Faculty Board Elections

Introduction

Introduction and Purpose of Faculty Boards

Faculty Boards were established on 1 January 2015 following approval by Council and Senate in 2014. Their purpose was to lead the governance of Faculties to:

1. Facilitate efficient decision-making (for example, by delegating certain decision making powers from the centre to the faculties).
2. Improve lines of communication (principally, by creating more formalized discussion forums at faculty level).
3. Ensure better coordination of inter-disciplinary activities.
4. Establish more effective means of implementing University-wide strategies and initiatives.
5. Engender a stronger sense of common purpose across the discipline groups.

Role and Responsibilities of Faculty Boards

Faculty Boards play a three-fold role:

• Decision-making – subsidiary decision-making powers which articulate clearly with decisions that are made by Senate, University Executive Board and other University-wide bodies.
• Discussing issues – a forum for discussing issues that run across the group of disciplines, and for feeding these up as necessary to Teaching Committee, Research Committee, University Executive Board and Senate.
• Supporting implementation of strategy – in the main, considering the implications of University-wide academic strategies for the Faculties.

Terms of Reference

Faculty Boards:

• Act as a forum for discussing University-wide strategies.
• Act as a forum for considering information and data relating to the performance of the faculty and its constituent departments.
• Discuss inter-disciplinary initiatives.
• Consider the implications of the University’s research strategy for the discipline group.
• Consider the implications of the University’s learning and teaching strategy for the discipline group.
• Raise matters with Senate, sub-committees of Senate (in particular, Teaching Committee, Research Committee and Planning Committee) and University Executive Board.
• At their own discretion, the Faculty Boards may set up sub-groups to address specific issues.

Governance issues

The Faculty Boards meet once a term and report to Senate. Their decision making powers and terms of reference are reviewed periodically as part of the Senate Effectiveness Review.

The Faculty Boards receive minutes, extracts of minutes and/or reports from the relevant Boards of Studies and Departmental Research Committees.

The Faculty Boards may be asked to nominate representatives to serve on relevant University bodies such as Planning Committee.

Membership

Faculty Board Membership

Each Faculty Board will comprise the following members:

• Dean of Faculty
• Heads of Departments within the Faculty
• 1 member of academic staff as representative of each of the other Faculty Boards, selected by those Faculty Boards.
• Members of academic staff elected from the Academic Research and Teaching (ART) staff group within the Faculty as follows:
  • Faculty of Arts and Humanities – 4 members
  • Faculty of Sciences – 6 members
  • Faculty of Social Sciences – 4 members
  • An undergraduate student representative elected from the undergraduates within the Faculty
  • A postgraduate student representative elected from the postgraduates within the Faculty

Additionally each Faculty Board may have a number of representatives who may be in attendance at Faculty Board meetings:

• Faculty Operations Manager
• Faculty Planning Officer(s)
• Faculty HR Partner
• Faculty Lead Management Accountant
• Faculty Research Development Manager(s)/Associate(s)
• The YUSU Academic Officer
• Others as agreed by the Faculty Board
• A representative of the Faculty Administrative Support Staff selected from among the Departmental Managers/Departmental Administrators of the Faculty.

There will also be representatives specific to individual Faculty Boards who may also be in attendance:

• Arts and Humanities Faculty Board:
  • The Director of the Humanities Research Centre

• Sciences Faculty Board:
  • A representative of the Faculty Technical Support Staff selected from among the Departmental Technical Managers of the Faculty.

• Social Sciences Faculty Board:
  • The Director of the Research Centres for Social Sciences.

Election

Election of Staff Members to Faculty Boards

The election of staff members to Faculty Boards refers to the academic staff members elected from the Academic Research and Teaching (ART) staff group within each Faculty.

Faculty Board elections will be conducted by means of the online voting system developed by IT Services.

Eligibility

All those staff members employed on University of York Terms and Conditions of employment and subject to an employment contract within the Academic, Research or Teaching staff groups within each Faculty are entitled to vote in the elections for academic staff members of Faculty Boards specific to their Faculty.

All those staff members employed on University of York Terms and Conditions of employment and subject to an employment contract within the Academic, Research or Teaching staff groups within each Faculty, who have been employed for a minimum of one continuous year at the point of nomination, are entitled to be elected in the elections for academic staff members of Faculty Boards specific to their Faculty.

Staff members not within the Academic, Research or Teaching staff groups are not entitled to vote or be elected in the election of staff members to the Faculty Boards.

