Guidelines

Faculty Senate Elections Guidelines 

The intent of this guideline is to provide a guide on how the UMB Faculty Senate will conduct the nomination and election of senators. The scope of this guideline applies to preparation, nominations, accepting nominations, elections, and notification of election results.

Definitions:

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)

Procedure:

Nomination and election of Faculty Senators shall be conducted as follows:

Preparation:

  • By the end of January, the Faculty Senate secretary will determine the number of vacancies in each school and will email the Faculty Senators who are rotating off to remind them their term will expire June 30. (For the composition of the Senate, refer to Faculty Senate Constitution Article II.)
  • By early February, the Faculty Senate secretary will contact Chris Raab or his designee (CITS) and the senior marketing specialist or his/her designee in the Communications Office to start the nomination/elections process. Chris Raab or his designee will design the nomination and the elections ballot forms and the Communications Office will email the announcements for nominations and elections. Ensure nomination instructions and brief biography and personal statement submission deadline are clearly stated.
Nominations:
  • As per Faculty Senate Bylaws (Article VI, 2), the nomination ballot forms should be designed to be emailed directly to faculty requiring the nominee's: (1) full name, (2) degrees, (3) position or title, (4) name of school, (5) primary appointment by department or appropriate unit, and (6) current campus phone number. Nominations from each school shall be solicited by March 15.
  • The nomination process shall be open for two weeks. The Communications Office will send out reminder emails during this period.
Confirmation of the nominations received:
  • Once the nomination is accepted, the nominee also should provide a short biography and a statement of interest describing why he/she is interested in running for a seat in the Faculty Senate.
  • Chris Raab or his designee needs about three days to compile the names of those who accepted their nominations and send them to the Faculty Senate secretary. Anyone who is nominated and has not confirmed acceptance to the nomination will be contacted by the Faculty Senate secretary to verify if the nominee accepts or declines the nomination.
  • Allow at least two weeks between the end of nomination and the beginning of elections.
Notification of elections results:
  • The Faculty Senate president will announce the results to the Faculty Senate and to the newly elected/re-elected Senators. The Faculty Senate secretary will post the results in The Elm.
  • Newly elected Faculty Senators are welcomed to the May and June Senate meetings for orientation prior to the July 1 start of the three-year term. The Senate's year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30 of each year.
Unexpired terms vacated by resignation or any other reason:
  • Unexpired terms vacated by resignation or any other reason shall be filled by a special election within 30 days. A person elected to fill a vacancy shall serve only for the remainder of the unexpired term.

Administration:

Approval Details:

Approval Authority: Faculty Senate
Approval date: June 17, 2015
Date for next review: October 2017
Revision History: V1.0

Contact Person/Unit:

UMB Faculty Senate Secretary

Location of Guideline:

Faculty Senate webpage

Responding to Inquiry via Ask the Faculty Senate 

The intent of this guideline is to provide an explanation of how the UMB Faculty Senate will collect, respond to, and track inquiries placed via the Ask the Faculty Senate. To offer faculty members two options: anonymous and non-anonymous inquiries. The scope of this guideline applies to inquiries, questions, comments, and/or suggestions, made via the “Ask the Faculty Senate” link.

Definitions

  • The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)

Procedure

Once a faculty member submits a question or inquiry via the Ask the Faculty Senate link, the following procedure will be followed:

Inquiry:

Thank you for contacting us.

The Faculty Senate is interested to hear from UMB faculty colleagues to learn what issues are important to them.

To submit an anonymous question, inquiry, or comment, please click here.

To submit a question, inquiry, or comment, with identifiers and contact information, please click here.

  • Anonymous inquiry:

Please type in your question, inquiry, or comment into the text box below. If you wish to receive a response, please contact the Faculty Senate president at FacultySenatePres@umaryland.edu.

Thank you for contacting the Faculty Senate.

  • Non-anonymous inquiry:

Please complete the name, telephone, and email address fields. Then type your question, inquiry, or comment into the text box below.

One of the Faculty Senate leadership team members will contact you shortly with a reply.

Thank you for contacting the Faculty Senate.

  • After submitting the question, inquiry, or comment, the following on-screen confirmation, for both anonymous and non-anonymous entries, appears on the faculty member’s screen:

If you provided contact information, one of the Faculty Senate leadership team members will contact you shortly. If you did not provide contact information, please feel free to contact the Faculty Senate president (FacultySenatePres@umaryland.edu) for a private response.

Please visit the Faculty Senate webpage to learn more about our scheduled meetings, read meeting minutes, and more.

  • Faculty submitting an inquiry that includes an email address will receive an automatic email as follows:

Thank you for contacting the UMB Faculty Senate.

  • Monthly Office of Communications forwards a list of inquiries posted in the previous month.
Addressing the Inquiry:
  • All inquiries received will be automatically forwarded to the Faculty Senate president or his/her designee. The president or designee forwards to the Faculty Senate Advisory Council unless the question may be addressed immediately and does not require discussion and/or deliberations (e.g., When does the Faculty Senate meet?).
  • Inquiries requiring discussion and/or deliberation are reviewed during a regularly scheduled Faculty Senate Advisory Council meeting.
  • Inquiries will be discussed during Executive Session (closed) of the Faculty Senate Advisory Council meeting. Follow-up is provided to those inquiries with contact information. For anonymous inquiries, responses will be provided when the faculty member contacts the Faculty Senate president or designee.
  • Inquiries brought to the full Faculty Senate will be discussed during a regularly scheduled meeting. The Faculty Senate president or his/her designee will contact the faculty member who made the inquiry. The Faculty Senate meeting minutes will not include specific information or discussions concerning the inquiry.
  • Responses to inquiries will be reconciled in approximately one a month.

Administration:

Approval Details:

Approval Authority: Reviewed and approved by UMB Faculty Senate Advisory Council
Approval date: April 8, 2015
Date for next review: One year or earlier, if warranted.
Revision History: V1.0

Contact Person/Unit:

UMB Faculty Senate President

Location of Guideline:

Faculty Senate webpage