March 5, 2008 - Faculty Governance

Faculty Governance News

vol. 2.11

March 5, 2008

From the UNC Office of Faculty Governance
200-204 Carr Building
UNC-CH Campus
Contact: Anne M. Whisnant (anne_whisnant@unc.edu)

Textbook costs discussed at Faculty Council

The cost of textbooks created much discussion at the February 22 Faculty Council meeting. With book orders for the fall 2008 semester due March 28th, faculty members sought to understand why orders are needed so far in advance of the semester opening.

John Jones, Director of Campus Merchandising for Student Stores, emphasized that early ordering improves the bookstore’s chances of procuring used copies of textbooks and increases the prices the store can offer students who are selling back books that will be used again the following semester.

Read Jones’s complete report to the Faculty Council here.

Textbook orders can be placed online at Student Stores.

Elections for Faculty Council, committees will take place April 14-21

Members of the Voting Faculty are encouraged to participate in faculty elections, scheduled for April 14-21. Elections will be conducted electronically, with all members of the Voting Faculty receiving their ballots by email.

The Faculty Nominating Committee is now developing a slate of candidates for election to several faculty committees and the Faculty Council.

Click here for a complete schedule for the nominations and elections process.

UNC Tomorrow campus response plan changed

A note in the previous issue of Faculty Governance news indicated that faculty would be asked to complete an online survey about existing activities relating to the UNC system’s UNC Tomorrow (UNCT) initiative. The plan has changed because last week the campus received new and different guidance from UNC General Administration that reduced the number of existing activities that may be included in our UNC Tomorrow response. Hence, there will no longer be a survey.

Campus leaders formulating Chapel Hill’s response to UNC Tomorrow (the first part of which is due May 1, 2008) are now developing an alternative plan for compiling information about existing programs. Committees appointed by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bernadette Gray-Little are identifying expanded or new initiatives that respond to each of the six policy areas identified by the UNCT Commission.

If you would like to suggest a new program idea for consideration by any of the policy committees, please send it to Vice Chancellor Mike Smith’s office at engage@sog.unc.edu by Wednesday, March 12, 2008. It must respond to one or more of the UNCT recommendations.

You may find the UNCT report here.

Regular updates about our campus’s UNC Tomorrow response will be posted on the public service and engagement section of the Carolina website.

Thomas Jefferson Award nominations being accepted through March 21

Faculty members are invited to submit nominations for the Thomas Jefferson Award. The deadline for submissions is March 21.

The award is presented annually to “that member of the academic community who through personal influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing, and scholarship has best exemplified the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson.”

The award will be presented by the chancellor on recommendation of the faculty Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards. Nominations can be sent to the Office of Faculty Governance, Attention: Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards, Campus Box 9170, or emailed to Joseph Ferrell, Secretary of the Faculty, at jsferrel@email.unc.edu.

Click here for complete information on this award, including a list of former recipients.

“Anti-reservations” at the Anne Queen Faculty Commons

Do you have a small, informal lunch group that’s looking for a place to gather on a regular basis? Have you considered the Faculty Commons but worried that you’d get there and find it reserved for a meeting? The solution to this problem is to make an “anti-reservation.”

An “anti-reservation” allows you to set your meeting times and assure that the room will be open and available on the days you want to hold your gatherings. Meanwhile, it does not close the room to others who might wander in during those times. To place an “anti-reservation” on the Faculty Commons calendar, please contact Anne Whisnant in the Office of Faculty Governance at anne_whisnant@unc.edu or 962-1671.

Ideas, politics topic of April 14 discussion in the Faculty Commons

Three UNC faculty members who are the authors of acclaimed new books will come together to discuss the topic, “Do Ideas Matter in American Politics? A Conversation about Transcendentalism, Fundamentalism and Liberalism” on Monday, April 14 at 3:30 p.m. in the Anne Queen Faculty Commons, located in the Campus Y.

The event, sponsored by the Office of Faculty Governance, will feature:

Philip Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture and author of American Transcendentalism: A History (Hill & Wang, 2007)
Michael Lienesch, Professor of Political Science and author of In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement (UNC Press, 2007)
John McGowan, Ruel Tyson Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature and author of American Liberalism: An Interpretation for Our Time (UNC Press, 2007)

All faculty invited to reception set for April 29 in the Faculty Commons

The Office of Faculty Governance will sponsor a reception to mark the end of the spring semester on April 29 from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Anne Queen Faculty Commons. All faculty members are invited to drop in for refreshments and fellowship.

Bookshop wants titles of new books by faculty

Each semester, the Bull’s Head Bookshop attempts to include titles from all recently published books by UNC faculty in a newsletter titled “Faculty Headlines.” If you have a book that was published in the last six months and not included in the recent newsletter, or have a book scheduled to be published soon, please email the title to fiveiron@email.unc.edu.

Reading Room

An occasional feature highlighting interesting reading about universities, faculties, and governance. This week’s selection:

Gender Equity or Bust! On the Road to Campus Leadership with Women in Higher Education by Mary Dee Wenniger and Mary Helen Conroy (Jossey-Bass, 2001). This book, suggested to us by the staff at the Carolina Women’s Center’s Mary Turner Lane Reading and Resource Room, discusses the progress women have made toward achieving full and fair recognition in higher education.

For more information on any of these items, please contact Anne Whisnant in the Office of Faculty Governance.