University of Wisconsin-Superior
Department BYLAWS GUIDELINES
Created July 28, 2016 by Interim Dean Liz Blue
Revised October 14, 2016 by Faculty Senate Chair Brent Notbohm
Approved by Faculty Senate ______
Introduction to Department Bylaws Guidelines:
Each department, using this set of guidelines, must conduct a review and revision of their department bylaws (previously called departmental personnel rules). These guidelines are organized as follows: the outcome section, definition of terms, suggested revision process, rules of thumb/managing mechanics, checklist of things to address in the bylaws revision, and additional topics to include in your bylaws.
SECTION 1: The expected outcome of department bylaws revision:
1. To have each department produce a set of unified policies and procedures in alignment with the UW-Superior Personnel Rules passed by the Board of Regents (BOR) in February 2015, with revisions in December of 2015. There should be a single unified set of these policies and procedures, regardless of the number and variety of disciplines within a given department, because it is at the department level that the authority to implement personnel rules resides and where personnel recommendations/decisions are to be made under the BOR approved rules. So, for example, a department with three disciplines cannot have three sets of rules; they must have only one under which all three disciplines have reached consensus or in which disciplinary dissimilarities or variations are somehow incorporated and managed.
2. The bylaws produced by each department must be compatible with the policies and procedures established in the Unclassified Staff Handbook on how to address personnel issues and expectations for faculty and academic staff.
3. Departments still have a lot of leeway/freedom to develop policies and procedures that are specific to their departmental groups.
SECTION 2: Definition for terms used often in this document:
Bylaws = The document each department must produce that defines how they conduct personnel related business and other matters of decision making within the department. See Article V of the Bylaws of the Faculty Senate for more information. Sometimes referred to as “Departmental Personnel Rules” or just “rules,” which should not be confused with the campus-wide BOR approved UW-Superior Personnel Rules.
Handbook = The Unclassified Staff Handbook which contains all of the governance-approved policies and procedures related to UW-Superior specific personnel decisions and expectations for faculty and academic staff.
Personnel Rules = Found in Appendix A of the Handbook, the UW-Superior Personnel Rules were reviewed and approved by the Board of Regents in February of 2015, with some minor changes approved in December of 2015. These are the actual rules that we must follow; UWS (with a number) is the Board policy and UW-Sup (with the same number) is our translation of how that policy will be implemented used on our campus specifically.
SECTION 3: Suggested Process for Revision and Approval by Faculty Senate and Chancellor:
1. Department sets up a working subgroup to examine and author revisions to their existing bylaws, based upon the UW-Superior Personnel Rules and these guidelines.
2. Subgroup then proposes revisions to department for feedback and approval.
3. Department sends department approved bylaws to Faculty Senate Chair, who then charges Personnel Council with vetting the bylaws for Senate.
4. Personnel Council provides feedback and/or makes recommendations, if any, directly to department.
5. Department makes changes, if any, to bylaws and forwards them to Faculty Senate Chair.
6. Faculty Senate either approves bylaws or sends them back to department for additional revisions.
7. Faculty Senate Secretary sends an action memo to the Chancellor with a copy of the Faculty Senate approved department bylaws.
8. The Chancellor approves new department bylaws in writing.
SECTION 4: Suggested Rules of Thumb/Managing Mechanics:
® Simple and concise is better than complicated, convoluted and lengthy. Use outline formats and bullets whenever it makes sense to do so.
® Do not reinvent the wheel if you do not have to do so. Many departments should be able to use much of their current rules/bylaws in this revision. Reuse what fits well.
® Use links to further explicate what you mean wherever you reasonably can, rather than quote long tracts of the rules or Handbook. Make sure links work.
® Account for online portfolio submissions for personnel decisions. Watch for references to paper portfolios in your bylaws.
® If a set of performance criteria or other language works well for one area, it may adapt well for another.
® Watch that one part of your bylaws does not conflict or contradict another part. Internal consistency is good.
® First use the procedures already established by the Personnel Rules and the Handbook. When the department is directed, by these documents, to establish procedures, make them concise and clear.
