Senators' Duties, Eligibilities, Elections, and Terms
The following is excerpted or paraphrased mainly from the Senate's
Procedures Manual, Section IV. Details can be found therein.
Duties: Each senator is the
elected (not appointed) representative of those faculty who comprise his/her constituency, i.e., department or college (for 'at-large' senators).
The primary duty of a senator is to represent the needs and points of view of that constituency. In addition, the senator should make regular reports to that constituency about those matters of importance to them that occur in the Senate and its committees, and should solicit feedback from the faculty.
Further, those senators who are appointed as representatives of the Faculty Senate to campus-wide committees (e.g., health and safety) have the duty to represent the needs and points of view of all faculty at UTHSC. Therefore, such senators may have to set aside some personal, departmental, or collegiate perspectives. Again, such senators are to regularly report to their constituency, the faculty, via the Senate and the FSEC.
Eligibility: faculty members with regular full-time, part-time, or emeritus appointments are eligible to be senators. The number of senators from a department is one per 15 FTEs.
Elections: Senators are elected in March and take office April 1 (this is a change from the statement in the Bylaws and was made by the Senate in the early 1990s; this change was made to facilitate a smoother transition of this legislative body and its leadership from year to year). Adequate notice of the elections is to be given. Unless there is only one candidate per position, elections are by secret ballot; however, recently electronic balloting has been permitted with the names of voters known only to the person tallying votes, who keeps such information confidential.
Terms: Full terms last 3 years. When several senators are elected from one entity at one time, then for half of them the first term's length is reduced so future elections are staggered. With some exceptions, a senator may serve at most 3 consecutive terms. Senators who fail to attend scheduled meetings and participate in Senate business may be removed from office and replaced after a special election.
