The committee meets in-person and on-line, working synchronously and asynchronously.  

Finalized membership on this year’s SGIT committee—There are two co-chairs and a total of twelve members.

October 7, 2024 

The committee took the following actions:  

  1. Reviewed shared governance statements 
  2. Discussed essential elements of a possible JMU shared governance statement  
  3. Worked to produce a short statement for Senate and Academic Council approval  
  4. Determined that the statement should be bolstered by supplemental materials posted online as a resource for members of the university community 

October 21 

The committee took the following actions:  

  1. We continued to discuss and wordsmith the shared governance statement 
  2. We then finalized a draft of the shared governance statement for consideration by the Senate and Academic Council.  
  3. SGIT Members reviewed the SGIT Items to Address spreadsheet: 
    a. Members indicated whether the status classifications based on last year’s work still seem appropriate.  
    b. Members wrote notes and suggestions updating the progress made on particular items.  

The committee took the following actions:  

November 20, 2024

  1. The committee approved revisions to our draft shared governance statement, based on feedback from the provost. 
  2. We discussed the meta-recommendations from the Shared Governance Task Force Report.

    Four of the ten meta-recommendations have been addressed.     
  • M3. Advance these recommendations as one JMU 
  • M7. Continue crafting charges jointly 
  • M9. Balance representation 
  • M10. Communicate Freely 

    Four are currently being discussed/researched by the committee. 

  • M1. Protect Tenure and Academic Freedom 
  • M2. Slow down 
  • M4. Include all faculty 
  • M5. Meaningfully include staff and students 

    The remaining two are scheduled for discussion in the spring semester. 
  • M6. Stay accountable for progress — We plan to discuss this recommendation at our
    first spring semester meeting 
  • M8. Broaden Involvement 
December 2, 2024 
 
The committee took the following actions:  
 
  1. We discussed what we should send to the Faculty Handbook Revision Committee from the SG Task Force list of recommendations. 
  2. We discussed recommendation 1B of the SGTF report which notes the importance of having a divisional shared governance statement. 
  3. We reviewed statement drafts from the Task Force, Academic Council, and members of the SGIT. SGIT developed a new shared governance statement that brings together the best of those drafts. Our statement was jointly developed by administrators and instructional faculty alike and affirms the importance of structured collaboration in the context of academic freedom.  
 
Following Recommendation 1B, we submitted this statement to the Provost and the Speaker for their review. [update: The Provost, President, and Faculty Senate have all approved the statement.]

January 24  
 
Summary of discussion points include: 

  1. Need to develop a process for joint work between the Faculty Senate and Academic Council. 
  2. Work on internal transparency related to our committee to sharing minutes & publishing the website.  
  3. Pinpointed priorities & made decisions to punt several items to Faculty Handbook Committee.  
  4. Work on our landing page & determine how to measure and assess progress. Include specific tasks re: primacy, dominance, etc. (i.e., each of the subgroup’s focus areas).  
  5. Importance of budget transparency within each unit.  

February 10, 2025 
 
SGIT discussed and prioritized work for the remainder of the semester. We divided work for subgroups to work on together in our Feb. 28 meeting and then to report back on March 10. 

  1. Group one will work on organizing a “game” to solicit feedback on areas of primacy, dominance, and joint authority based on AAUP survey. [ Smita, Roger, Rhonda, John, and Sasha] 
  2. A second group will work on communication around SGIT including landing page, updating excel items and editing to potentially publicly share out, and compiling brief “share outs” of points covered by our bi-monthly meetings. [Audrey, Kristen, and Elizabeth] 
  3. Developing principles for sharing out budget transparency at college and/or unit level, including a brief description of some basic points about how budgets are allocated. [Jeff, Jessica]
  4. Guidelines and principles for voting. [Sasha and Kristen] 

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Faculty Affairs and Curriculum
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