The Joint Faculty Senate/Provost Academic Affairs Shared Governance Implementation Team will continue the significant work of the Joint Faculty Senate/Provost Academic Affairs Shared Governance Task Force by reviewing the Spring 2023 recommendations and working closely with the co-chairs to assess specific recommendations and set goals and timelines for implementation.
The table below is best viewed at horizontal orientation on your device.
| Recommendation | Status | Notes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| M1. Protect Tenure and Academic Freedom | In discussion | The Task Force recognizes the crucial connection between tenure and academic freedom for faculty, on the one hand, and genuine shared governance on the other. JMU must reverse trends toward contingent hiring in the academy (both adjunct teaching faculty and those on other time-limited, non-tenure-track faculty contracts) in a concerted effort to restore a historic balance of tenured faculty in our faculty ranks and avoid the adjunctification that is sweeping higher education. (Local data analysis on this issue would be key.) This is the most primary and fundamental step JMU could take to creating a sustainable ongoing culture of meaningful shared governance. Substantive and meaningful faculty participation is a function of the health of the faculty as a whole, including the percentage of tenured faculty who have the necessary job security and academic freedom to speak truth to power. | |
| M2. Slow Down | In discussion | Wherever possible, and particularly in areas of joint authority and faculty primacy, JMU must resist the frenetic pace that seems to drive us to rapid decision-making and action as a default stance. We should recognize that we often make mistakes as a campus by moving faster than is necessary or supportive for shared governance. Slowing down is not an obstructionist tactic, and (importantly) does not mean that all parties must agree before action is taken; it simply leverages the power of shared governance to employ campus expertise more fully to inform decision-making and seek positive outcomes. A slower pace wherever possible would support better communications among stakeholders and encourage all parties to verify assumptions before acting. Key to breaking a pandemic-induced cycle of treating all action as emergency action will be the embracing of procedures that call for meaningful faculty input and require effectively “closing the loop” in communications. | |
| M3. Advance These Recommendations as One JMU | Addressed | The Implementation Team considers the appointment and work of the Shared Governance Implementation Team as fulfilling this recommendation. | This Task Force report and set of recommendations should be received jointly by the Faculty Senate and the Provost’s Office, jointly owned, taken forward, and considered to be a living document, with regular reporting to the President’s office and BOV, as well as clear intervals established for re-assessment of progress made and new initiatives needed to support the health of shared governance on campus. |
| M4. Include All Faculty | In discussion | The Senate is considering pathways to ensure full and effective voice for JMU’s instructional and professional faculty. | To ensure full and effective voice for JMU’s instructional and professional faculty in matters of shared governance, and the fair representation of faculty with professional appointments among our A&P faculty ranks, the JMU Faculty Senate should create a pathway to election and representation of JMU’s professional faculty members on the Senate. This could be similar to the recent inclusion of adjunct faculty senators or could entail the creation of new structures to represent A&P faculty concerns. |
| M5. Meaningfully Include Staff and Students | Scheduled for discussion | More attention should be paid to the role of staff members and students in shared governance at JMU, perhaps even through future examination of this issue in a dedicated committee or task force. | |
| M6. Stay Accountable for Progress | In discussion | The Provost’s Office and Faculty Senate should commit to and publish a timeline for regular cycles of ongoing, joint faculty/administrator/board assessments of the state of shared governance at JMU. These assessments should lead to the development of action plans to address areas identified for improvement. | |
| M7. Continue Crafting Charges Jointly | Addressed | Joint task forces in the division are formed and charged consistent with this recommendation. | For the establishment of future joint Faculty Senate/Provost’s task forces, it is crucial to ensure that members of the Provost’s Office/JMU senior administration and elected representatives of the faculty (through the Faculty Senate, college councils, appropriate department-level faculty committees and groups, etc.) have a co-equal and substantive opportunity to shape charges, goals, and timelines. This will enable the best choices to be made as to leadership and representation or membership for any given charge, and will allow for shared understanding as to goals and expected outcomes to be built and transparently communicated to all constituencies. |
