The members of the Political Science Department of the University of North Texas, considering their Department to be a community of scholars devoted to teaching, research, and community service, affirm their commitment to the education of their students, to the discipline of Political Science, and to the University of North Texas. The Department’s officers and committees receive their authority from, and are responsible to, this community of scholars. Both the Department and its Chair recognize in addition their responsibility to the University Administration and Board of Regents.
Voting privileges belong to all full-time members of the Political Science Department of the University of North Texas. Those with more than half-time duties in General University Administration shall not have voting rights, and shall not serve on Department committees.
Department affairs shall be conducted by the following agents of the Department:
Regular meetings of the Department faculty shall be held in the months of August, September, October, November, February, March, and April, and at least once during each summer term. Additional meetings may be called by the Chair, the Executive Committee, or on petition from any five members of the Department.
Notification of all regular faculty meetings shall be made by memorandum posted on the Department mail boxes or inserted in the mail box of each voting faculty member. Such notification shall be given at least one week in advance of the meeting, and shall include the agenda of the meeting. Any change in Departmental policy not previously listed on such agenda shall not be brought to a vote until the next meeting of the faculty. The Department faculty may by a two-thirds vote of those present and voting waive this restriction in order to consider a particular item of business.
A quorum shall consist of a majority of the voting members of the Department. In all parliamentary questions not provided for herein, Robert’s Rules of Order shall apply.
Minutes shall be kept for all faculty meetings, and shall be a matter of Department record. Copies of these minutes shall be distributed to all members of the Department in timely fashion, and a permanent archive of them maintained by the Department Chair’s office.
The Chair is the chief executive officer of the department. The authority of the Chair shall be exercised in the spirit of democratic governance reflected in the University of North Texas Faculty Handbook, Appendix A-2. Subject to University policy and to Department policy as determined by the faculty, the Chair is responsible for administrative, educational, personnel, budgetary and student affairs of the Department. The Chair shall also serve as chair of the Executive Committee.
The Chair has authority to appoint members to the administrative positions listed below. All appointments shall be for one year, renewable at the option of the Chair and the appointee, except that the Assistant Chair serves at the Chair’s pleasure, and any appointment of an Acting Chair for a period longer than eight weeks shall be subject to approval by the Department faculty.
The Chair shall be authorized to make such additional administrative appointments as may be required, on an ad hoc basis.
The Chair shall be responsible for the publication of a Department Bulletin, which shall be distributed to all Department faculty.The Bulletin shall be published at least once each month during the regular academic year, and at such other times as may be appropriate. The Bulletin shall be used to publicize upcoming meetings, schedules of coming events, announcements of interest to the faculty, the text of Department Charter or By-Law amendments that have been adopted by the faculty, and any other matters which may contribute to the open and democratic operation of the Department. The Chair’s office shall keep a permanent archive of the Department Bulletin.
The committees listed in Article I, Section 2, shall constitute the Charter Committees of the Department. The Chair shall appoint members to the various committees with the exception of the Executive Committee and search committees for Department Chair. Members of the Executive Committee, with the exception of the Chair, are elected as provided in Article III, Section 7. The Chair shall publish a complete list of proposed committee assignments in the Department Bulletin or in the meeting agenda prior to the September meeting of the Faculty each year, and the appointments shall become effective when ratified by the faculty at that meeting.
In making committee assignments, the Chair shall strive to provide that each faculty member serve on at least one charter committee in any two-year period. The Chair shall also provide that the Undergraduate Studies Committee and the Graduate Studies Committee contain at least one member from each of the Department's academic sub-fields.
The first meeting of each committee except the Executive Committee shall be called by a convenor named by the Department Chair, at which meeting the committee will elect its own Chair.
Committees shall normally meet monthly during the same months mandated for regular meetings of the full faculty (Article I, Section 3). All committee meetings shall be announced to the general faculty at least three working days in advance, by electronic or other memorandum. Meetings may dispensed with when lack of business warrants, at the committee chair's discretion, provided that he notify committee members of his decision. All committee business is to be conducted in a democratic manner, consistent with the spirit of the Faculty Handbook, Appendix A-2. A quorum of at least one-half the members of a committee is necessary to transact committee business.
All committee meetings shall be open to any member of the Department, with the exception of meetings of the Executive Committee when it is acting as Department Personnel Committee.
The Committee Chair shall ensure that any committee proposals to be brought before the general faculty are put on the agenda for regular faculty meetings, and, where appropriate, shall distribute the text of such proposals to the entire faculty at least one week in advance of their discussion by the faculty.
The regular term of membership on all committees, except the Executive Committee, shall be one year. No member shall be re-appointed to the same committee for more than three terms consecutively, unless necessary to ensure representation of all the Department's sub-fields on the Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Committees.
