Amended 3/5/2010

Normally the position of department chair is a three year appointment. (August 1-July 31).

In the Spring semester of the third year of a current chair's term prior to spring break, the faculty will follow these procedures to select the chair for the following three years.

1. A meeting of the regular Department faculty (tenured and tenure-track Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, Professors; adjunct, emeritus, and non-regular faculty will not participate in the meeting or the vote) will be devoted to selecting the Chair (and the date must be announced at least one week prior to the meeting).

2. Any tenured regular faculty member (Associate Professor, Professor) can be a candidate for chair (but not retired or emeritus professors). Self-nominations as well as nominations from other faculty are permitted.

3. Candidates will distribute a brief statement on their vision for the department prior to the meeting.

4. At the department faculty meeting with the graduate student representative present, the candidates will make a brief presentation. Then the other faculty may ask questions of each candidate.

5. To give time to reflect on this decision, the faculty will reconvene in a week with only tenure-track faculty present. Candidates may make additional statements and faculty may ask questions. Then the candidates will leave the room to allow for additional discussion of who should be chair. Then a secret ballot will be taken. Two faculty members who are not candidates for chair will collect the ballots, tally them, and report the vote. If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes will be removed from the ballot and another vote taken (if there are more than three candidates, this step could be followed more than once). If this procedure results in a deadlock between two candidates, the faculty will adjourn for a week and then steps 3 and 4 will be repeated.

6. The Department's choice will be communicated in writing to the Dean in a letter from the faculty written by the vote counters.

Ordinarily, a faculty member will serve no more than two consecutive terms (6 years) as chair. In order to provide for smooth transitions, the current chair will mentor the incoming chair during June and July and be available to provide advice thereafter.