| M8. Broaden Involvement | Scheduled for discussion | We further recommend that intentional pathways be created to ensure that different individuals (administrators and faculty) are nominated to task forces when multiple, interconnected efforts or parallel task forces are ongoing simultaneously. This could include, for example, open calls for participation and self-nominations. This will broaden leadership opportunities, help minimize confusion among efforts, maximize institutional knowledge and the diversity of perspectives represented, and avoid the misperception that broad, shared, and critical institutional efforts are driven by special interests or bound to reach foregone conclusions. | |
| M9. Balance Representation | Addressed | Joint task forces in the division are formed and charged consistent with this recommendation. | Likewise, where possible, task forces should be designed with attention to balanced representation across JMU’s colleges and relevant administrative units. Task forces should additionally commit to ensuring that the voices of all relevant faculty constituencies and stakeholder groups (tenured, tenure-track, professional faculty, adjunct faculty, and those on other contingent contracts, such as RTA appointments) are represented through open comment periods and other inclusive feedback mechanisms. |
| M10. Communicate Freely | Addressed | The Faculty Senate welcomes task force representatives to provide reports and seek feedback at regular meetings. | Joint Provost/Senate task forces should have a standing invitation to Faculty Senate as part of “Other Committee Reports” and an expectation of reporting out. They should also be expected to join periodic meetings of Academic Council. In both cases, this would be to share work in-progress and present emerging questions or requests for feedback. |
| C1a. Landing Page | Scheduled for discussion | Faculty Senate and Academic Affairs should jointly create and maintain a simple landing page for shared governance at JMU. Models for such a page can be found at Virginia Tech and Grand Valley State University. | |
| C1b. Shared Governance Statement | In discussion | The implementation team is currently developing a statement. | The most prominent feature of this page should be a common statement of values around shared governance. This Task Force—based on research and deliberative discussion—has crafted a starter draft for the common statement, shared here as an appendix. It now needs to be socialized, further edited, and adopted by the campus. Once Senate Steering and the Provost’s Office agree on the content of this statement, we recommend it go to Academic Council and the full Faculty Senate for further discussion and possible approval. Next, we imagine it would be shared with the President’s cabinet and taken to the Academic Excellence subcommittee of the BOV for consideration and potential adoption by the board and campus as a whole. |
| C1c. Continuous Improvement | Scheduled for discussion | Once the gateway page from 1a is established, it should be continuously improved upon based on models from other institutions and in conversation with relevant campus offices and groups. Its publication should launch a broader institutional effort to foster conversations about shared governance at the college and department level, in support of a cultural shift in favor of implementing and embracing shared governance at all levels. See area 6 below (“Learning and Problem-Solving") for related suggestions. | |
| C2a. Maintaining a Policy Round-Up | Not scheduled yet | We recommend that the page linked above be located on or linked to the “landing page for shared governance” we outline in recommendation 1a, and that the Faculty Senate and Provost’s Office develop and document a shared understanding about who should maintain this round-up page and what its regular review and revision cycle should be. | |
| C2b. Revising the Faculty Handbook | Addressed | This recommendation is currently being addressed by the Senate and the Provost's Office. | Commission a joint faculty/administrative group to undertake a comprehensive review and wholesale re-write of the Faculty Handbook, to carefully consider and address flaws and points of confusion in handbook areas in need of greater clarity, such as the faculty grievance policy. This group should make such revisions with an eye to developing and enhancing structures and policies related to shared governance. Establish a regular schedule of whole-scale refresh and re-consideration (alongside the regular, more incremental work of the handbook committee). Give special consideration to the role of shared governance throughout. |
| C2c. Creating Clarity on Appeals | Moot | This will be addressed in the context of Recommendation 2b. | In cases of disagreement between faculty and administration/board leadership, where both have responsibilities (e.g., tenure), the faculty handbook and other governing documents should clearly state how disagreements are addressed/appealed and by whom. |