Elections to the Executive Committee, and any other elective departmental post except student members shall be conducted by the Election Judge, who shall be elected at the first Department meeting in the fall semester each year. The Election Judge shall be eligible for re-election to successive one-year terms.
Except for the election of student members provided for in the next section, all elections for Department positions shall be conducted by secret ballot, following the procedures used in University-wide elections (ballots to be returned in a small envelope inside a larger signed envelope). Such elections shall require a majority of the votes cast to elect, with a run-off election between the top two candidates, if no majority is secured on a first ballot. In case of a two-way tie in any vote, one of the two candidates shall be selected by lot.
The student members of the departmental committees shall be elected at a meeting of both graduate and undergraduate Political Science majors. This meeting shall be called by the Department Chair during the first month of the Fall semester each year, prior to the first meetings of the various Department committees. Unless otherwise determined by the Department Chair, such elections shall be conducted by the North Texas chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha.
Student members of Department committees shall have full rights to notification, voting, and inclusion in quorum counts.
The Executive Committee shall consist of six elected members plus the Department Chair. All full-time tenured or tenure-track members of the Department are eligible to serve on the Executive Committee. At least four of the elected positions shall be filled by Full or Associate Professors with tenure. Each of the ranks (Full, Associate, Assistant Professor) shall have at least one member on the Executive Committee, unless that rank has fewer than three full-time members in the Department as a whole.
Except for the Department Chair and any members at the rank of Assistant Professor, terms on the Executive Committee shall be two years. Assistant Professors shall serve one year terms. Terms shall be staggered such that roughly half the members are elected each year. Elections to the Executive Committee shall take place as stipulated below, except that special elections to fill vacancies on the Committee may be held at any time. No person who serves a full term or more than six months of an unexpired term on the Committee shall be eligible for re-election to the Committee until one year after his or her departure from the Committee.
At the beginning of the spring semester, the Election Judge shall consult the Department Charter (Article III, Section 6a), and the Department Chair to determine which positions on the Executive Committee will become vacant the following fall, and which faculty members are eligible for them. Based on these determinations, the Election Judge shall produce appropriate ballots for the election.
The Election Judge shall start the first round of voting on the first Wednesday after spring break, by placing ballots in the mailboxes of voting members of the faculty or by e-mailing ballots where possible to faculty off campus. These ballots shall list the positions which must be filled first, and the members eligible for election to the positions. E-mailed votes shall be sent to a departmental staff member, who shall register that vote on a paper ballot, and submit it according to normal procedure, signing the absent voter’s name on the outside envelope.
Election logistics regularly require that some positions be filled before elections for other positions may be started. In all cases, the principles governing the balloting shall be that each round of voting shall take place over a minimum of two class days, with successive rounds beginning on the same day that the previous round is completed, unless faculty absences cause a delay in the voting.
Any member of the Executive Committee who has been recommended for nonrenewal of contract by the Executive Committee, or who resigns his or her position from the University, or accepts a position elsewhere, will vacate his or her position on the Committee immediately. Any member of the Department whose salary is paid in any part from General Administrative funds shall be ineligible to serve on the Executive Committee.
It is the intent of this Charter that the faculty as a whole make Department policy, and the Executive Committee's functions shall be construed accordingly.
The Executive Committee shall advise the Department Chair on all matters of Department operations and policy within the purview of the Chair's office, unless provided to the contrary in the Faculty Handbook, Appendix A-2 on appointments, promotion and tenure, and peer evaluation. The Executive Committee shall function as the Department Personnel Affairs Committee. The Executive Committee, excluding any untenured members, shall also function as the Department Committee on Promotion and Tenure. The members of the Executive Committee may, at the option of a majority of them, meet separately from the Department Chair, in which case they shall elect a temporary Chair from among themselves.
The Graduate Studies Committee shall consist of the Graduate Advisor and the Supervisor of Teaching Fellows and Assistants, ex officio, and shall contain at least one representative from each of the Department's academic sub-fields together with one graduate student majoring in the Department.
The Graduate Studies Committee shall keep under continual review the policies of the Department concerning graduate programs, curriculum, and students. Where appropriate, it shall recommend to the Department graduate courses to be offered each semester. It shall review cases of cheating or plagiarism involving graduate students, and where appropriate impose, or recommend that the Dean of Students impose, penalties beyond failure of a course or departmental exam. It shall recommend to the Department any changes in program or policy which it deems desirable. It shall assist the Graduate Advisor in the performance of his or her duties. It shall recommend to the Department appointments to graduate assistantships and fellowships funded by the Department. In such decisions the graduate student member shall not participate. The Committee shall be responsible for liaison between the Department and the appropriate University agencies concerning the graduate curriculum, programs, and policy. When changes in graduate programs or curriculum are adopted by the faculty, the Committee shall prepare the necessary materials for submission to the appropriate University curriculum bodies, and designate someone to represent the Department before those bodies.
