Section 4. Town Hall Faculty Forums

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Elon University’s Statement on Shared Governance begins with the premise that the active engagement of the University’s various constituencies is a prerequisite for effective, democratic governance (see Section I-3). In order to promote this level of engagement, the University’s governance structure must provide opportunities for those constituencies to communicate and cooperate in a way that meets the following conditions. First, all faculty members—teaching faculty, staff with faculty rank, and administrators with faculty rank—must feel empowered to express their ideas honestly and in a productive way. In addition, they must feel confident that a structural mechanism exists to ensure that these ideas, once expressed, will be taken seriously by those who participate directly in the governance of the institution. Town Hall Faculty Forums, described in more detail below, are designed to satisfy both of these conditions.

• Three separate Town Hall Faculty Forums, one for each of the three categories of faculty as defined in the Policy Statements and Definitions, will be held on the first Friday afternoon in October and April. These forums will be led by the following faculty members: the Chair of Academic Council will lead the teaching faculty forum; the Academic Council representative of staff with faculty rank will lead that group’s forum; and the President or Provost/Executive Vice President will lead the faculty forum for administrators with faculty rank. The Chair-Elect of Academic Council will serve as recorder at the teaching faculty Town Hall Faculty Forum. The leaders of the other two Town Hall Faculty Forums will appoint an eligible faculty member to serve as recorder. In each case, the leader will prepare the agenda for his/her forum and publicize that agenda to the faculty.
• With the help of the faculty members who served as recorders, each of these three leaders—all of whom are members of Academic Council—is responsible for accurately conveying to Academic Council the sense of the discussion that occurred at their respective forums. In this way, the ideas expressed at each of the Town Hall Faculty Forums will be incorporated into Academic Council’s deliberations on issues of importance to the University community.
• As the term, “Town Hall Faculty Forums,” makes clear, these meetings exist for the express purpose of fostering discussion and communication. Since these forums are not official meetings of the faculty, no official business can be transacted.