® Not all departments will have the same issues to resolve –there will be varying degrees of revision.
SECTION 5: Checklist of things to address in your bylaws revision:
- Mission
Start by describing your department mission and those of any programs (major or minor) in your department.
- Criteria for Appointment
Please note the criteria for faculty appointments in your department bylaws. The criteria for appointment for instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor must match those set in the Handbook in 7.4.4 (Note: Equivalence is defined in the Minimum Teaching Qualifications policy approved by Faculty Senate on October 18, 2016).
- Rank Definitions and Descriptions
These minimal educational preparation and experience requirements for each of the four faculty ranks are established in 7.4.4.1 in the Handbook. They should be noted in your rules and used to help establish department education and experience requirements by rank within the department. (Again Note: Equivalence is defined in the Minimum Teaching Qualifications policy approved by Faculty Senate on October 18, 2016. This will have a bearing on how a given department notes equivalence and accepts these variations.)
- Granting of Faculty Status
UWS 1.05 and 7.1.3.1 in the Handbook discuss the granting of faculty status to instructional academic staff. Your department bylaws should include a statement about how your department views this option (within Personnel Rules and Handbook parameters). The Chancellor and Faculty Senate will have to approve whatever you put forward here. Faculty status then has implications for inclusion in curriculum development, in service, and in the life of the department. However, personnel decisions are the responsibility of the tenured faculty in the various departments, along with the Chancellor.
- Performance and Achievement Expectations by Rank
These are established in 7.4.4.2 in the Handbook. Persons holding these ranks are expected to pursue and achieve these levels of performance. They should be noted in your bylaws and used to create departmental performance expectations or criteria for faculty at various ranks.
- Establishing Criteria for Peer Evaluation within the Department
In evaluation for annual performance review, retention, tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review, the department peer faculty determine appropriate criteria for evaluating teaching (including advising), scholarly activity, and service (professional, public, and institutional). The rules state clearly in multiple spots that departmental peer faculty develop such within the department setting (UW-SUP 3.05.1, UW-SUP 3.05.2.c, UWS 3.06, UW-SUP 3.06.2 ) and then these rules must be approved by Faculty Senate. FYI, some departments currently use of peer observation and detail a specific process for it (Social Inquiry does this.).
- Balloting and Decision-Making
The rules (3.06.3 (b) 3) state that “tenured peer faculty should be present at the decision making meeting” (for retention and tenure). Thus the decision making must occur within the meeting, precluding, for example, balloting outside a meeting for convenience sake.
- Relative Importance of Teaching, Scholarship and Service (TSS)
UW-SUP 3.06.2 clearly calls for the department peer faculty to determine the relative importance of these three areas (TSS) in decision-making and to put them in writing. Many departments use simple weighting, privileging teaching, as we are a teaching institution. Some departments have individual faculty establish a range for each of the three in their annual goal-setting meetings with the Department Personnel Committee. Then faculty provide materials that speak to the relative importance of these. Another route might to be to have each disciplinary program within the department establish a weighting schema regarding effort to be devoted to each.
Whatever model your department uses to define TSS workload, it will be important to emphasize the value of teaching over scholarship and service, given the commitment of UW-Superior to quality teaching and learning. One way to do this is to assign a minimum percentage (like 60%) to teaching on a weighted grid. Another is to identify in your bylaws how teaching/advising will be considered in relation to scholarship and service.
Also identify in your bylaws the minimum service expectation of faculty in terms of type, number, and level of committees. University-level service includes: standing student, faculty, and university committee assignments; service on Faculty Senate and its council; administrator search and screen committees; and Faculty Senate Executive approved task forces. The faculty “service pool” and governance approved service exceptions (such as OPID Rep and SGA Advisor) count as university-level service. Finally, be sure to identify departmental service expectations (for example, attendance at department meetings and curriculum subcommittee meetings for program areas) in your bylaws.
- Evaluation Timelines
Department timelines for all evaluations (annual performance review, retention, tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review), need to adhere to those set out in the Personnel Rules.
