27 March 2012

The Appointment, Promotion, Academic Freedom, and Tenure committee completed a voluntary poll of the Weber State University faculty to determine the overall faculty opinion regarding the need for a campus-wide policy limiting the number of terms a department chair can serve.  There were 276 respondents (roughly 59% of the total faculty), of which 260 responses were complete.  Respondents represented the library and colleges of Applied Science and Technology, Arts and Humanities, Business and Economics, Education, Health Professions, Science, and Social and Behavioral Science in roughly equal proportions (no entity was represented by more than 19% of the respondents).

Overall, the faculty was not in favor of a campus-wide policy setting term limits for department chairs (55% against).  This result was strengthened by the much more popular opinion that the policies for terms of department chairs should be set at the college (45% for) or department (35% for) level (in other words, 80% were against oversight at the university level).  Many of the respondents who were against term limits supported this view with written comments.  There was also frequent mention that successful chairs who were up to speed with the challenges of the job should be rewarded if they wish to continue to serve and department faculty members are satisfied with their performance.  Concern that small departments did not have an adequate number of faculty members to support frequent change in chairs was also often mentioned and, in support of this, there was strong disagreement among respondents that faculty members should be required to serve a chair (96% against).

The fact that 45% of respondents were in favor of a campus-wide policy setting term limits for department chairs (question 1) suggests there was a substantial minority with this view.  Further, 57% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that rotation of the chair-ship was beneficial for larger departments (suggesting faculty members from larger departments were primarily responsible for support of term limits).  However, based on a follow-up question (question 6), most of these individuals actually prefer term limits to be regulated at a lower level despite their response to question 1.  That is, there was notable disagreement between questions 1 and 6.  According to question 1, 45% of respondents were for a campus-wide policy limiting the terms of department chairs, whereas according to question 6 only 20% were for oversight at the university level.  Nevertheless, both questions support the conclusion that the majority of faculty members are against a campus-wide policy.

Given the majority vote against campus-wide term limits for department chair and the much stronger majority vote against university-level control over policies for terms of department chairs, we conclude that a campus-wide policy is not in the interest of the Weber State University faculty.  A college- or department-level policy might be in the interest of faculty members in some colleges or departments, but wherever this is the case, it should be pursued at the appropriate level.