Faculty and Professional Staff Handbook » Voting in a departments, and membership or service on personnel committees shall be limited to full-time faculty who were appointed to that specific department. In the rare instances where there is a joint appointment of a faculty member to two departments, the faculty member has voting privileges and full participation only in the department where he/she is primarily assigned teaching duties. A regular, full-time faculty member will temporarily lose voting rights for and the ability to serve on personnel committees in the department during a semester if he/she is assigned more than 6 credits to administrative duties during that semester. A chairperson who has 9 credits to administer his/her department and teaches 3 credits each semester retains his/her right to vote in the department. However, if full-time faculty members have academic grants, ART, are involved in teaching in interdisciplinary programs, chair academic committees or departments or any other academic pursuits totaling more than 6 hours in a semester thus leaving them less than 6 hours of teaching within their assigned department, they shall not lose their right to vote for or serve on any committee including personnel in their department or serve on University-wide committees during any such semester. Part-time faculty have the privilege of participating in department meetings, but do not have the right to vote for or serve on personnel committees. Adjuncts shall have the privilege of participating in department meetings with voice, but without vote. When a faculty member is on sabbatical, he/she is released from all professional duties and responsibilities at the University so that he/she can devote all of his/her time to the fulfillment of the sabbatical's purpose. While on sabbatical leave, faculty members are therefore exempt from duties and responsibilities of voting in a department and may not selectively choose to do so. When the faculty member returns from sabbatical leave, he or she resumes the duties and responsibilities consistent with full-time faculty status, including voting in a department. Voting rights, while a faculty member is on sabbatical, can be found in the “Sabbatical Leave” section of this handbook.
