Part IV, Section I: Academic Code Units

Contents

1. Definition of Code Unit
2. Organizing as a Code Unit
3. Creating New Code Units and Making Changes to Existing Code Units

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I. Definition of Code Unit

By virtue of their professional disciplinary and inter-disciplinary expertise, East Carolina University faculty members are responsible for creating and implementing degree programs, associated curricula, and for performing numerous other activities essential to educating students, advancing knowledge and serving the university and the community. To fulfill this responsibility effectively, faculty members organize into self-governing departments, schools or colleges. The resulting organizational boundaries are neither arbitrary nor a reflection of individual interests. Disciplinary and interdisciplinary boundaries derive naturally from differences in the subjects studied and the methods required to generate new knowledge of these subjects. The operations of a faculty group organized around shared subject matters and research methodologies are governed by a document referred to as a “unit code.” ECU uses the expression “code unit” to refer to a department, school or college whose operations are governed by a unit code. Differences between unit codes arise because of the subject matter and research methods of different code units. These differences require unique procedures that govern teaching, research, service and other assignments as well as the specific code unit’s criteria for appointment, reappointment, promotion and tenure, for example. The unit code document is created by a group of faculty members and approved by the applicable code unit voting faculty members as defined below (Part IV, Section II, subsection III), the Unit Code Screening Committee, the Faculty Senate, and the Chancellor. In this process, the administrator to whom the code unit administrator reports, typically a dean, reviews a draft code and may provide advice. When the code unit is a college and the next higher administrator is the Provost, the unit code is submitted directly to the Unit Code Screening Committee without review at this step by the Provost.

II. Organizing as a Code Unit

Requirements: To be eligible to organize as a Code Unit, a new or existing department, school or college, (or departments, schools or colleges created by splitting or combining existing code units), shall satisfy the following requirements:

1. Code Units shall contain sufficient faculty members to create and sustain one or more degree programs and their associated curricula (excepting the libraries). What suffices in any given case will be decided by the Provost or Dean of Brody School of Medicine’s delegate (as appropriate to supervisory authority) in consultation with the faculty with at least one year of service who will be members of the Code Unit if established, the chairperson(s) or director(s) and the appropriate dean.
2. Code units shall be organized so as to distribute faculty and administrative responsibilities as follows (this list is not exhaustive of the duties of faculty members and administrators).
   1. Faculty: Faculty members are expected to perform responsibilities that may include, but are not limited to, providing course instruction in one or more degree programs and in General Education courses as appropriate; conducting research and/or creative activities and providing clinical service (as appropriate to the discipline); for advising majors; supervising graduate theses and dissertations and initiating recommendations on curriculum, degree program requirements, personnel actions, evaluation criteria, the unit’s strategic plan, the unit’s assessment activities, student, faculty and staff awards and the unit’s code of operations.
      
   2. Administration: The unit administrator is expected to perform responsibilities that may include, but are not limited to, faculty evaluation, for assigning duties to the unit’s faculty members, for recommendations regarding initial faculty salaries and salary increments, for the use of the unit’s budget, for fundraising, for maintaining the unit’s contracts, records and reports, for managing the unit’s support staff, for the unit’s compliance with all university policies, rules and regulations and for the unit’s compliance with all actions required by higher administration.
      
      In carrying out these responsibilities, the unit administrator shall promote equality for their students, faculty, and staff, a commitment to the core value of equality of opportunity in education and employment as described in the UNC Policy Manual 300.8.5 Equality within the University of North Carolina (pdf).

III. Creating New Code Units and Making Changes to Existing Code Units

1. Proposals recommending the creation of a code unit or units, or changes to an existing code unit: Proposals shall be initiated by a Code Unit Proposal Committee. A Code Unit Proposal Committee may be self-constituted by action of at least one-fourth of an existing code unit’s faculty members (but no fewer than three faculty members) or may consist of at least three faculty members appointed by a chairperson, director, dean, the Dean of Brody School of Medicine’s delegate, the provost or the chancellor. The faculty members appointed to the committee will be some or all of the faculty members who will be members of the new or changed unit(s) except in a case when the people who will constitute the faculty of a new unit are not yet employed by ECU. In the case of the creation of a new code unit or changes to an existing code unit, proposals will include a provisional code of operations for the new or changed unit(s).

