At our last meeting of the semester, the task force settled on the language below as our proposal for expanding the faculty representation within and faculty eligibility for the Faculty Senate.  The basic shifts are as follows:

• Departmental size should be determined by the full-time equivalents (FTEs) of all faculty in each department or unit.
• The faculty eligible to serve on the Senate should be any faculty members (still excepting some administrators) who have been on faculty at the university and have been benefits-eligible for the full prior academic year.

To compare the proposed language below to the current Constitution and Bylaws, please see those respective links.

Constitution

ARTICLE III: ORGANIZATION

Section 1.

The Senate membership shall be limited to faculty who qualify as Eligible Faculty. Eligible Faculty as used in this Constitution shall mean faculty employees of the University of Mississippi (excluding UMMC) on a tenure line or on one of these tracks: instructor/lecturer; clinical, instructional, or of practice; adjunct; visiting; or research. Excepted from Eligible Faculty are assistant or associate deans, deans, assistant or associate provosts, the Provost, vice chancellors, the Chancellor, or those holding other administrative positions outside of the academic departments or the libraries. Eligible Faculty must have been on the faculty at the University of Mississippi and have been benefits-eligible for the full current academic year.

Section 2.

The membership quota of the Senate shall consist of a minimum of one senator elected by each of the departments in the College of Liberal Arts, the School of Accountancy, the School of Applied Sciences, the School of Business Administration, the School of Education, the School of Engineering, the School of Law, the School of Pharmacy, the School of Journalism and New Media, the faculty of the University Libraries, and the Research faculty.  To account for variation in size of departments, additional Senate seats will be allocated based on full-time equivalents (FTEs) of the full faculty as follows: departments will receive an extra seat for each full standard deviation above the institutional mean FTE.  

Bylaws

ARTICLE III: ORGANIZATION

Section 1. Eligible Faculty

(a) Faculty employees of the University of Mississippi (excluding UMMC) on a tenure line or on one of these tracks: instructor/lecturer; clinical, instructional, or of practice; adjunct; visiting; or research.

(b) The definition of Eligible Faculty does not include the following:

Assistant or associate deans, deans, assistant and associate provosts, the Provost, vice chancellors, the Chancellor, or those holding other administrative positions outside of the academic departments or the libraries.

(c) Must have been on the faculty at the University of Mississippi and have been benefits-eligible for the full current academic year.

Section 2. Membership Quota

(a) References to the colleges and schools in the Constitution have been interpreted regularly to include the colleges and schools in which faculty are budgeted and thus do not include the Graduate School or General Studies.

(b) Senate representation will be determined by a census of the full faculty (listed by departmental affiliation) based on full-time equivalencies (FTEs) prepared by the Office of Institutional Research and submitted to the Executive Committee of the Senate by March 1 of each year. Using this data to derive the statistical mean for department size and the standard deviation from this mean, the Executive Committee will determine Senate representation by department (or other electing unit) for the following academic year, and by April 1 will notify each department (or other electing unit) of the number of Senate seats allotted to that department or unit for the following year.