The purpose of the committee is to advise the dean, and is not to supplant the functioning of campus-level faculty governance units such as the University Committee and the Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities. The purpose is to help resolve issues informally at the College level.

Procedures: Faculty are encouraged to resolve disagreements and disputes at the departmental level. When this is not possible, any faculty member may contact the dean regarding redress at the College level.

In all matters, the following guidelines and procedural rules apply:

1. The faculty member filing a grievance has the burden of identifying the specific inequity claimed, exhausting all available remedies at the departmental level, and formulating a specific proposal for relief.
2. The committee shall share the matter and all relevant documents with all concerned parties, including the chair(s) of the faculty member’s department(s) and program(s). The chair(s) will normally be invited to respond in writing to the complaint to explain the reasons for the challenged actions.
3. The committee shall have access to all data and other information, which it deems necessary and appropriate.
4. The committee may, at its discretion, invite the faculty member and others with relevant information, including but not limited to the department or program chair(s) or director(s), to appear in person to discuss the matter.
5. All personnel matters before the committee shall be considered in confidence; all such meetings shall be closed.
6. Anyone appearing before the committee may be accompanied and counseled by a personal representative.
7. The committee’s findings shall take the form of a report and recommendation to the dean. The committee shall notify the faculty member that the report has been submitted to the dean. It is the Dean’s responsibility to communicate the report to the faculty member and other relevant parties in a timely manner.
8. The faculty member shall have the opportunity to comment on the committee’s report, after which the Dean shall make the final determination.
9. The committee may establish from time-to-time additional procedures to govern its activities, and submit them to the dean for approval.
10. All L&S faculty shall be informed on a timely basis of these rules and procedures, and any modifications.
11. Committee records shall be archived in the Dean’s Office.
12. On an annual basis, the committee shall make a general report and recommendations, including summary statistics, to the Dean and the L&S Senate.

With regard to salary adjustments, the following additional guidelines and procedural rules apply:

1. The faculty member seeking a salary adjustment has the burden of demonstrating that the challenged salary increase or gap is unreasonable by comparison with salaries within his or her own department(s), and formulating a specific salary adjustment.
2. The committee will not ordinarily substitute its own judgment for the department’s determination of the professional accomplishments and merits of the faculty member, nor the department’s judgment about the faculty member’s teaching, service, and research quality, significance, and productivity. However, within the framework of the department’s system for determining merit and/or its teaching/research/clinical priorities, and the faculty member’s specified duties, the committee may consider whether the faculty member’s salary level within the department is reasonable.
3. If the faculty member makes a case that a lower than expected salary increase or unjustified salary level is the result of a departmental process that operated in his or her case in a discriminatory manner (e.g. by evaluating him or her in a way inconsistent with department policy, or by using impermissible factors such as race, gender, etc. … See UWS 3.08), the committee will examine the evidence and make a recommendation. The committee is not, however, expected to make "findings of law," and most salary grievances should not be transformed into questions of law in the committee’s proceedings.
4. The committee’s judgment regarding a possible salary adjustment is a recommendation and shall not take into account its estimate of the resources available to the College. The Dean’s responsibility is to determine if an adjustment is required, the amount and timing of the adjustment, and which unit(s) shall bear the cost.

Membership: The committee shall consist of 6 members of the tenured faculty, appointed by the dean in consultation with the L&S Academic Planning Committee and the L&S Nominations Committee. The members shall serve staggered three-year terms, with two members from each of the College’s three academic divisions, with one member each from the physical and the biological sciences.

September 1999

NC August 2006