A campus of The California State University

Office of the Academic Senate • One Washington Square • San Jose, California 95192-0024 •408-924-2440  Fax: 408-924-2451

F07-5

At its meeting of December 10, 2007, the Academic Senate passed the following Policy Recommendation presented by Senator Backer for the Organization and Government Committee.

POLICY RECOMMENDATION:

VOTING PRIVILEGES FOR FACULTY ASSIGNED TO

MORE THAN ONE REPRESENTATIVE UNIT

Replaces bylaw 1.7

WHEREAS, current Senate bylaw 1.7 states that “members of the faculty assigned to more than one representative unit may vote in only one;” and

WHEREAS, temporary faculty can have fractional appointments in more than one unit; and

WHEREAS, under the current policy, temporary faculty members with appointments in more than one representative unit lose a portion of their voting ability; therefore be it

RESOLVED that, in order to assure that faculty members receive voting privileges equivalent to their entire appointments, bylaw 1.7 be replaced by the following:

Bylaw 1.7 Faculty Voting Rights

a) Regular faculty have full permanent voting rights in the department of their primary assignment. 

b) Temporary faculty assigned to more than one representative unit may vote in each unit on a proportional basis determined by the percentage of their appointment in each unit.

Rationale:

Article II, Section 3c of the SJSU Academic Senate constitution states that “Each part-time faculty member shall have a weighted vote equal to the fraction of time for which he or she is appointed…” However, the current By-law 1.7 restricts the voting rights of temporary faculty. Currently, if a temporary faculty member teaches in more than one college, the faculty member can only vote in only one unit for Academic Senate elections according to current By-Law 1.7. In order to assure that faculty members receive voting privileges equivalent to their entire appointments, the Organization and Government Committee recommends this change to By-Law 1.7.

Approved October 30, 2007 Vote: 6-1-0
Present: Backer (chair), Hendrick, Vanniarajan, McClory, Hebert, Selter, Grabowski, Norton (non-voting)
Excused: Kauppila
Absent: Zhou

FINANCIAL IMPACT: None

WORKLOAD: There will be a minimal workload change in counting the ballots for the Academic Senate elections.

ACTION BY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT:  Approved by President Don Kassing on

                                                                                    December 19, 2007