| C3a. Documentation | Not scheduled yet | In accordance with section IV.A of the JMU Faculty Handbook, every college (and academic unit or school that does not exist within a college) should determine “the specific structure and membership of its governance bodies,” to include “elected faculty representatives from each academic unit of the college.” We recommend that, by a deadline to be determined by the Provost’s Office and Faculty Senate, these college-level structures and memberships/membership practices be posted on the colleges’ publicly accessible web pages. Any shared governance structures created or described as part of this process should address meaningful faculty participation in areas of curriculum, personnel, and budget and planning, with attention to faculty advisory and oversight roles, as defined in the handbook for each of the three areas. | |
| C3b. Refresh and Reaffirm | Not scheduled yet | We recommend regular refresh/reconsideration and reaffirmation by faculty and academic leadership of all guiding documents at the college level. A planned schedule for periodic reaffirmation should be published. | |
| C3c. Communication Across Divisions | Not scheduled yet | Regular campus-level communication practices should be created to ensure that faculty are aware not only of strategic planning activities in Academic Affairs, but of all JMU division-level strategic planning (e.g., Student Affairs, Access & Inclusion, Advancement, etc.). | |
| C3d. Communicating in Colleges and Units | Not scheduled yet | Every college and administrative unit of Academic Affairs in which faculty are employed should communicate to all faculty and staff a plan for (or a reminder of) their shared governance pathways and ongoing, intended communication practices, designed to keep lines of discussion open and foster effective bi-directional communication between faculty and administrators. This plan should be developed in consultation with faculty governance bodies. | |
| C3e. Shared Governance at the Unit Level | Scheduled for discussion | Section IV.B of the Faculty Handbook merely says, regarding academic unit-level governance, that it should exist. It then only specifically references the role of the AUPAC. Just as college-level structures and communications practices are addressed in 3a and 3d above, every academic unit should be charged with documenting and publicly/transparently communicating its unit-level governance practices. | |
| C3f. Senate Engagement | Not scheduled yet | The Provost’s Office should actively engage the full Faculty Senate as an advisory body to provide meaningful faculty input on matters of budget and strategic planning that cross all colleges. To ensure effective representation in this advisory role, Faculty Senate should be encouraged to hold an open discussion about its own methods for engagement with administrators and fellow faculty. We acknowledge that all sides can do better in collaboration with each other on matters of mutual concern. | |
| C3g. Access to Information | Scheduled for discussion | Data and documents pertaining to non-confidential/non-personnel issues should be stored and communicated in uniform and familiar ways, equitably accessible to faculty and administrators alike. This applies equally to information compiled by administrative offices, departments and colleges, and by the Faculty Senate. We recommend that non- confidential information relevant to faculty, such as departmental bylaws, etc., be stored in more transparent, easily accessible places, including—where appropriate— behind simple password protection or on the open Web. | |
| C3h. Senate Transparency | Not scheduled yet | The The Faculty Senate should clarify, streamline, and make more transparent its own processes and voting practices. Participation and transparency on the part of faculty would be increased, and opportunities for dialogue with a broader array of administrators would be created, by instituting robust and publicly accessible ways of tracking issues and faculty concerns from the moment they are introduced, either to amicable resolution or to creation of a formal Resolution. One possible model is the Virginia Tech Resolutions Tracker. Best practices for feedback and voting are addressed in section 5, below. | |
| C3i. Senate Subcommittee on Shared Governance | Addressed | The Senate has created a Shared Governance standing committee in response to this recommendation. | The Faculty Senate should add a standing subcommittee on Shared Governance charged with leading and participating in ongoing conversations and initiatives to improve the state of shared governance at JMU. |
| C4a. Climate Study Reporting | Not scheduled yet | We recommend regular reporting back from the Climate Study Implementation Group to the full Faculty Senate and Academic Council. | |
| C4b. Faculty Voices on Climate Implementation | Moot | The team determined that it would be more productive to focus on the upcoming COACHE survey. | In keeping with COACHE recommendations and best practices of shared governance, we also recommend the addition of more faculty voices on the Climate Study Implementation Group. |
| C4c. Focus on COACHE | Scheduled for discussion | We recommend that the Faculty Senate prioritize its attention to the COACHE survey recommendations and follow up with faculty and administration on those recommendations as originally planned. Open reporting of progress made is key. | |
