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Faculty Governance News Digest

vol. 2.8

January 23, 2008

From the UNC Office of Faculty Governance
200-204 Carr Building
UNC-CH Campus
Contact:  Anne M. Whisnant (anne_whisnant@unc.edu)

Faculty Council to meet Friday, January 25th

The Faculty Council will meet Friday, January 25, 2008 at 3 p.m. in the Hitchcock Multipurpose Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.  Topics include a resolution by the Faculty Research Committee to create a faculty sabbatical program.

For the complete agenda, go to https://facultygov.unc.edu/faculty-council-and-committees/.

December Faculty Council meeting minutes now online

The minutes for the December 7, 2007 Faculty Council meeting are now available online here: https://facultygov.unc.edu/faculty-council-and-committees/

Policy for Priority Registration takes effect

In December 2007 the Faculty Council adopted a Policy for Priority Registration.  The University Registrar has announced the membership of the Priority Registration Advisory Committee and the process and timeline for submitting requests for priority registration on behalf of student groups.  The official responsible for students who are potentially eligible for priority registration should send the Registrar an application form along with a list of students who are recommended for priority registration no later than February 22, 2008.  Complete details are available on the Registrar’s website at   http://registrar.unc.edu/registration/registration-policies/priority-registration-advisory-committee/.

Faculty Elections are coming up

The annual elections for the Faculty Council and faculty committees will take place in April.  All members of the Voting Faculty will receive a survey in early February in which they can indicate an interest in serving on one of the eleven elected or thirteen appointed faculty committees.

In 2007, only 395 (14%) of 2814 eligible faculty members voted, down from previous years’ average turnout of over 20%.

Chancellor Search Committee meets January 24th

The Chancellor Search Committee will meet January 24, 2008 at 1 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge of the Morehead Building. Some business is authorized by the N.C. Open Meetings Law to be conducted in closed session.

For future meeting dates and more information, see http://www.unc.edu/chan/search/.

N.C. Tomorrow Commission report released

The University of North Carolina Tomorrow Commission report was released in December. The commission’s goal was to determine how the University of North Carolina can respond to the 21st century challenges facing North Carolina through the efficient and effective fulfillment of its three-pronged mission of teaching, research and scholarship, and public service.

To read the report, go to http://www.nctomorrow.org/

“Focus the Nation” invites faculty participation in January 31 teach-in on global warming

Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America is a national initiative to get 1,000 colleges, universities, business and other civic organizations in the United States to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about effects of and solutions to global warming. The main “teach-in” will take place next Thursday, January 31, but it is open to those teaching a MWF course on January 30 or February 1 as well. The goal is to have every professor and teaching assistant in every classroom spend a minimum of five to ten minutes on the teach-in dates discussing climate change from the perspective of their discipline.

If you would like to participate, please contact Anslei Foster at afoster@unc.edu.

CITations highlights technology news

CITations is a twice-monthly report produced by the ITS Teaching and Learning division that highlights technology-related news of interest to faculty, graduate students and staff.

To view previous issues of CITations, please visit:  https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/list/uuid:e8df5b8e-7847-4493-86ba-b30bf4cf5cba

Faculty Governance Reading Room

An occasional feature highlighting interesting reading about universities, faculties, and governance.  This week’s selection:

  • A fantastic new research management tool is now available:  Do you know about Zotero?
    Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension that helps you gather, organize, and analyze research sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself. Zotero is a production of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It is generously funded by the United States Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.To learn more, visit http://www.zotero.org/

For more information on any of these items, please contact Anne Whisnant in the Office of Faculty Governance.