Charges to the Task Force on the Handbook for Faculty
and Other Unclassified Staff FY 08-09

 

Date approved by FacEx: April 1, 2008

 

Contact FacEx chair Richard Levy (08) at rlevy@ku.edu or Nancy Kinnersley (09) at nkinners@ku.edu for further information or to schedule a meeting with FacEx to discuss recommendations for action on the charges.

 

A final report on the task force’s actions on each of the charges should be e-mailed to the Governance Office (govern@ku.edu) by February 2009.

 

BACKGROUND

 The Handbook for Faculty and Other Unclassified Staff is a critically important document within the University community that contains many essential policies and procedures.  Over the years, however, a number of problems with the Handbook have developed.  First, the Handbook is a mixture of narrative description and general discussion of principle, coupled with policies and procedures that most members of the community would expect to be binding, some of which have been incorporated verbatim from other sources.  Second, the Handbook is out of date.  Some policies and procedures need to be revised to reflect current circumstances, others have not been updated to incorporate amendments, and descriptive language often no longer reflects current practice. Related to the previous concern, the Handbook is one of multiple and at times inconsistent sources of University policies and procedures, which makes it difficult to identify or locate the authoritative version of a given policy or procedure. Finally, the binding status of policies and procedures in the Handbook, as well as the authority and process for making changes to it, are not clear. 

 

In light of these concerns, in the 2005-06 academic year, governance leaders charged the Organization and Administration Committee (O & A) to review the Handbook for the purpose of identifying policies and procedures that should be moved from the Handbook into other policy documents.  The O & A report, submitted in the Spring of 2006, identified a number of policies that should be moved to other locations but indicated that such policies or procedures would have to be substantially revised before they could be incorporated into other policy documents.  Building on the O & A recommendations, governance leaders began discussions with the Provost’s Office, which has the ultimate authority over the Handbook, about its future.  Given our shared interest and concerns, these discussions led to agreement that the Handbook, as it currently exists, should be eliminated and replaced with a web-based handbook that provides narrative context for a series of links to the official policies of the University, as expressed in the University Senate Code, University or Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations, or other official policy documents, such as those found in the University Policy Library.  In this way, the new Handbook would be automatically updated whenever the official policy changes.  Achieving this objective means that the Handbook itself must be recast, and that the policies and procedures contained in the current Handbook must be updated, rewritten, and moved to other official policy documents.

 

The Provost requested that Governance create a task force to accomplish these tasks and agreed to provide support for its work, including support for a “Reporter” who would not be a voting member but would serve as principal draftsperson for the task force.  It is expected that after an initial meeting in the spring of 2008, the Reporter would develop a draft set of documents as the basis for discussion and further work in the fall semester, including discussion and input from the University community.  The task force would bring forward its recommendations in the spring of 2009.

 

CHARGES

 

The Faculty Senate Task Force on the Handbook for Faculty and Other Unclassified Staff is established to implement the following charges:

 

1.  Draft a new Handbook for Faculty and Unclassified Staff that provides narrative context for a series of links to University policy documents and submit the draft for review and endorsement by Governance and recommendation to the University Administration.

 

2.  Building on the O & A Report of 2007, develop a set of proposed amendments to the University Senate Code, University Senate Rules and Regulations, and Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations that incorporate essential policies and procedures from the Handbook.  In developing these proposed amendments, make appropriate changes in the policies and procedures to update them, to adapt them for inclusion in the code or regulations, and to ensure they reflect sound policy and procedure.

 

3.  Building on the O & A Report of 2006, develop a set of proposed policies and procedures for inclusion in the University Policy Library (or other official policy documents) reflecting those policies and procedures in the Handbook that should be located in official policy documents other than the code or regulations.  In developing these proposed policies, make appropriate changes in the policies to update them, to adapt them for inclusion in official policy documents, and to ensure they reflect sound policy and procedure.