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An effective shared governance structure in which faculty, administrations, and other stakeholders (boards of regents or visitors, state legislatures, the public, etc.) work together to achieve shared goals is critical to the core academic, research, and service missions of institutions of higher education.

Currently faculty governance at the University of Mary Washington is divided by college. The College of Arts & Sciences is governed by a Faculty Senate made up of elected representatives from each department and who are elected by the CAS faculty as a whole, the President, and two Senators-at-Large. An Academic Council made up of the entire faculty of the College of Graduate and Professional Studies serves as its faculty governance body. Links to their respective web sites are available in the sidebar.

These two bodies evolved to meet the very different needs of the two distinct faculties before we became a university. As part of the shift to university-status, it is appropriate to reconsider whether UMW has a faculty governance structure which can meet the needs of a university. To explore that question, the Faculty Organization subcommittees on each campus have convened a study group. As one part of the study group’s research, the University of Mary Washington will be hosting a conference on Faculty Governance on October 24th, 2008. After the conference, the committee will convene open forums and focus-group sessions on each campus to discuss the conference and the results of the faculty-wide survey the committee recently conducted. We have established this Blog as a means of continuing the dialogue on faculty governance while the committee continues its to perform its responsibilities. We hope you will take the time to join the discussion, and we invite you to write or comment on posts.  To write a post, simply add yourself as a user (see the “add me as a user” tab to the top right of this screen).