Department Meetings and Minutes
Department chairpersons are responsible for running department meetings. Every department should have a scheduled monthly meeting to conduct business. It is vitally important to run an efficient and productive departmental meeting.
Suggestions for running an effective meeting:
- Send out announcements in advance.
- Have a written agenda. You should include all major issues (apart from personnel matters) confronting the department or College, e.g., curricular revisions, requests for faculty lines, or grade inflation. You may want to combine some recurring topics, e.g., curriculum.
- Assign major tasks to committees that can discuss the issues and bring proposals to the department for discussion and a decision.
- Follow a system that promotes exchanges by different faculty and does not permit a handful of faculty to dominate the discussion.
- Create an atmosphere in which all faculty, including junior faculty, feel free to air their views.
- Do not leave issues open indefinitely.
The department chairpersons are responsible for providing electronic copies of the minutes of department meetings to the following people:
- Relevant Divisional Associate Dean (Michael Schreffler - Arts, Michael Pries - Social Sciences, Ernest Morrell - Humanities)
- I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean, College of Arts and Letters (Sarah Mustillo)
Departmental minutes are important records. Minutes should reflect accurately the issues, arguments, and conclusions that the faculty reach. Minutes should not include discussion of particular candidates for faculty positions or any confidential personnel issues.