2. A Provisional Code will conform to the ECU Faculty Manual and, as much as is practicable, to the guidelines and requirements for Unit Codes that are set forth in this document [see Part IV, Section II, subsection IV]. A Provisional Code will be approved by the Educational Policies and Planning Committee, the Faculty Senate and the chancellor, and will be used for a maximum of three semesters after the formal development of the new unit. No later than three semesters after the creation of a new code unit having a Provisional Code, the faculty of the unit will develop and have approved an official Unit Code.

3. In the case of a provisional code that has been in use for three semesters in a code unit in which there are fewer than three eligible voting faculty members who have been employed for at least twelve consecutive months in the unit, the deadline for developing and having approved an official unit code shall be extended until there are three faculty members in the unit who are eligible to vote on the unit’s code (see Part IV, Section II, subsection III).

If faculty members will be displaced by the creation of new code units or by changes to existing code units, the proposal must address this situation.

In addition to creating new code units, some of the changes to existing code units that proposals may address include but need not be limited to:

1. dissolving a code unit without terminating the employment of the faculty members in the unit,
2. dividing a code unit into two or more code units,
3. merging a code unit with one or more other units,
4. moving a code unit to another school or college,
5. changing a code unit’s status from a department in a college to a school, or from a school to one or more departments in a college, or the reverse,
6. renaming a code unit (As of May 2019, System Office no longer requires ECU to notify or seek permission for changes in unit name nomenclature.),
7. moving groups of faculty and/or disciplines from one coded unit to another (This type of move does not require UNC System Office approval.),
8. reorganizing departments within a code unit,
9. any combination of the above.

Changes in all code units will not be implemented until the faculty members in the units affected and the Faculty Senate have the opportunity to recommend to the Chancellor approval or disapproval of the proposed changes as originally presented or as amended by the affected units or the Faculty Senate. (FS Resolution #19-75, December 2019)

4. For units coded at the college level, a department’s name change only is not required to follow the processes described in subsection III. Department name changes within a code unit do require updating the department name in the unit code. Further, approved department name changes must be provided, at a minimum, to the following: 1) the Provost (or designated representative); 2) Institutional Planning, Assessment and Research; 3) Department for People Operations, Success, and Opportunity (POSO); 4) Registrar’s Office with special attention to the catalog editor; 5) the Faculty Senate Office; and 6) other administrators or entities appropriate to the relevant discipline.

5. Procedures for creating or changing code units:

1. The Code Unit Proposal Committee will provide copies of its proposal to all of the faculty members and administrators of the departments, schools or colleges addressed by the proposal.
2. Within 15 working days after the proposal has been distributed, the Code Unit Proposal Committee will meet to discuss the proposal with the faculty members of affected departments, schools and/or colleges or with representatives elected by each affected unit, with the unit administrators, and with the appropriate deans and the Provost (or their representatives).
3. Within 10 working days after this meeting, the permanently tenured faculty members of each affected unit, including the unit administrator(s), will meet and vote their approval or disapproval of the proposal in its original form or as amended by their action.
4. Within 10 working days the chair of the Code Unit Proposal Committee will forward to the next higher administrator the results of the unit’s action.
5. Within 10 working days the next higher administrator will communicate in writing to the Code Unit Proposal Committee and to the Provost the following items: the unit faculty’s action and their concurrence or non-concurrence with that action.
6. The Code Unit Proposal Committee shall present copies of the proposal, the affected units’ faculty recommendations, and the relevant administrators’ concurrence or non-concurrence to the chair of the Educational Policies and Planning Committee. The committee shall consult with appropriate deans and the Provost, and, if it deems necessary, with other faculty members and administrators. Within 40 working days (during the regular academic year), the committee will report its recommendations to the Faculty Senate.
7. The Faculty Senate will vote, in a timely manner, to recommend to the Chancellor the approval or disapproval of the proposal as originally received by the Educational Policies and Planning Committee or as amended by the Faculty Senate.
8. If the proposal is approved by the Chancellor (and higher authority if necessary), implementation of the proposal will be overseen by the next higher administrator(s) over the new or changed code units.

Upon approval of new unit codes, the old unit code of a unit that has undergone a change of the sort listed above will become null-and-void.

If faculty members in code units that meet the conditions for splitting into separate code units do not choose to split into separate code units, faculty in individual departments or schools (as appropriate) may democratically develop written rules for their internal organization and operation. These rules will be housed in the department’s or school’s administrative office.