August 11, 2000

TO: Dean of the Faculty

RE: Annual Report of the Faculty Organization Committee

This was a busy year for the Faculty Organization Committee. FOC performed its usual function of conducting elections, overseeing committees and making recommendations to the faculty and the administration on various matters concerning faculty organization. Most of FOC’s energies, however, focused on rewriting the Faculty Handbook.

This was a process begun in 1998 when the Board of Trustees engaged in the enterprise of streamlining the College by-laws. So that current policies would not be affected, the Board asked the President to ensure that any material proposed for deletion from the by-laws would still be preserved in the Faculty Handbook. President Osgood appointed D.A. Smith, Executive Council member at-large, Paula Smith, Associate Dean, and Jonathan Brand, Special Assistant to the President, as an ad-hoc committee to carry out the task of incorporating in the Faculty Handbook that material deleted from the by-laws. For concord in reference between the Handbook and the by-laws, the ad-hoc committee also re-organized the chapters of the Handbook to match the eight items listed in the revised by-laws as areas of faculty responsibility.

The Faculty Organization Committee then focused its attention on editing passages in the Faculty Handbook that were ambiguous or inconsistent with current practice. The committee also removed duplications, corrected errors, and otherwise updated the Handbook so that the draft brought before the faculty for its approval would be as accurate and current as possible in its role as a codification of existing faculty legislation and administrative policy. This draft was discussed and then voted on and approved by the Faculty at the May 15 Faculty Meeting.

Submitted by Sigmund Barber for the Faculty Organization Committee

(Bob Grey, Chris Hunter, Leslie Lyons, Emily Moore).