Since we have been asked for input, and our committee preferences are due
today, may I suggest to the various committees working on our implemention
draft that they consider writing in two new faculty committees that will
address some of your concerns.  If you have already sent your form in to Tom
Bibiler, you can send him a note, and this can constitute kind of a straw vote.

1.  Termination Committee (rarely meets)

In the event that the review committee in our implementation remains loaded
(it includes the head who gave an "below merit" rating in the first place
and two administrative appointees...three out of five) against the faculty
member whose continuation is being challenged (so much for the burden of
proof being on the university), we need a committee like the one called for
in our yet to be approved resolution that will represent the faculty. I am
not sure at what stage in the process it should be inserted (probably after
the review committee affirms the head's negative rating), but it should
exist to ensure that due process is followed.  Whether or not it is advisory
can be debated. We could call it the "due process" committee, but we might
as well be honest and call it the termination committee.

At the last Faculty Council Meeting many issues of implementation were
touched upon, but most discussion was about the composition of the review
committee. When you eventually get the minutes, you will see that no one at
the meeting, faculty or admistration, thought that including the department
head was a good or fair idea.  I cannot imagine any court upholding this
situation in the event a faculty member seeks legal recourse in the future,
but maybe the "Knoville lawyers" know what they are doing.  Provost Barry
promised to check this out with Bob Levy, Senior Associate Vice President
for Academic Affairs.

Marilyn Helms repeatedly emphasized that termination will be a "rare and
unusual event," so I volunteer to be the first chair of this committee. We
all look for committees that do not meet, so this is the ideal assignment.
Please write in this committee if you have procrastinated in sending the
form to Tom Bibler.

2.  Parental Leave Committee

Since we notice that there is a policy at UTK, now is an opportune time to
write this into our implementation as well.  The policy can be worked out
later: the first charge of this committee would be to look at UTK and other
policies around and define our own. I nominate Kristin Switala to be the
first head.  Such a clause in our implementatino is not a problem, because
we are being asked to hold off on EDO revision because it would be too
complicated and time consuming now to reconsider it, so the exact nature of
a policy is not the issue. You can add this to your write-in or again tell
Tom Bibler that this will be a good idea. His committee has asked for input,
and you can support the idea of both these committees without actually
wanting to be on them simply by writing them in or sending a note if you
have already sent in the form.

The above suggestions, if adopted by the PRC and the Handbook Committee,
will obviously be approved, because the UTK implementation we all have seen
includes such bodies.