Mission Statement and Charter for the Faculty Development Committee

Mission

Faculty development comprises a wide variety of activities engaged in by faculty members to improve their professional competence and productivity. Using this understanding of the term, the Faculty Development Committee routinely solicits, reviews, and evaluates applications for Citadel Foundation (CF) Faculty Development Grants and makes recommendations for funding to the Provost. The Committee undertakes special projects, as needed, pertinent to analysis and dissemination of information relevant to faculty development at The Citadel.

Charter

I. Membership

A. Representation

The Committee on Committees selects one tenured or tenure-track faculty member from each academic department (including the library) to serve on the committee. Academic faculty membership is restricted to tenured or tenure-track faculty members who have been employed at The Citadel for at least one full academic year at the time they begin committee service.

B. Tenure

Academic faculty members serve three year rotating terms, staggered so that at all times two-thirds of the committee have a collective memory of past decisions. An academic faculty member may request a second consecutive term; no faculty member may serve on the committee for more than six years consecutively. If a faculty member cannot complete a term, the Committee on Committees will select another member to fill the un-expired term. Time spent filling the term of another faculty member will not count toward the "six-year rule" outlined above.

II. Structure

A. Chair

The committee shall have a chair selected by committee vote at an organizational meeting held before September 30 of each year. The chair shall serve a term of one year or until the election of a new chair. A member may not serve as committee chair for more than three years consecutively. The chair presides over all the committee meetings, oversees the conduct of committee business, and represents the committee before outside bodies.

B. Subcommittees

Subcommittees may be created at the discretion of the committee. Decisions have to be made in the plenum.

C. Meetings

The committee must meet at least twice during the academic year [once in the Fall and once in the Spring]. At the first organizational meeting the committee will establish an agenda for further meetings. Meetings shall be called by the chair as required. The chair must hold a meeting if requested in writing by at least one-third of the voting members. A quorum consists of one-half of the voting membership.

III. Activities

III.1 General Activities of Standing Committees

A. Information

The Faculty Development Committee gathers, analyzes, and disseminates information relevant to faculty development at The Citadel. It is authorized to gather information by means of:

1. direct request to a college administrative department or activity; an academic department; another standing committee; or any group or association of Citadel faculty, staff or students
2. the development and use of questionnaires and surveys
3. the use of previously published information.

The committee analyzes information through statistical summaries, compilation of written material, or other established methods. The analysis may provide the college with information pertinent to a particular issue, or it may substantiate a recommendation for administrative action. The committee disseminates information by means of:

1. a response (report) to a department or committee based upon a request for information
2. reports generated from within the committee
3. periodic reports to the college as specified in this charter.

B. Annual report

The Faculty Development Committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities over the previous academic year. The report must include all non-confidential decisions of the committee. Copies of this report, both in hard copy and in electronic form, will be made accessible to all Citadel faculty, staff and students.

C. Other reports

The committee is responsible for the timely dissemination of all reports to the Citadel community. Committee reports shall be made available through the Library and through college-wide computer system access. Reports may contain recommendations or proposals. For the purposes of gathering information (see above), all reports are to be considered published information.

D. Tasks

The work of the committee consists of a series of tasks – units of work involving the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information. The committee assumes tasks through one of the following means:

1. Completion of tasks as articulated in the "Specific Activities" section of this charter.
2. Completion of a report which includes information requested by an administrative department or activity, an academic department, another committee, the Faculty Council, or the Academic Board. Requests of individual faculty members must be made through the Faculty Council. Students or other individuals may not assign a task to the Faculty Development Committee except through one of the above-mentioned bodies.
3. Tasks can be generated from within the committee. Any committee member may request that the committee study a topic or issue within its sphere of interest. The committee may also develop its own long-range projects or studies as part of its ongoing mission.

III.2 Specific Activities of the Faculty Development Committee

Using criteria and standards which are uniformly applied and which fully comply with EEOC principles of evaluation, the Faculty Development Committee evaluates and makes funding recommendations to the Provost following procedures developed by the committee.

Each academic year the committee:

1. Issues guidelines for the review of proposals, and guidelines for applicants for faculty development grants.
2. Solicits applications for Faculty Development Grants by the distribution of a formal Request for Proposals to the faculty. This request will include information on eligibility, criteria, application procedure, and evaluation procedures. Applications for faculty development grants will be solicited quarterly.
3. Reviews and evaluates each proposal based on the published criteria. Committee evaluations with accompanying justifications will be forwarded to the Provost. In the event that the Provost disagrees with the evaluations of the committee, the committee will meet with the Provost in an effort to resolve the disagreement. If no agreement is reached, the final decision will be made by the Provost.

Information regarding research and faculty development funding shall be maintained by the Provost's office and exchanged, when requested, between the Research Committee and the Faculty Development Committee. This information may be used by the committee as a reference for evaluating future faculty development proposals.

Faculty members receiving CF faculty development funds will be asked to update their curricula vitae annually online.

Faculty Development Committee members are excused during discussions of their proposals and proposals of a spouse, relative, or others with a close affiliation.

Deliberations of the committee and discussions of faculty development proposals are confidential. Proposal information is treated in accordance with the requirements of Public Law 93-579, the Privacy Act of 1974. Except for summarized data which do not contain individual identifiers of any kind, information provided by the faculty member for publication in the Directory of Faculty Scholarly Activities, and reports to The Citadel administration to support funding recommendations, the privacy of applications is protected at all times.

IV. Autonomy

1. The request is unclear; the committee chair will ask the requesting body to clarify any ambiguities and resubmit the request.
2. The committee's workload is currently too great to perform the task in the requested time frame; the chair will return the request and suggest a date for re-submittal.
3. The task falls outside the scope or sphere of interest of the committee; the chair will ask the requesting body to either submit the request to another committee or (if the task falls within the scope of more than one committee) divide the task between the committees.
4. The committee does not have the resources or the authority to complete the task; the chair will explain which parts of the task cannot be completed, and the requesting body may resubmit a modified request.

V. Amending the Charter

The Faculty Development Committee may modify its charter in consultation with the Committee on Committees. Proposals for changes in the committee charter come to the Committee on Committees, which negotiates the changes with the standing committee and with any affected administrative departments. Consensus requests are forwarded to the Faculty Council for approval. In case of a lack of consensus, competing proposals may be sent to the Faculty Council for consideration.