Provost & Faculty Senate Spring Awards Ceremony Tuesday, April 25

From WesternToday:

The Provost & Faculty Senate Spring Awards Ceremony will be Tuesday, April 25, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Wilson Library Reading Room.

The event honors faculty award recipients for the 2016-2017 academic year, including:

  • Millie Johnson, Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award
  • Mark Staton, Excellence in Teaching Award
  • Janelle Leger, Paul J. Olscamp Research Award
  • Paqui Paredes Mendez, Peter J. Elich Excellence in Teaching Award
  • Brittanie Lockard, Ronald Kleinknecht Excellence in Teaching Award.

All faculty are invited.

Click here for a detailed invitation and here to reply online.

 

This Week in Faculty Governance: 4/24-4/28

Academic Coordinating Commission: Tuesday 4/25 — Agenda

  • Next Steps for General Education Improvements

See also the motion passed at the April 3 Faculty Senate Meeting:

A motion to endorse the four identified priority areas contained within the Academic Coordinating Commission (ACC) report on Recommended Improvement to General Education and refer the recommendations back to ACC and its standing committees with instructions to further develop these recommendations including consideration of resource implications, time to degree, and programmatic autonomy passed.

Senate Extended Education Committee: Tuesday 4/25 — Agenda

See also the SEEC 2017 Recommendations to Faculty Senate to be acted on at the Faculty Senate Meeting of Monday, May 1

University Planning and Resources Council: Wednesday 4/26 — Agenda

Faculty Senate Nominations Due Wednesday

We invite and welcome your engagement with the Faculty Senate for the coming term.  As a Senate, the work we do moves us towards becoming an institution that leads the field in responding to the challenges faced by higher education in the 21st century.  Western’s faculty has a long history of shaping the present and future direction of the University through shared governance, a process that is essential to the strength and health of the University.  As such, we seek a Senate that represents a wide range of perspectives and disciplines while ensuring faculty representation from every college.

Faculty members who are elected to the Senate have the opportunity to develop strong interdisciplinary networks with colleagues from across campus, to more fully understand and influence responses to important issues facing the University, to shape communication processes essential to effective shared governance, and to provide leadership in moving our university towards its goal of being a leading, publically-purposed 21st century institution.

 

Please join us on the Senate next year, either by running for the Senate yourself or recommending Senate candidacy to your colleagues. We especially encourage you to consider running for the Faculty Senate if you have not participated previously or if your department is not currently represented.  Current Senators who wish to serve a second or third term do need to complete a new nominating petition.  The Elections and Appointments Officer, Rich Brown (x7320), or Shared Governance Operations Manager, Lizzy Ramhorst (x6808), will be glad to answer any questions you have about eligibility, the election process, or the nature of serving on the Senate.

 

The Faculty Senate election documents for 2017-19 are attached.  In addition, the Call for Nominations and Nominating Petition forms are available on the Senate website at http://www.wwu.edu/facultysenate.

 

Requirements for Nominating Petitions (Faculty Handbook, Constitution, Bylaw 12.2):

  • A Statement of Agreement on the Nominating Petition must be signed by the Nominee;
  • Five faculty colleagues must sign the Nominee’s petition;
  • Voting faculty members (0.5FTE or greater) may be nominated or may sign another’s petition regardless of academic area affiliation;
  • Nominating Petitions must be received in the Senate Office by 6 pm on Wednesday, April 12, 2017 via email (original documents can be scanned and submitted to Senate@wwu.edu), campus mail (MS 9020), or drop-off at the Senate Office (Old Main 350);
  • For an effective election, more faculty nominees than the required number to fill seats are encouraged.

 

Election Ballots will be distributed to all voting-eligible faculty members via email link on Monday, April 24 and will remain open until 5 pm on Friday, May 5.  The election will be run through electionbuddy.com.  Users do not need to register with the site in order to vote, and all ballots are SSL encrypted.  Each ballot will be tied to a unique voting key that can be submitted only once rather than a voter’s name, and no information about the voter is stored with the ballot. Each online voter will receive an email that includes a personal voting link, and email links can be resent upon request.  Print ballots can be requested by individuals who do not wish to vote online; they are also tied to voting keys rather than names in order to ensure anonymity and prevent repeat voting across platforms.  If runoff ballots are required, they will be sent on Monday, May 8 and must be completed by 5 pm on Friday, May 12.  Results will be announced in the Senate on Monday, May 15, via email, and posted online on the Senate website.

  • Senate terms are renewable every two-years for up to six years.
  • Seating of the 2017-18 Senate will take place at 4 pm at the May 30th Senate meeting, at which election of 2017-18 Senate officers will also take place.
  • The Senate Executive Council is comprised of the officers elected on May 30th, as well as the Chairs of the Academic Coordinating Commission (ACC) and University Planning and Resource Council (UPRC), the President of the UFWW, Past President of the Faculty Senate, and the Faculty Legislative Representative.  Officers are elected for one-year terms from the membership of the Senate.

 

2017-19 Faculty Senate Nominating Petition

2017 Spring Election Schedule