September 9, 2010
Faculty Governance News
vol. 5.1
September 9, 2010
From the UNC Office of Faculty Governance
200-204 Carr Building
UNC-CH Campus Box 9170
Contact: Anne M. Whisnant (anne_whisnant@unc.edu)
Faculty Council and General Faculty to hold first meeting, Friday, September 10
The Faculty Council’s first monthly meeting of the year will be held Friday, September 10, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. in the Hitchcock Multipurpose Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. This meeting also constitutes the fall meeting of the General Faculty, as prescribed in the Faculty Code of University Government. All faculty are invited to attend this — and all — Faculty Council meetings.
The agenda for Friday’s meeting is online here.
A major portion of the meeting will be devoted to using the techniques of “Appreciative Inquiry” to consider the Faculty Council’s role and work process for the coming year. The Council will also consider a resolution having to do with the new policy about excused absences for student religious observation and will hear an update from Chancellor Holden Thorp.
New member orientation will begin at 2:00 p.m. The highlight of this event will be Secretary of the Faculty Joe Ferrell’s not-to-be-missed presentation about the history of faculty governance at UNC, which traces its roots to President David Lowry Swain’s weekly all-faculty meetings instituted after he became UNC’s president in 1836. All Faculty Council members are welcome to attend the orientation, but it is designed for members who have not served before and will include an introduction to the protocols and practices of Faculty Council as well.
For the complete Faculty Council meeting schedule for the year, as well as for agendas and meeting minutes of all Faculty Council meetings from 1997 to the present, please visit the Faculty Council page of the Faculty Governance website.
Chair of the Faculty encourages faculty to discuss plagiarism with students; recommends Library’s animated tutorial
Chair of the Faculty McKay Coble urges all faculty to discuss issues of plagiarism with their students and recommends the University Libraries’ engaging aminated tutorial on this often poorly-understood topic. Additionally, faculty members can find information about their role in the university’s honor system at the honor system’s “For Faculty” page.
Faculty governance FAQs now available
In past issues of this publication, we have occasionally featured a few FAQs about faculty governance at UNC. This year, we’ve compiled those on a new FAQ page of the Faculty Governance website, which we invite you to peruse. Here we address issues such as “Are fixed-term faculty allowed to vote in faculty elections?” and “Does Faculty Council meet in the summer?” If you have a question you’d like answered, please email it to Anne Whisnant at anne_whisnant@unc.edu, and we’ll try to answer it and add to this list.
Faculty Governance meetings calendar online
All scheduled meetings of both the Faculty Council and many of the standing committees of the faculty are listed on our Faculty Governance Google calendar. Check it out to better understand the operations of faculty governance here at UNC!
2011 Distinguished Alumna/us Award nominees sought; Deadline for nominations is October 15
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2011 UNC Distinguished Alumna/us Awards, which will be presented at the 2011 University Day ceremony. The deadline for nominations is Friday, October 15, 2010, and anyone may submit a nomination. The Faculty Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards selects winners. Nomination letters should include appropriate biographical information and a statement in support of the nomination that shows the nominee’s contribution to humanity in any walk of life. Supporting letters often accompany nominations, but the content, not the number, of these letters is what counts.
Nomination letters may be sent to the Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards, Campus Box 9170 or by email to anne_whisnant@unc.edu. Please read the complete criteria and instructions for making a nomination here.
Faculty coffee hours are back at the Faculty Commons at the Campus Y: 9:00-11:00 a.m. daily!
The Office of Faculty Governance is pleased to announce the return of free coffee for faculty and their guests at the Anne Queen Faculty Commons at the Campus Y. The coffee hours run from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. each weekday. The Faculty Commons is a beautifully renovated space where faculty and their guests can gather for impromptu get-togethers or conversations. The room is kept unscheduled each day until 1:30 p.m., but faculty groups can reserve the room for faculty-oriented programs in the afternoons. Please contact Anne Whisnant in the Office of Faculty Governance (962-1671) for more details or check out the room regulations, calendar, and reservation form online.
Association for Women Faculty and Professionals holds fall reception, September 29
The UNC Association for Women Faculty and Professionals invites all women faculty to its fall reception, to be held Thursday, September 29, 2010 from 5:00-6:30 p.m. in the Pleasants Family Room at Wilson Library. Since 1978, the AWFP has offered women faculty opportunities for fun, networking and learning through social activities, seminars, discussion groups and other events. The diverse membership, expanded to include professional women in 1992, now includes faculty, researchers, administrators, librarians, communicators, fundraisers, medical and legal professionals, and other UNC faculty and staff.
For more information, please visit the AWFP website or contact AWFP president Beth Millwood at emillwoo@email.unc.edu.
Faculty Governance Resource Room
Articles, books, reports, or other resources of interest to faculty. This week’s selections:
- UNC’s annual Diversity Plan Report, 2009-10: Summary of information provided by campus academic and administrative units on ways they addressed the goals of the 2006-2010 University Diversity Plan and the outcomes of these efforts.
- NY Times article on two new books considering future of tenure in higher education: Christopher Shea, “The End of Tenure?” (New York Times, 3 September 2010)
- New book: Over Ten Million Served: Gendered Service in Language and Literature Workplaces, edited by Michelle A. Massé and Katie J. Hogan (Suny Press, 2010). Billed as the “first book on gender and academic service.”
About Faculty Governance News
The Faculty Governance News is published approximately every two weeks throughout the academic year and once monthly during the summer by the Office of Faculty Governance. Archived issues and the publication schedule are available online here. Information to be considered for inclusion should be sent to Anne Whisnant (anne_whisnant@unc.edu) by Monday before an issue is scheduled to appear.
For more information on any of these items, please contact Anne Whisnant in the Office of Faculty Governance.
