Academic Department Governance

Department Chair Matters

The 2020 CSU Online Department Chairs Workshop on the CSU Learn platform. Locate the 5 sessions by searching for “2020 CSU Online Department Chairs Workshop.” The recordings will appear together in the search results.

Department Voting Guidance

The faculty voting rights policy does not uniformly apply across the activities, committees, and elections faculty are expected to engage with. The following University Policies direct departments about eligibility of candidates, eligibility of voters, and how much each vote counts across the most prominent faculty-governed processes at SJSU.

Departments also elect representatives to college committees (e.g., Sabbatical, RTP) and department faculty participate in electing representatives to the University Sabbatical Leaves Committee and the University RTP Committee.

Committee Guidance

There are many responsibilities associated with personnel committees (i.e., RTP, Range Elevation, Periodic Evaluation of Lecturers--annual and cumulative review, Periodic Evaluation of probationary--mini review--and tenured faculty--post tenure review). Department committees are also required for consideration of Difference in Pay Leaves and recruitment of new faculty.

All Faculty Personnel Committees

The guidelines below assist department chairs/school directors and faculty with orderly and fair establishment of peer committees needed for faculty personnel recommendations, or faculty personnel committees.

RTP

RTP committee service is described in University Policy as the "highest professional priority" of tenured faculty. The reason is "their participation affects the careers of colleagues as well as the well-being of students and the health of the University." Therefore, committee members should understand the current policies and norms of RTP committee review. Their recommendations should reflect unbiased assessments of their colleagues' accomplishments relative to standards set forth in S15-8, with further explanation from Department Guidelines.

To further ensure fair and equitable review for all faculty, SJSU requires that RTP committee members, at all levels of review, undergo training prior to gaining access to case files. Therefore, UP - FS verifies that committee members have current completion status for this required course: RTP Committee Member Training. (requires SJSU login)

Course Access and Completion Steps:

  1. Chairs and college staff report committee members and representatives to UP - FS
  2. UP - FS enrolls faculty in the Canvas Course prepared by the Office for Faculty Success (requires SJSU login)
  3. Faculty enter and complete the course in Canvas (requires SJSU login)
  4. Faculty sign the Confidentiality Agreement Form, which is copied to UP - FS
  5. Upon receipt of the Confidentiality Form, UP - FS staff populate committee members in eFaculty

RTP Committee Tools

Recruitment

Training and Assistance