• We originally were going to propose that the APP have 8 members, to ensure equal distribution across divisions. We received considerable feedback from faculty that an 8 person committee that also includes the Dean of the Faculty, would be unwieldy and finding meeting times would become logistically difficult. Six seemed like a compromise which retains efficiency of discussion, broadens the conversation in the committee and makes scheduling easier.

• The COG has the authority to appoint three people to the APP, while three members will be elected. We expect the committee to pay attention to who elected members represent, and use the appointment process to ensure diversity. For example, if the three elected positions represent large academic units in the social sciences and the humanities, we envision COP ensuring different viewpoints by thinking about including members from smaller academic units.

• Ultimately we want members of the APP to think about what is good for the college in making its decisions, instead of advocating for their own units/affinities and divisions.

• The division chair charge would remain as it is in the Faculty Handbook, as they will not be expected to sit on any of the committees as a function of their job:

“Division chairs are charged with meeting with the departments and programs within their division, supporting and advising the faculty within their division (at all stages of their career), participate in the process for evaluation of faculty as described in Article III: Evaluation Procedures, meeting routinely with department and program chairs within the division so as to advance departmental/program aims and help solve problems. Additional responsibilities may be set by the dean of the faculty.”

• The key is that there will be consistent conversation between APP and CIPE. These committees are not meant to work in silos – there is an expectation on the part of the liaison to foster communication in both directions so that the work is aligned.

• Creating a separate committee that focuses on educational policy is part of our goal of distributing faculty power over key issues of importance to faculty. This is in response to faculty concern that our current structure consolidates too much power in a small group of faculty.

• Creating a separate committee helps bring in three groups that have not had access to participating in key decisions around our curriculum: it will allow for pre-tenure people to sit on the committee, it will systematize the voice of students in conversations about educational policy, and it will allow for more staff expertise in these conversations.

• No. AAC makes many decisions (Phillips fellowships, enhanced sabbaticals, line allocations, course replacements) and oversees the curriculum (playing a role in Academic Unit reviews, overseeing General Education curriculum). These functions are distributed throughout the proposed governance system (FSG decides on Phillips and enhanced sabbaticals; CIPE oversees Gen Ed curriculum and academic unit reviews; APP decides on line allocations and replacement courses). But unlike in the days prior to the AAC, where there was a Committee of Five (who made line allocation decisions) and an EPC (who oversaw the Gen Ed curriculum) and where each committee was not aware of what the other committee was doing, the APP is constituted by members from CIPE, FSG, BFAC, and CPM, ensuring collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

• The APP and the dean of the faculty make those decisions.

• Working across committees is essential to effective governance. Adopting good practice, like taking committee minutes, may initially seem labor intensive as it is new, but the effort will save time and energy by making sure faculty are aware of key debates, and allow for the building of historical knowledge that is useful in future conversations.

• Currently, some of this function is provided by the DoF, and our proposal seeks to shift this for faculty taking responsibility for reaching out to each other to talk about shared work.

• In particular, our clarification of responsibilities of committee chairs should facilitate more efficiency.

• Also, communication should be streamlined with some APP members serving on CIPE, CPM, FSG, and BFAC.

• Based on some earlier work by our external consultants  and our current practice, we are using a guideline of expectation that each permanent  faculty member is expected to serve on two committees per year, beyond the work in their own academic unit.

• Only four of the APP members (not all 6) will be expected to serve on two committees per year.  We expect that the members will rotate committee liaison responsibilities to account for any variation in committee workload.

• There may be exceptional circumstances that mean that an individual is asked by CoG to serve on multiple committees beyond these two due to their unique expertise. In these cases, we expect COG and the faculty member to discuss ways to reduce the service load.

• As you note, we’ve tried to improve information flow in two key ways: having APP members serve on CIPE, CPM, BFAC, and FGS and requiring the keeping and sharing of agendas and minutes. Not only will this help with matters currently under debate, the keeping of minutes should help preserve historical memory (and save the time that comes with unearthing what happened in past semesters/years).

• We think that clearer committee charges and distributing the work to make each committee more specialized will allow for routinization of some tasks, while still making careful decisions.

• The six committees we’ve proposed are also relatively small (all 4-6 faculty members), which should make debate and decision-making more streamlined.

• Finally, the reduced reliance on elections should make constituting committees easier.

