I.12 PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING: DEPARTMENTAL AND PROGRAM CHAIRS, DIRECTORS OF L&S PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS

Faculty policy requires that the faculty members of each academic department be given the opportunity to express their preference for departmental chair each year by secret ballot. (See FPP, 5.30 for details of this provision.) Appointment of a departmental chair is by the Dean for one year at a time following the annual preferential balloting by the departmental faculty.  The professional schools within L&S come under the same Faculty Policy and Procedures rules regarding annual preferential ballots as departments. It is the practice in professional schools, however, to establish terms for the director, such as five years. The preferential ballot for a new director should include a statement passed by the executive committee about the term, and annual preferential ballots will not be required.

Most departments conduct the balloting for departmental chair in the spring of each year, and it should in any event be completed by the end of April.  Because this is a preferential ballot, individual faculty members need not sign their ballots. If a department so wishes, it may designate someone to count the ballots before they are transmitted to the Dean's Office. All ballots must be transmitted by the departmental chair to the Dean.

College policy treats most L&S program chair positions in the same way, with the Dean appointing the chair of the program on the basis of an annual advisory preferential ballot by the members of the program faculty.

There is no stated limit to the number of successive years an individual may serve as the chair of a department or program. Most L&S departments have followed the practice of limiting the number of successive appointments as chair, however, with three years being the most prevalent.

Reviewed: August 7, 2006.