I.D. Message from the Speaker of the Faculty Senate
Dear Colleagues,
The work on the version of the Faculty Handbook before you was a cooperative effort of faculty and University administrators to outline the rules concerning their joint responsibilities to this institution. This version of the Faculty Handbook fulfills the promise of a continuing, dynamic process for ensuring that the document serves the needs of the University.
Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Jerome, the committee crafted new language explaining and clarifying various policies and procedures. Ms. Leslie Bellavance, Dr. Joan Frederick, Dr. Reid Linn, Dr. Margaret Shaeffer, and Dr. Kenneth Wright worked diligently with Dr. Jerome to bring together perspectives from all sides of each issue, responding to recommendations and suggestions from the faculty at large and from the administration to revise the 2005 document. The members of the JMU faculty owe their colleagues a debt of gratitude for their dedicated work to improve this valuable description of important information and rules.
The new mechanism put in place at this institution in 2001 for a dynamic and living handbook will continue into the future. The Faculty Handbook Committee continues to work on drafting more suggestions, and we look forward to more discussions, as partners and colleagues, of the recommendations they will bring before the faculty and the administration for further modifications and additions to the Faculty Handbook. We have embraced a truly collaborative process that opens doors of communication and keeps the stakeholders in this institution intimately involved in the process of refining and illuminating the relationship between the faculty and the university.
I have confidence in the processes that are leading to the continuous improvement of this Faculty Handbook. We should all anticipate great strides in the coming years, and applaud the work of those individuals who are at the heart of the enterprise.
Dr. Steven Garren
Speaker, Faculty Senate
2008-2009