• The following is included in the legislation (from Section 1b): “Equity and Inclusion: All committees of the faculty shall attend to equity and inclusion in the manner and product of their work to create a culture that values collaborative leadership among a diverse group. Equitable is defined as follows: workload and leadership responsibilities shall be evenly distributed across faculty members within rank and across time. Inclusive is defined as follows: faculty shall listen to, recognize, and value the different and unique perspectives and expertise of all committee members. Faculty shall attend to power differences within committees.”
• As to appointments specifically, more appointed seats gives COG greater flexibility in ensuring that faculty rotate on and off committees in a regular manner, and can be attentive to axes of identity, such as race, ethnicity, gender, discipline and rank, professional expertise, among other things. 
• The Committee on Governance (COG) will be charged with regularly updating the faculty around how committee positions rotate, and how the work of faculty governance is distributed. The Office of the Dean of the Faculty will be responsible for keeping records of committee work done by faculty, and updating the database each semester. The data gathered will include who sits on faculty committees, who sits on program committees, who is chair, who sits on ad hoc committees, who is writing letters for the Committee on Personnel, and who is serving on search committees. This kind of information can inform the work of COG as they make appointments, helping them promote a more equitable division of labor.

• Being appointed to a committee does not mean that you are a lesser member of that committee, but rather we think that the combination of elections and appointment will help broaden participation in key governance conversations at Bates.

• We do not think that it would be appropriate for CoG to appoint its own members, hence we propose that all members of that committee be elected.

• Elections allow for faculty to exercise a collective voice about whom they would like to serve on committees, however elections cannot ensure that a diverse range of perspectives are reflected on a committee. By having some seats elected and some appointed, we intend that faculty have some voice in populating important committees.

• One important difference between COG and CFG is that COG is explicitly charged with attending to equity and inclusion in its work. This means that the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion is a regular member of COG and can provide ongoing advice to the committee on equity and inclusion in committee appointments and election slates. The COG is also explicitly charged with educating faculty about governance. This is important in itself and also valuable in promoting transparency and legibility of governance work, as well as equity and inclusion.

• Several committees include staff members. These include BFAC, which includes the VP of Finance, the Committee on Governance includes the Dean, the President and the VP of Equity and Inclusion, and the Curricular Management and Planning Committee (CMP) includes the registrar. Other committees have either the DOF or a designated representative on them (APP, CIPE, CMP).

• If this legislation is adopted, the next academic year will be the transition year into the new structure. That time will be used to determine how to engage staff with CIPE specifically, but for now, we expect that the CIPE will work with relevant staff as needed.

• In addition, we did not make changes to a number of committees with significant staff presence or impact, like the Writing Committee and MLK Day Committee, both of which include staff members.

• Academic staff are welcome to bring issues directly to committees for consideration

• All committees are also expected to consult with relevant stakeholders, including staff, as they go about their work.

• We are proposing no changes to the writing committee as the committee has a newly modified charge. It is possible that its work will change when Bates opens a center for inclusive teaching and learning.

This work will be done by CIPE, which will work with the Center for Global Education.

• Oversight of the curriculum is central to faculty governance and faculty power. In distributing workloads across the committees our legislation is proposing, we thought critically about the workload issue. We estimate this committee will have to meet once a week for between one and two hours.

• We recognize that the current CIPE charge is ambitious. However, we expect some of the work will be coordinated with the implementation of a center for teaching and learning. We expect the charge and membership of the CIPE to be updated when we know more about the center.

• We also expect that the committees will continue to be evaluated by CoG for workload implications and to make adjustments as needed.

• Suppose that psychology decided to require calculus in their major. CPM would review this suggested modification and consider whether it had significant workload implications for the math department. If so, it might be that CMP would consult with both CIPE and APP before approving this curriculum change.

• The relationship described in the BFAC charge is that BFAC will consult with Admissions as relevant. We envision this kind of consultation taking place around issues and decisions that would impact admissions numbers or yield, financial aid, donations tied to financial aid, etc.

• Currently the Curricular Review Committee meets an hour a week.

• G. The committee is charged with periodically reviewing policies governing the honors thesis policies and other academic requests. We do not expect this to happen often.

• H. The committee is charged with organizing the honors banquet. The committee’s primary responsibility will be to select a speaker for the honors banquet; the banquet itself will be planned by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. We will change this language accordingly.

• Our proposed structure aims to distribute power to a larger group of faculty, by taking the issues and work assigned to the current AAC and distributing them across 5 committees.

• Currently the four members of the AAC and the dean are charged with both overseeing educational policy and allocating resources. By creating a separate committee for Educational Policy and Innovation with four faculty members, and an APP with six faculty members, this  proposal increases the number of faculty involved in discussing and making key decisions relevant to our curriculum and resource allocation.

