The governing body of a campus, college or school is its elected faculty council. According to Section 23-45 of the Faculty Code, these elected bodies shall advise their respective deans or chancellors on matters of faculty promotion and tenure, matters involving academic policy, including priorities, resource and salary allocation, and budgets.
The faculty also determine the organization and structure of its council and the procedure by which the members are elected by establishing bylaws. These bylaws are documents that describe the way in which the deans and chancellors and the faculties are to practice shared governance and vary in ways that reflect the particular culture of an academic unit.
History
The Territorial University of Washington opened in the remote village of Seattle on November 4, 1861, with a faculty of one – a remarkable professor who taught Latin, Greek, English, history, algebra, and physiology to a handful of students.
Today, some 4,000 University of Washington faculty educate nearly 70,000 students per year in twenty schools and colleges in Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma, and through the innovative distance learning program.
In the original classic fields of study, and in disciplines that were unimagined in 1861, UW faculty members continue to expand the boundaries of knowledge in their research, and to disseminate that knowledge to their students, with hands-on participation at all levels of decision-making.