May 2025 Faculty Senate Newsletter
What’s New
2025-26 Committee Rosters
At the April 29, 2025 Faculty Senate Organizational meeting, faculty were elected to open seats on the Standing University Academic, Appellate, Administrative, and Faculty Senate Committees, as well as Graduate Council. The rosters for these committees have been updated and members will be sent invites to the organizational meetings of the Standing University Academic, Faculty Senate, and Appellate Committees. Please note that the rosters for the Student Academic Appellate Committee and the Appellate Committee will be updated closer to the beginning of the fall semester, due to the continuation of the work of those committees over the summer.
Want to Serve on a Committee?
Though committee elections have already taken place, there are ex-officio roles on many committees that will need to be filled, and committee vacancies that sometimes occur prior to the beginning of the fall semester. If you are a Faculty Senator or Alternate, you can be considered for the Faculty Senate representative on committees. Other interested faculty can be considered to serve as the representative of the Chair of the Faculty on committees, or to fill a vacated seat. If you are interested in serving in one of these roles, you may email Rachel Baker (bakerr@ecu.edu) or incoming Chair of the Faculty Mark Bowler (bowlerm@ecu.edu).
Featured
Congratulations to the 2025-2026 Faculty Support and Reassignment Award Winners
The Research and Creative Activities Committee collaborated with the Office for Research, Economic Development and Engagement to adjust the timing for the call for proposals and administration of the Faculty Support and Reassignment Awards. This resulted in a second call that was sent out during the Fall 2024 semester, with applications reviewed in early spring. The following faculty received the awards, which can be used in either Fall 2025 or Spring 2026:
- Loni Crumb, Education
- Christine Habeeb, Kinesiology
- Thomas Herron, English
- Karen Saxer, Nursing
Farewell to the Service-Learning Committee and Hello to the Engagement Education Committee
The Service-Learning Committee is being dissolved and the Engagement Education Committee will begin work in Fall 2025. The Service-Learning Committee was originally an administrative committee that was moved under the Standing University Academic Committees in 2012. The committee approved courses for the service-learning designation and in later years, developed criteria for students to be eligible for service-learning honor cords at graduation.
With the dissolution of the Service-Learning Committee, the new Engagement Education Committee will approve and review the course designations listed below.
- Domestic Learning (formerly Domestic Diversity)
- Global Learning (formerly Global Diversity)
- Intercultural Learning
- Community Engaged Learning (formerly Service-Learning)
Courses that previously had Domestic Diversity, Global Diversity, or Service-Learning designations are going to be automatically redesignated with the new designation titles. Faculty interested in seeking one of the designations for their courses can find out more information about the learning outcomes at the Engagement Education Committee website. Instructions for submitting requests through Curriculog will be added to the site at a future date. There will be a call for volunteers to fill the eight regular member seats soon after the fall semester begins.
Reminders
Comments on University Policy Items
In the month of May, several policies, rules, and regulations (PRRs) were developed or revised, with an open comment period. Though the comment period may have closed, faculty may always provide feedback on any PRR at any time. The University Policy Manual site has a link on a sidebar that will allow you to submit a policy action and/or comment on a policy. That link does require you to login with your ECU credentials. If you would like to comment on a policy but do not wish to be identified, you may use the Faculty Senate Office’s contact form. You may identify yourself on that form if you do not mind being contacted with questions about your comments, but you are not required to provide your identification. Either way, the Chair of the Faculty will submit the comment without identifying individual faculty. Faculty committees are often asked to provide feedback on PRRs and their comments are submitted by the Chair of the Faculty. Below are the policies that were sent out for open comment in May (the open comment periods for all of them have already closed):
• Revisions to Formatting, Adopting, Decommissioning and Publishing Policies, Regulations and Rules
• University Regulation on Email Signatures and Standards
• Workplace Violence Prevention
Faculty Personnel Deadlines
Below are the deadlines for personnel actions that are coming up soon (see the full East Carolina University Part X, Section II Schedule for Personnel Actions for more information):
- Workplan and Annual Evaluation Timeline – for 12-month faculty, the unit administrator will meet to discuss the workplan and annual evaluation in draft form by June 13th. The workplan and annual evaluation will then move to the Dean on June 30th.
- Progress Toward Tenure Letters – for 12-month faculty:
- By 1st Tuesday in June (June 3rd this year): the unit administrator provides the Tenure Committee with required documentation about the candidate and a draft of the administrator’s new progress toward tenure letter
- By 2nd Tuesday in June (June 10th): the tenure committee meets with the unit administrator to review the cumulative record of the candidate’s progress and finalize the progress toward tenure letter
- By June 23rd: delivery of the progress toward tenure letter and meeting that includes the faculty member, representative of the Tenure Committee, and unit administrator to discuss the letter, with subsequent delivery of the progress toward tenure letter to Dean
- By June 30th: progress toward tenure letter sent to higher administration
- Reappointment of Probationary-Term Faculty Members – for 12-month faculty, the Provost’s decision is due by the 1st Tuesday in June (June 3rd)
- Reappointment of Probationary-Term Faculty Members in 2nd Year of Employment With Credit for Prior Academic Service – for 12-month faculty, the dean recommendation and PAD goes to the Provost by the 2nd Tuesday in June (June 10th), with the Provost’s decision due by the 3rd Tuesday in June (June 17th).