The Daily Gamecock

Non-tenure track Faculty Senate voting one step from approval

Changes await full board vote on June 23

With Friday's approval by the Academic Affairs and Faculty Liaison Committee on changes to the USC Faculty Manual, full-time non-tenure track faculty are one step away from receiving voting power in the Faculty Senate.

Throughout the latter half of the 2016-17 academic year, there was an effort to extend Faculty Senate voting rights to any full-time faculty within a college, school or department at USC, rather than only those on track to receive tenure. Originally introduced at the March 1 Faculty Senate meeting, the motion to extend voting rights beyond tenure track faculty was unanimously referred back to the Faculty Advisory Committee on the first vote. The original draft was met with opposition from Professor Erik Doxtader of the English department, who found the motion "inconsistent" with existing departmental standards. 

Following revision, the changes were voted on and approved at a general faculty meeting on April 25. Grant presented the changes at Friday's Board of Trustees meeting to the Academic Affairs and Faculty Liaison Committee, which was unanimous in its approval.

Following the motion's initial failure in March, Grant referred to the non-tenure track voting rights extension as "probably the biggest change in faculty governance made since creation of the Faculty Senate" in 1970. 

Regarding the School of Medicine's two campuses in Columbia and the third in Greenville, the changes approved Friday allow lecturing medical faculty to vote on three faculty to "represent and vote (one vote for each of the three) for each School of Medicine." A small clerical edit to the section of the faculty manual regarding the changing of grades at the undergraduate level was also approved. 

Grant expects the voting rights extension to be on the agenda when the full Board of Trustees meets at the Alumni Center on June 23. 


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