Nomination

Not less than twenty working days before the date of the election, members entitled to vote and be elected shall be invited by email to nominate candidates for election to the Faculty Board.

Candidates meeting the eligibility requirements shall complete a nomination form, available online, in each case comprising a brief statement about their background and reason for standing, signed by the nominee and by not fewer than six persons entitled to vote in the election.

Those nominating candidates should be from the Faculty for which the candidate is being nominated. There is no requirement for Heads of Departments to be one of the nominees for candidates.

Nomination forms should be completed online not less than 48 hours before the date of the election.

A list of all those nominated alongside their brief statements shall be circulated electronically, alongside the instructions on how to vote online, by the officer designated by the Dean of Faculty, to all those entitled to vote at the point the vote is opened.

Representation

Each Faculty Board will have the number of elected staff members as detailed in Faculty Board Membership.

There shall be no more than one elected representative from each constituent department within each Faculty amongst the elected representatives at any one time. Consequently at each annual election it must be clear that where candidates are nominated from departments whose representatives are already holding elected office on the Faculty Board, those candidates would not be elected as representatives irrespective of number of votes obtained. The voting rules, detailed below, give further guidance on voting outcomes.

Voting

Members of staff will require an IT Services username and password to receive the online voting system-generated emails and to access the online voting system.

Each elector may cast one vote for each of not more than that number of members which the Dean of Faculty specifies in the online voting instructions as the number of vacancies.

Not later than the day of the election electors shall complete their vote online as designated in the online voting instructions.

Election

Election of candidates is by secret ballot conducted on a ‘first past the post’ basis.

The candidates for whom the greatest numbers of votes have been cast and meeting the departmental representation requirements detailed above, shall then in turn be declared elected to serve from the start of the Academic Year following the election, unless otherwise notified, up to the number required to fill the vacancies.

Where two or more candidates are nominated from one department and subsequently receive sufficient votes each to place them for election to the available vacancies, only the first placed candidate from that department will be duly elected.

For example: In an election for four vacancies, where the voting outcome may have two candidates from the same department within the first four places, the fifth placed candidate, provided they come from a different department from the three above placed candidates, will be duly elected, replacing the second candidate from the department which has a higher placed candidate within the four elected places. Where the fifth placed candidate is from a department already represented in the first four places for election they too will be excluded and the sixth placed candidate, provided they come from a different department from the four above placed candidates, will be duly elected. This shall continue until all places are filled by candidates from different departments.

• First place: Candidate 1 from Department A – ELECTED
• Second place: Candidate 2 from Department B – ELECTED
• Third place: Candidate 3 from Department A – NOT ELECTED

(Second candidate from one department – replaced by fifth placed candidate)

• Fourth place:     Candidate 4 from Department C – ELECTED
• Fifth place:         Candidate 5 from Department D – ELECTED

If there is an equality of votes between any two or more candidates, the Dean of Faculty shall give such casting votes as may be necessary to decide who shall become a member of the Faculty Board and for what term.

Period of Office

The terms of office for these elected members is staggered in terms of different lengths of office, to allow for continuity.

The length of service is allocated based on the election results and accords to the following:

Faculties of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences: Four elected members

• First and Second placed candidates  - serve for three years each
• Third placed candidate - serve for two years
• Fourth placed candidate - serve for one year

Faculty of Sciences: Six elected members 

• First and Second placed candidates - serve for three years each
• Third and Fourth placed candidates - serve for two years each
• Fifth and Sixth placed candidates - serve for one year each

Vacancy

Any vacancy occurring during the academic year shall remain vacant until the next annual election. The vacancy shall be filled at that election by the person with the next highest number of votes after the members elected to fill the normal vacancies, subject to the above detailed departmental representation requirements. In all cases, the persons elected shall hold office for the unexpired portion of the period of office of their predecessors on the basis that, where relevant, the person with the highest number of votes shall replace the member with the longest period still to serve. Where this paragraph requires a choice to be made between two or more persons who received an equality of votes, the Dean of Faculty shall decide which of them shall become a member of the Faculty Board.

Confidentiality

In order to reassure colleagues about the confidentiality of e-voting, it should be noted that:

• the online system conducts a data audit which records whether a given username has voted or not (so that an automatically generated reminder email can be sent to those who are yet to vote);
• the system does NOT capture information regarding the candidate selected by individual voters but it does automatically count the votes submitted for each candidate - i.e. it is still a secret ballot conducted on a ‘first past the post’ basis.