| C5a. Best Practices Manual | Not scheduled yet | Create a draft manual of best practices with data management and the development of qualitative/quantitative surveys (including ballot development, records management policies/retention schedules, ensured confidentiality, etc.) from experienced areas at JMU, such as the Office of Institutional Research, Libraries, IRB, and Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI), as well as from knowledgeable faculty. A strong model for this now exists in the College of Science and Math, and working documents are available from the Task Force upon request. | |
| C5b. Community of Practice | Not scheduled yet | Foster, resource, and publicize a cross-college community of practice for continuous improvement of survey and feedback processes in Academic Affairs. | |
| C5c. Documented Process | Not scheduled yet | Every academic department and administrative unit in which faculty are placed should document its processes and practices related to online and in-person voting/survey- taking. These should be aligned with the best-practices document described in 5a above. | |
| C5d. Default to Open | Not scheduled yet | JMU should promote open deliberation, voting or use of feedback mechanisms, and sharing outcomes of deliberations in a transparent manner as the go-to way to inform decisions across the board. It is important that these approaches include open calls for feedback and discussion, and that all voices can be included in deliberations. | |
| C5e. Conflict of Interests | Moot | This will be addressed in the context of Recommendation 2b. | An Academic Affairs policy or guidelines document should be created that covers conflict of interests (COI) more broadly than merely speaking to Virginia statutes related to nepotism and financial COI—and that also treats the perception of conflict of interests (e.g., a person on the ballot should not be overseeing an election process). Individual academic departments should use this as a starting-point for documents specifically related to conflict of interests in connection with voting and survey processes. |
| C5f. Dispute Resolution | Not scheduled yet | Should a dispute arise from the creation, interpretation, or deployment of surveys or ballots, we recommend creation of an ad hoc committee that includes all stakeholders involved to resolve the issue together. We recommend that there be a clear and shared formula to follow in the registration of a need for such a group and in the creation of these ad hoc committees. | |
| C6a. Action-Oriented Fellows | Not scheduled yet | Create a fellowship-like program for faculty who want to learn more about shared governance and collaboratively workshop and work on real-world shared governance problems with administrators and peers. The idea would be that faculty would then return to their units or colleges to test or implement the possible solutions they develop in the program. Consider whether this program aligns with the newly-created Faculty ASPIRE associates program out of the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Curriculum, or would be a new, needed offering from CFI. | |
| C6b. Deliberative Democracy | Not scheduled yet | Consider a “deliberative democracy” discussion model to foster a culture of shared governance at JMU. Deliberative democracy cannot be applied to all situations, but is an emerging, creative, and potentially effective method for fostering dialogue and shared understanding. (Working documents related to this concept are available from the task force on request.) | |
| C6c. Campus Conversations | Not scheduled yet | Consider developing a Campus Conversations Committee responsible for hosting and facilitating regular campus conversations on critical issues or major pending changes or decision points. The committee must have a coordinator and at least a part-time support staff member. (Working documents related to this concept are available from the task force on request.) | |
| C6d. Onboarding and Ongoing Learning | Not scheduled yet | As part of routine onboarding for all parties, regularly and actively engage and educate members of BOV, administration, faculty, and student leaders on the established principles of shared governance. We observe considerable confusion about the basic tenets of shared governance among all stakeholders, and see onboarding as a golden opportunity to address the issue. We also recommend that JMU provide ongoing opportunities for learning for all of these stakeholder groups. | |
| C6e. BOV Transparency | Not scheduled yet | Continue positive developments in BOV transparency by communicating more broadly with faculty as to the availability of committee and full board agendas ahead of meetings, and outcomes thereafter, including the availability of minutes and a summary of key decisions and areas of conversation. Commit to earlier posting of Board agendas, open invitations to faculty to observe committee meetings, and broad circulation of the livestream for the full Board. | |
