmental Executive Committee, consisting of all members of the department who are tenured professors, tenured associate professors, and, with the permission of the committee, tenured assistant professors*, except that faculty members with joint appointments are not automatically members of more than one Departmental Executive Committee as specified in 3.02(2)(d).
(2) A department chair who is a member of a Departmental Executive Committee is automatically chair of that committee. If the chair-designate is not a member of the Departmental Executive Committee (either is not tenured or is not a member of the department), the University Committee, in consultation with the chair-designate and the dean, shall make ad hoc arrangements for the operation of the Departmental Executive Committee.
(3) Members of the Departmental Executive Committee who are on leave may participate in its decisions insofar as participation is feasible in the judgment of the Executive Committee.
(4) The Departmental Executive Committee may designate a member of the department to serve as secretary, and determine the duties of the position.
(5) A faculty member who accepts an administrative appointment, including an interim appointment, as chancellor, provost/vice chancellor, associate vice chancellor, assistant chancellor, dean, associate dean, assistant dean, or assistants to such administrative officers shall not simultaneously be a member of a Departmental Executive Committee. This rule shall not preclude an Executive Committee's electing to confer or consult with any administrative officer on any matter, nor shall it preclude an administrative officer's attending any open meeting of any Executive Committee. A tenured faculty member will regain status as a member of the Departmental Executive Committee upon expiration or termination of the administrative appointment.
* Revision approved by Faculty Senate 12/2/03
3.05 Departmental Executive Committee: Functions
(1) The Departmental Executive Committee shall establish criteria for making personnel recommendations consistent with 6.01, and shall be responsible for making personnel recommendations including hiring, contract renewal, tenure, promotion except promotion to the rank of professor, merit review, post-tenure review and salary adjustments for faculty and academic staff. The departmental Executive Committee shall be the body called for by UWS 3.06(1) that provides the formal “affirmative recommendation” for initial appointments, contract renewal and tenure. It may, by annual vote, delegate to a subcommittee the authority to make personnel recommendations. Recommendations on personnel decisions shall be transmitted through the department chair to the dean.
(2) The Departmental Executive Committee shall delegate to the tenured full professors of the department the authority to make recommendations for promotions at the rank of professor.
(3) The Departmental Executive Committee shall be responsible for making decisions regarding the department’s budget. It may, by annual vote, delegate to a subcommittee or to the department chair the authority to make budget decisions.
3.06 Departmental Chair: Method of Appointment
(1) All members of a department faculty including those who are designated, in accordance with 3.02, as being eligible to vote by the Departmental Executive Committee, shall be given the opportunity to register an individual preference for departmental chair. Departments may authorize a preliminary procedure of nominating a limited number of candidates for departmental chair. Such individual preferences shall be communicated to the dean in due course following the request of the respective deans for same.
(2) The method of expression of individual preferences must include the use of a written preference ballot, which may be a mail ballot.
(3) In all cases, the individual preference ballots shall be received by the secretary of the faculty, who shall forward all individual preference ballots to the dean.
(4) A departmental faculty member on leave may express a preference provided the expression is not accomplished through a substitute person.
(5) The dean shall exercise the authority to appoint a chair from among the members of the department holding professorial rank provided:
(a) The dean has received and examined the individual preference ballots noted by the eligible members of the department.
(b) The dean has consulted with the vice chancellor.
(c) The dean has consulted the departmental faculty when the dean plans to decline the preference recommendations of the faculty members of a department.
(d) The dean has consulted both the departmental faculty and the University Committee when he/she contemplates appointment of an individual who is not a member of the faculty of the department or is not tenured.
(6) The term of office of a departmental chair shall not be longer than three (3) years; there is no limit upon the number of terms he/she may serve.
3.07 Departmental Chairperson: Duties and Responsibilities
In collaboration with department faculty and in consultation with the appropriate academic administrator, the department chair shall have primary responsibility and accountability for the following:
(1) Curriculum and Instruction
(a) Initiate and facilitate long-range curricular planning, including new program development.
(b) Administer periodic internal reviews of the department’s programmatic and service offerings, including its contributions to the university’s General Education program.
(c) Lead the department in carrying out required external reviews of academic curricula and assessment of student learning outcomes, addressing accreditation and licensing standards as appropriate.
(d) Submit new courses, major revisions of existing courses, deletion of courses and program revisions proposed by the department for action by the appropriate university committee.
(e) Oversee the preparation and timely submission of a cohesive, well considered course schedule.
(f) Assign teaching duties to departmental faculty and instructional staff in consultation with the department as a whole and subject to review by the departmental executive committee in accordance with PSF 11/95-96, Faculty Workload Policy Principles.
