March 30, 2012

Charge 2: Term limits for Deans

In conjunction with the research completed by the Appointment, Promotion, Academic Freedom, and Tenure Committee about term limits for department chairs, the APAFT Committee also discussed term limits for deans.  A number of issues that evolved from the department chairs survey brought issues regarding term limits.  Those issues were attracting highly qualified candidates from off campus and removing deans who were currently successful and had faculty support.

Attract Highly Qualified Candidates from Off Campus

One of the issues was the ability to attract highly qualified deans to campus from off campus.  If we had to tell dean candidates that they could only serve two terms of six years, for example, they may not be interested.  (If we were to have term limits, the suggested amount from the faculty survey was two terms of three years for a total of six years.) We would have a difficult time convincing candidates to come to Weber State for that length of time.

Remove Deans who are Successful and had Faculty Support

The second issue deals with deans who were currently serving, doing a successful job, and had the faculty support.  In this scenario, the question arose as to why would we force a dean to step down?

The APAFT Committee felt that if the dean was fulfilling his or her responsibilities, and the faculty members were pleased with the dean’s actions that the dean should be able to continue.

Given the discussion about the inability to attract highly qualified candidates from off campus to serve as deans and forcing deans to step down when being successful , the APAFT Committee concluded that a campus-wide policy to limit terms of deans is not in the best interest of WSU faculty and deans.