| C6f. Faculty Input | Not scheduled yet | By regularly conducting town halls at the university and college levels, provide faculty an opportunity to discuss their views on issues before the administration and Board. Clearly communicate to faculty the decisions being considered by the BOV and the president’s executive cabinet, why those decisions are before the board or cabinet, the timetable for decisions, and the extent of the faculty’s opportunity to participate in the decision-making process. Conduct periodic faculty forums with key administrative and board decision-makers. For instance, the BOV’s Rector could present to faculty on how the board makes decisions, or JMU’s chief financial officer could present on how budgets are developed. | |
| C6g. Human(e) Connections | Not scheduled yet | Actively
develop, resource, and cultivate intentional ways to increase social capital among administrators, board members, and faculty. Treating each other with kindness, charity and respect is a crucial start. Then, as board members, faculty members, and administrators work together in shared governance frameworks, they will naturally develop social capital. However, social capital also can be developed and deepened outside of a formal shared governance process. Consider these potential practices:
• With faculty leaders’ awareness and consent, consider inviting board members and senior administrators to occasional faculty meetings, followed by a reception. Board members usually are impressed with the quality of deliberation at these meetings, just as faculty members usually are impressed with the quality of deliberation at board meetings;
• Seat BOV members, administrators, and faculty members in the same area at athletic events, concerts, and other special occasions, and at meetings and dinners where both are present;
• Publish BOV and faculty leadership biographies. Let faculty members know that board members may be available for invitations as guest lecturers in classes that touch on their areas of expertise;
• Invite a BOV member to participate in part of a study abroad program or field trip for students. Invite board members to celebrations of student and faculty scholarship;
• Hold a reception during BOV meetings on campus to give faculty and the broader campus community the chance to get to know the board and vice-versa.
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| C7a. Communicating Accountability | Scheduled for discussion | Identifying responsible stakeholders is an important component of accountability. We understand the value of subsidiarity in higher education—the organizational practice that decisions should be made at the lowest level possible. This ensures that people most affected by decisions have voice in the decision-making process, allows academic units and the faculty therein discretion over how to fulfill their education mission, and aligns with the principle of academic freedom. This may create confusion and stress, however, as an unavoidable diversity of practices leads to inconsistent experiences across colleges and academic units. Our emergence as an R2 institution provides an instructive example. Some members of the academic community have communicated increased expectations related to research productivity, while others have not. Faculty with questions are often directed to a myriad of places and people responsible for the changes. Mixed messaging erodes trust. It also most usually occurs through verbal exchanges. Therefore, we recommend writing down changes related to policies, procedures, and workload where an authority figure can be identified. Additionally, sometimes this problem is dismissed as an issue of ‘centralized’ versus ‘localized’ decision-making. We encourage academic leaders (the Provost, deans, and AUHs) to clearly communicate 1) where mandates and initiatives come from, and 2) to what extent colleges and departments have discretion. | |
| C7b. Rotating Department Chairs | Scheduled for discussion | Where vacancies in the AUH position arise and involved faculty are willing, allow academic departments to select leadership from among their internal ranks and experiment with a rotating chair model. Such a faculty-elected internal chair would come with expectation of re-election/re-affirmation on regular intervals. Implementation of this practice should acknowledge the Faculty Senate resolution already passed and build upon the experience of departments that are already testing this model. | |
| C7c. Interim AUHs | Scheduled for discussion | Regardless of the approach taken to 7a above, faculty feedback should always be solicited and strongly considered in the appointment of interim AUHs. | |
| C7d. AAUH Policies | Scheduled for discussion | Consider a new, standard policy or guidelines document addressing the appointment, evaluation, and participation in shared governance of assistant and associate academic unit heads. Models could be solicited from departments that have successfully implemented and documented such processes. | |