• Elections currently are regarded as popularity contests, and we frequently have the same people rotate through key positions of power. For now, we propose reducing the number of elected seats to make the work of the COG easier, and allow the committee the flexibility of appointed seats to be used to diversify viewpoints on committees.

• Our proposal is to have the president be ex officio on committees that are relevant to the Office of the President. In our proposal, this includes BFAC, Admissions and Financial Aid, and COG.

• The Dean of Faculty will remain ex-officio on all faculty committees.

• Any faculty member in a full-time appointment or in a joint appointment or appointed in an ongoing lectureship is eligible to serve.

• Any VAP (full time or .8) who has three years of service at Bates is eligible and  can serve on committees, and can put in a request with COG to be considered for committee service. 

• Faculty in ongoing lectureships or who are senior lecturers frequently have contracts that are .8. They will be eligible to serve on committees if they so choose.

• Tenure stream faculty who share a full-time position are considered to occupy a full-time position, and should do committee work reflecting that. For example, if the norm is serving on two committees, they should collectively serve on two committees.

• We’ve left untouched several committees that do have students, and propose having students on CIPE. Ad hoc committees also frequently include student members, when these committees all address issues relevant to students. The proposed changes here involve a small number of committees tied to the work of faculty governance specifically.

• In addition, committees are charged with consulting relevant stakeholders, which might include students at times.

• Committees who meet with trustees have this as part of their charge.

• The FGRC is advocating for a model where all support for faculty scholarship and pedagogy goes through the same committee. We have faith that our colleagues on the proposed committee will consider the applications with due diligence, using the criteria that already exist.

• In awarding BFDF and sabbatical funding, we do not have the expectation that a chemist or an environmental studies professor (for example) be reviewed by someone from their respective disciplines, instead the model is that the applicant writes an application that is understandable to a broader audience.

• The NEH Language Committee was created by the DOF in order to make sure that everyone in the languages would have knowledge of the financial support for languages, and to ensure equitable access. By moving the NEH to the Faculty Scholarship and Grants committee, this support will be more visible and encourage transparency across the languages and the college.

• It is the intention of the FGRC that all of that work goes to CIPE, and we will update the language accordingly.

• We think there is more work to be done around which staff directors need their own committees, and which ones can interact with standing committees as a matter of course.

• No.

• Our proposals for centralizing grants to faculty has to do with funding and grants that Bates has in perpetuity.

• The Mellon and the HHMI committees are both grant funded ad-hoc committees, which will go away once the grant period is done. When Bates receives such curricular grants, the granting agencies have expectations that the college creates structures to oversee the use of funds.

• Faculty who serve on these committees get stipends for this work, which are paid for by the grant, for the duration of these grants which typically are 5 years.

• Elections are also not ideal in ensuring distribution of the work of faculty governance and ensuring diversity of perspectives around the table. Given that the COG will be asked to ensure equitable distribution of committee work, this will make that task easier.

• In discussions with faculty about appointments versus elections, we  realized that many people are uncomfortable running for election, but would be willing to do the work of a particular committee if being appointed to it. 

• There will be a yearlong transition to the new system, overseen by CFG.

• We expect some people could carry over, while others would be new. Much like in a regular year.

• Any new curricular innovations requiring significant planning or resources would be brought to the Curriculum Innovation, Planning and Evaluation Committee. CIPE could gather additional information from other committees as needed during meetings of the APP, but any legislation would be brought to faculty committee meeting by CIPE.

• This would be the work of the Curriculum Innovation, Planning and Evaluation Committee, and any legislation would be brought to faculty committee meeting by CIPE.

• This request would go through the Budget and Finance Advisory committee. Each committee is charged with thinking about how equity and inclusion may be part of their work, and so this committee would be well situated to recommend and help plan an Institutional Research study on pay equity within faculty, evaluate any reports, make recommendations to the DoF and communicate findings to the faculty.

• This would be discussed in Curricular Policy and Management. While CPM may work with CIPE on some aspects, this would still relate to likely a policy adjustment. If a more significant resource allocation and/or pedagogy is resulting, then it may be re-routed to Curricular Innovations, Planning, and Evaluation.

• Faculty with appointments in an academic unit are considered to be from the division where their academic unit lives.

• For faculty serving on interdisciplinary programs or in academic units beyond their home unit could be considered to be “from” their secondary division after at least three years of service.