(g) Monitor class enrollments to identify wait-lists that need attention as well as classes with low enrollment; inform the college/school of situations requiring attention;
(h) Review courses in articulation and program-to-program agreements.
(i) Review requests for transfer credit analyses.
(j) Ensure that the UW-Parkside Catalog is accurate and up-to-date.
(k) Supervise the operations of departmental activities and facilities, such as classrooms, clinics and laboratories, especially as these operations are related to health and safety issues.
(2) Personnel
Coordinate annual faculty and staff evaluations, contract renewal consideration, and annual statements of progress toward tenure.
Initiate and schedule post-tenure reviews, in accordance with UWPF 3.05.
Assist tenure-track faculty in understanding the annual evaluation process, as well as the criteria and procedures for contract renewal, tenure and promotion.
Assist tenure-track faculty in preparing and assembling their tenure/promotion dossiers.
Schedule and establish the agenda for tenure/promotion meetings and ensure that university requirements for deadlines and notification are followed; oversee the solicitation of evaluations from external reviewers approved by the Departmental Executive Committee; prepare recommendation letter from the Executive Committee to the dean.
Oversee the appointment of all staff personnel, including student help; supervise and evaluate clerical and technical staff assigned to the department.
Ensure that PARs are appropriately prepared and submitted, search and screen committees are appropriately selected and prepared, searches are appropriately conducted, and recruitment paperwork is prepared in accordance with university policies and procedures.
Oversee the student grade appeal process in accordance with university policies and procedures.
(A) Budget and Resources
Exercise budget authority as delegated by the departmental executive committee under 3.05(3).
Administer the department’s 102 budgets (S&E, LTE, student help), as well as any other budgets assigned to the department, requesting temporary or permanent adjustments as appropriate.
Ensure that university policies and procedures are followed and that expenditure records are properly maintained and are accessible to the proper authorities.
Coordinate the development of budget plans and other resource requests (e.g., computer software, equipment, maintenance agreements, classroom/lab mod requests).
Work with appropriate university personnel in planning for use of new facilities.
(B) Leadership
Serve as the official channel of communications for all matters affecting the department as a whole between the department and the president, the chancellor, the dean, other university officials or departments, as appropriate.
Determine that all necessary records of meetings, teaching, research and service of the department are properly kept until archived.
Report to the dean regarding the activities and needs of the department.
Keep the department informed about budget-related matters.
E. Other duties as assigned by the dean or other appropriate university official.
The department chair may delegate duties other than personnel decisions to another faculty member in the Department or a subcommittee of faculty in the Department.
3.08 Exceptions
(1) If a Departmental Executive Committee consists of fewer than three tenured faculty, augmented members shall be appointed to bring its membership to at least three.
(a) Augmented members are appointed annually by the dean of the school or college, in consultation with the departmental faculty, and with the advice and consent of the University Committee,
(b) For matters other than consideration of cases of promotion to full professor, augmented members are appointed from tenured faculty members holding the rank of professor or associate professor in other departments of the university.
(c) For consideration of a candidate for promotion to full professor, the membership of the subcommittee of full professors must number at least three. If this requirement is not met, the membership of the subcommittee of full professors shall be augmented by the appointment of tenured faculty members holding the rank of professor in other departments of the university to bring its membership to three. Such augmentation is done following the procedure set forth in (a), above, and is solely for purposes of dealing with candidacies for promotion to full professor.
(2) The dean of the college or school may augment a Departmental Executive Committee or full professor subcommittee for reasons other than achieving a minimum membership of three faculty. Such augmentation is done following the procedure in 3.08(1). When seeking the advice and consent of the University Committee, the dean will provide a clear reason for the additional augmentation.
(3) The need for an augmented Departmental Executive Committee shall be reviewed annually by the departmental faculty and the dean.
3.09 Centers and Programs
(1) The director(s) of a center or program shall be appointed by the dean of the school or college in consultation with any faculty or staff associated with the center or with the University Committee. The director(s) shall serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority. (2) Centers or programs which exercise the curricular powers of departments shall have a steering committee consisting of the director(s) and other faculty and staff appointed by the dean of the school or college for staggered three year terms with no bar to reappointment. Other centers and programs may have such steering committees as seems appropriate and useful.
(a) The director(s) shall chair the steering committee
(b) Students and staff may be members of the steering committee, but a majority of its members must be faculty members.
Approved by the Faculty Senate, February 14, 1989. Revised by the Faculty Senate January 28, 1992. Revised by the Faculty Senate September 26, 1996 (PSF 30/95-96). Last revised by the Faculty Senate on April 20, 2010 (PSF 29/09-10).
PSF 30/95-96.