This Committee shall consist of the Undergraduate Advisor, the Supervisor of Teaching Fellows and Assistants, ex officio, and shall contain at least one representative of each of the Department's academic sub-fields together with one undergraduate student majoring in Political Science.
The Undergraduate Studies Committee shall keep under continual review the policies of the Department concerning undergraduate programs, curriculum, and students. It shall review and recommend textbooks for adoption in the Department's basic American and Texas Government courses. Where appropriate, it shall recommend to the Department undergraduate courses to be offered each semester. It shall review cases of cheating or plagiarism involving undergraduates, and where appropriate recommend to the Dean of Students penalties beyond failure of a course. It shall recommend to the Department any changes in undergraduate program or policy which it deems desirable. It shall assist the Undergraduate Advisor in the performance of his or her duties. It shall be responsible for liaison between the Department and the appropriate University agencies concerning undergraduate curriculum, programs, and policy. When changes in undergraduate programs or curriculum are adopted by the faculty, it shall be the responsibility of the Committee to prepare the necessary materials for submission to the appropriate University curriculum bodies, and to designate someone to represent the Department before those bodies.
The Library Committee shall consist of the Library Representative, ex officio, and three others, no two of whom may be from the same academic area within the Department. It shall be responsible for liaison between the Department and the University Library Committee. It shall also keep the holdings of the UNT Library relevant to Political Science under continual review, and shall be responsible for forwarding to the library all acquisition requests made by the Department. Any decision concerning significant additions to or reductions in the library's serials acquisitions shall be referred to the Department faculty. All purchases over $500 shall also be referred to the Department faculty. Purchases of less than $500 but over $100 may be handled by the Library Committee. Purchases of $100 or less may be handled by the Library Representative.
The Academic Grants and Awards Committee shall consist of three members of the Department, no two of whom shall be from the same academic sub-field. Its function shall be to serve as the Department's agent in the processing and awarding of grants and other honors to students. The Committee shall inform itself of awards, from University or outside sources, for which the Department's students may be eligible. It shall inform the faculty of such awards and solicit student applications, where appropriate. It shall also supervise the competition for any student awards conferred by the Department, or for which the Department nominates candidates.
The Martin Colloquium Committee shall consist of three members of the Department and one graduate student in the Department. It shall plan and arrange meetings of the Department at which faculty members or guest speakers discuss their research or address matters of professional interest to political scientists.
The Department Chair, in consultation with the Executive Committee, may appoint such ad hoc committees as seem necessary at any given time. The creation of any ad hoc committee shall be publicized in the Department Bulletin, together with its membership and a full explanation of its functions and responsibilities. Each ad hoc committee shall dissolve after the completion of its stated task, or at the end of the academic year in which it was created unless its continuance is expressly provided for.
Any member of the Department may initiate a charter amendment by distributing copies of the proposed amendment at any regular Department meeting. Such distribution shall constitute a first reading of the amendment. All such proposals shall be clearly identified as proposed charter amendments. The amendment may be ratified by a simple majority vote of the faculty attending the next Department meeting, provided that at least one week shall have elapsed between the first reading and ratification.
By-Laws establishing policy on matters of concern to Department governance or organization shall be passed by the faculty to complement this Charter. Any member of the Department may initiate the amendment of existing By-Laws, their repeal, or addition of new By-Laws, by having them put on the agenda of a Department meeting, and distributing copies of the proposed changes to all voting members of the Department at least one week in advance of that meeting. All such proposals shall be clearly identified as proposed changes to Department By-Laws. They shall be ratified when approved by majority vote of the Department.
The Department shall formally review the Charter and By-Laws for possible amendment at intervals of no more than five years. At any other time the Department Chair may appoint an ad hoc Charter and By-Law Review Committee to make a report to the faculty before the expiration of the academic year in which it was appointed.
This Charter shall be considered to have superseded all previous Department Charters when accepted by majority vote of the faculty after at least two readings, spaced at least one week apart.
Each member of the Department shall be given a copy of this Charter. It shall be the responsibility of the Chair to update the Charter and department By-Laws whenever either is amended. Charter and By-Law amendments shall be publicized in the Department Bulletin when ratified, and updated copies of the Charter and By-Laws shall be distributed to all members of the Department at the regular Department meeting in September if any amendments have been ratified during the previous year.
Amendments to the Charter shall be included at their proper place in the text of the Charter, rather than added serially at the end.