Faculty Senate & Governance

Faculty Disciplinary Task Force

Leadership & structure

The Faculty Senate Task Force on Faculty Discipline and Dispute Resolution is co-chaired by Mike Townsend, Secretary of the Faculty and Associate Professor in the UW School of Law, and Zoe Barsness, 2016-17 chair of the Faculty Senate and Associate Professor in the UW Tacoma Milgard School of Business. The Task Force is made up of a Steering Committee, which oversees two work groups: Values and Principles, and Legal and Regulations (aka the “Drafting Committee”).

Note: Work on the proposed Class A legislation has been paused for the remainder of the 2022-2023 academic year. Instead, at the request of the Executive Office, the Senate Executive Committee approved the following motion: 

“The SEC directs the Faculty Senate Chair to appoint three faculty members to a working group, which will include three representatives from the administration and a member of the Board of Deans and Chancellors, to outline processes and take action on issues raised in the [President’s] January 12, 2023, letter, using guiding principles outlined by the Dispute Resolution drafting committee that passed in May 2020 by the Senate as a Class C resolution. At each regular SEC meeting through October 2023, the faculty members so appointed shall make a report on the progress of the working group.” 

The President’s letter and Class C Resolution can be found in the agenda of the January 23, 2023, Special Senate Executive Committee meeting. 

Materials

Videos and Draft Legislation

The following videos were created by the Drafting Committee of the Task Force to provide an overview of the design of the proposed models. These videos may be revised and updated at any time. It would be helpful to review the videos in the following order:

Introduction

This video provides an overview of the five major design improvements of the proposed faculty dispute resolution and faculty discipline processes as compared to the current Faculty Code processes (approx. 25 minutes):

Grievances

This video provides a comparison of the current process with the proposed design of a faculty “grievance” process (approx. 26 minutes):

A copy of the current draft of the proposed legislation to revise Chapter 27 of the Faculty Code can be viewed below. This is intended to be the final draft prepared by the Drafting Committee for consideration by the Senate Executive Committee and the Faculty Senate.

Proposed Chapter 27: Alternative Dispute Resolution and Faculty Grievances (with commentary)

Proposed Chapter 27: Alternative Dispute Resolution and Faculty Grievances (without commentary)

Faculty Conduct

This video provides a comparison of the current process with the proposed design of the faculty conduct process (approx. 49 minutes):

A copy of the current draft of the proposed legislation to revise Chapter 28 of the Faculty Code can be viewed below. This is intended to be the final draft prepared by the Drafting Committee for consideration by the Senate Executive Committee and the Faculty Senate.

Proposed Chapter 28: Formal Intervention and Faculty Conduct Proceedings (with commentary)

Proposed Chapter 28: Formal Intervention and Faculty Conduct Proceedings (without commentary)

Revisions to Chapter 25: Tenure of Faculty (revisions necessary to align with the proposed Chapter 28 legislation)

Questions/comments?

Please contact the Secretary of the Faculty, Mike Townsend, with inquiries or input for the Task Force.