- Shaping Portfolios
Departments should provide written clarity in the bylaws about what is to be included in the portfolio. This means that the new policies should establish what kinds of narratives, evidence, and artifacts are acceptable and desirable for inclusion in portfolios submitted for performance review of teaching/advising, scholarship or creative activity, and service. Your rules may have to establish consensus about this between the differing disciplines in a given department.
- Student Evaluation of Instruction
Section 6.13 in the Handbook establishes that student evaluations are to be conducted for each course a faculty person teaches. However, departments must establish procedures for student evaluation of faculty. This should be described in your rules.
- Syllabus Construction
Section 6.8 of the Handbook establishes expectations for course syllabi. Faculty Senate in 2013 passed an upgrade to this, which also aligns it with HLC expectations. The link to it is: https://www.uwsuper.edu/deanfaculties/forms/upload/COURSE-SYLLABUS-GUIDELINES-Final-passed-2013-2014_20150811151023_97824-2.pdf . Bylaws should support the implementation of this policy by department faculty. Departments are asked to archive syllabi as well. The Dean is also archiving these syllabi and will request them.
- Office Hours
Section 6.14 of the Handbook establishes that faculty must post a minimum of five office hours each week. Your rules should support the implementation of this.
- Open and Closed Meetings
To be congruent with the Wisconsin Open Meeting Law, all program and departmental meetings are to be posted as open. This includes, but is not limited to, program meetings, department meetings, grievance committee meetings, personnel meetings, search and screen committee meetings, and meetings of student groups. All department meetings, including personnel committee meetings, MUST be posted. Meetings discussing employment, dismissal, demotion, retention, non-retention, tenure, promotion, compensation or discipline of any public employee Under the Wisconsin Open Meeting Law (Handbook 5.7) are closed. Thus, if a meeting is addressing confidential personnel or student material, after it is convened as an open meeting, it would then be moved to closed session and reconvened as such, unless the person under review requests otherwise in writing. If it is known that the meeting will be moving into closed meeting status, the statutory language to be used in posting the meeting needs to be extremely specific. Chairs have been given that language to use in postings. Open postings are made within 24 hours previous to the meeting, using simple notices, and all postings must be put into three areas of the campus (currently the Department BB, Faculty Digest and somewhere else public). A tenure consideration meeting is the only kind of personnel meeting that must remain open if the candidate under review requests such (authority found in in 19.85(1) (b) https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/19.pdf ). For closed meetings, the only people present would be the department personnel committee as defined in the department bylaws. The committee may invite others (say the candidate, visitors, or untenured folks) to be present or present for a portion of the closed meeting and then excuse them from the rest of the meeting. Guests should not stay for the vote.
This material should be noted in your bylaws.
- Annual Performance Review
UW-SUP 3.05.1 provides a brief statement for periodic review of performance. In the rules it is tied to salary adjustment. Section 7.4.2 of the Handbook does discuss UW-Superior expectations for Annual Performance Review. These must be addressed in your bylaws:
1. The criteria used to evaluate teaching, scholarship, and service.
2. The criteria for assessing the categories “Meritorious,” “Satisfactory,” and “Unsatisfactory.” Additional resources are available to help with establishing this criteria upon request.
3. The process and procedure of review to be determined by each department–must be face-to-face and include both peer and student evaluations, outline what materials must be submitted, etc.
4. Performance based objectives determined by the faculty (can be established by rank, for example, or for each person in an annual goal-setting process).
5. Annual review with each faculty person regardless of rank or tenure.
The Senate approved the Faculty Performance Evaluation Form on 11-17-15.
https://www.uwsuper.edu/facultysenate/full/attachments/15-16/upload/6_Faculty-Performance-Evaluation-Form_FSchanges.pdf
The front of the form is the legal and procedural acknowledgement of performance review at each level of review. The back of the form outlines a portfolio guideline, listing the kinds of evidence that one undergoing annual review could submit in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. A similar variation of the guideline has always been part of the form, but has now been reviewed by Senate formally. Departments may choose to use this guide or may proscribe another set of materials that may be used instead of this outline. The actual materials submitted for annual performance review are to be determined in department bylaws for annual performance review.