| C7e. Evaluation of Administrators | Addressed | Subgroup 4 drafted a policy to address this recommendation. By a 14-1 vote, the full committee supported the submission of the policy draft to the AAPC for full consideration and public comment by the university community. | Ensure that regular and transparent evaluation of all administrators includes robust faculty feedback. Faculty should regularly be invited to provide feedback on the performance of AUHs, deans and associate deans, vice provosts, provost, and the president of the university. This should be done with attention to “closing the loop,” or appropriately and without breach of confidentiality, reporting that the feedback was received and any results or actions taken by the administrator in response. This is intended as a positive, responsive, trust-building recommendation, so that faculty can adequately speak to the work of administrators (and build understanding of the work they do on behalf of the institution). Therefore, as part of this regular performance evaluation process, administrators should provide a brief summary of their activities. |
| C7f. Elected Faculty Representation | Not scheduled yet | Increase accountability of faculty representatives to their peers by fundamentally altering the way they are placed on key task forces and committees. Currently, faculty are appointed by administrators or through Senate Steering recommendations; shift this practice, where possible, to open election of faculty representatives to task forces and committees by their peers. | |
| C7g. Senate Onboarding/ Sharing Best Practices | Not scheduled yet | Increase the accountability of faculty senators to their peers and the trust of administrators and BOV members, so that Faculty Senate represents the will of the faculty, by improving shared senator onboarding processes and creating venues in which senators can share best practices with each other, in fostering department discussions and coming to collective decisions on the casting of votes. Questions of unevenness in department-level representation can erode trust in outcomes. See Virginia Tech’s approach to senator onboarding. | |
| C7h. Faculty Input into our R2 Development | Addressed | The team considered this addressed by unit-level discussion of JMU's R2 identity, culminating the the provost's R2 statement. | To fully leverage faculty expertise and enact shared governance in the context of our R2 transition, we recommend that a campus-wide representative faculty body, qualified to speak to research and scholarship needs from a faculty viewpoint, be created. In other words, a working group with a faculty majority should be established to look into typical practices of research support at the R2 level, and identify areas for improvement at JMU. The Vice Provost for Research and Scholarship should be asked to issue quarterly progress reports on JMU’s efforts to align our research initiatives and resourcing with R2 priorities. |
| C7i. Expected Response Time | Not scheduled yet | To foster accountability and better respect everyone’s time, administrative offices should institute a practice of publishing expected response times, where possible, for queries faculty make related to various policies or the routine business of faculty support. Where standard response times are not applicable, individual queries should be acknowledged with an anticipated response time and redirected if a query cannot be answered by the office to which it was addressed. | |
| C7j. Enhanced Mediation Offerings | Not scheduled yet | Enhance JMU’s faculty ombuds services to include mediation offerings beyond those offered by JMU Human Resources. Currently, the ombuds office is explicit about not offering mediation. The task force recommends mediation offered through a new/enhanced service more closely aligned with the university ombudsperson as a first point-of-contact, more low-stakes way of attempting resolution, especially in cases involving faculty members and their AUHs or deans. | |
| C7k. Anti-Bullying Policies | Not scheduled yet | Continue ongoing conversations about the creation of an anti-bullying policy at the campus level. | |
| C7l. Access to Hiring Information and Trends | Not scheduled yet | The Provost’s Office should produce a detailed longitudinal report with information sufficient to analyze year-to-year trends related to areas of faculty line growth/contraction. While much of this information is available on request to deans and AUHs, we hope a report that pulls together division-wide data disaggregated by college will provide a valuable, holistic perspective. After the report is produced and distributed, the Provost’s Office and Senate Budget Committee should collaborate on a plan for future data collection strategies related to frequency and necessary report elements. The initial report should include:
• Longitudinal departmental-level data that track the number of tenured, tenure-eligible, and RTA instructional faculty for each year included in the analysis;
• Information on the rate at which vacant instructional faculty lines are replaced;
• The number of class sections taught by adjunct faculty, aggregated by department, for each year included in the analysis.
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| C7m. Faculty Input in Budgeting | Not scheduled yet | College-level structures to involve faculty in budgeting deliberations and decisions are mandated by the JMU Faculty Handbook (IV.A.2). In academic units and at the division level, where such structures are absent, they should be created. |