Representative to College Council
College By-laws

Every two years a departmental representative and a designated alternate will be elected to serve two-year terms as determined by the College of Arts and Sciences.

Department Curriculum Committee
Adopted April 14, 1997

This is an elected standing committee composed of three members elected for two-year, staggered terms. Rotating nominations will be made using the same system as the Departmental Review committee. The committee will elect it own chair. All faculty are eligible for nomination.

The curriculum committee reviews all curriculum proposals, including proposals going to the Council on General Education and makes recommendations to the department.

See also Curriculum and COGE Proposals

Representative to University Faculty Council
University By-laws

At the last regularly scheduled departmental meeting of each academic year, a departmental representative and a designated alternate will be elected to serve one-year terms, beginning the next academic year.

Lectures and Special Events Committee
Revised October 24, 1988

This is an elected standing committee composed of two members, each with a staggered term of two years, with the person in year two serving as chair. The committee's responsibilities include planning and implementing the annual Witherspoon lecture and all other special lectures. The committee will also be responsible for other special events such as social events for senior majors, presentations on research by departmental faculty members, and other events as directed by the department.

Library Representative
Adopted September 30, 1991

Every three years (or as otherwise needed) the department will elect a faculty member to serve a three-year term as the department's library representative. Duties include encouraging faculty to order library resources which will assist both faculty and students in their academic work, managing faculty library requests and the library budget assigned by the university to the department, acting as liaison between the various departments of the library and the Department of Religious Studies, and working to increase library funding for the department both from university and external sources.

Department Review Committee
Adopted October 7, 1986 - Last Revised April 24, 2000

This is an elected standing committee composed of three tenured faculty members elected for one-year terms. The committee will elect its own chair. All tenured faculty are eligible for nomination. The chair of the department will maintain a rotation list of eligible faculty and the three members at the top of the rotation list will be nominated for election by the entire department. If any member of the three declines nomination the next person on the rotation list will be nominated. At the election during a departmental meeting, the floor will be opened for any additional nominations. If there are no additional nominations, the department conducts the election by voice vote. If there are more than three people nominated, the elections will be conducted by secret written ballot, with the chair of the department being ineligible to vote. The three elected to the committee will then move to the bottom of the rotation list for the following year.

The Department may also elect a nontenured, tenure-track faculty member to the Review Committee as a non-voting member. The purpose is to allow the faculty member to see how the review process works before the faculty member comes up for tenure review.

The Review Committee acts on all promotion and tenure cases in accordance with the By-laws of the College. The committee also conducts the following reviews:

annual reviews of all faculty in the department, appointments and reappointments to the graduate faculty, and tenured-faculty reviews.

The Review Committee will advise the chair of the department on other personnel matters as assigned by the department.

Secretary of Departmental Faculty Meetings
By tradition

At the last regularly scheduled departmental meeting of each academic year, a faculty member will be elected to serve as secretary for a one-year term, to be effective at the beginning of the next academic year. The duties will include keeping permanent minutes of departmental meetings, serving as chair of the meetings in the absence of the departmental chairperson, and maintaining any correspondence as directed by the department.