1. The DEO is appointed by the dean in consultation with the faculty in the department and approved by the provost.
2. The DEO is appointed to serve a 3-5 year term and may be reappointed.
3. The DEO is charged with the following duties:
   1. Allocating funding from the department’s general expense budget and seeking additional funding as necessary, which includes responsibility for departmental foundation accounts, and seeking additional funding as necessary.
   2. Approving graduate instructor hiring decisions.
   3. Overseeing mentoring and supervision of new graduate instructors.
   4. Representing the Rhetoric Department’s interests to the college and university.
   5. Overseeing complaints by graduate students, faculty, or other graduate instructors or about departmental procedures.
   6. Initiating or coordinating departmental nominations of students, support staff and faculty for departmental, college, and university awards.
   7. Leading the faculty in overseeing and revising curriculum and course offerings.
   8. Scheduling, establishing the agenda, and chairing faculty meetings.
   9. Making faculty teaching and service assignments in consultation with faculty individually and as a group, attempting to accommodate faculty strengths, needs, and interests whenever possible.
   10. Constituting and charging Ad Hoc committees, other than Standing Committees, with specific duties.
   11. During the absence of the DEO from campus, a member of the Executive Committee [see Section H] may be appointed as acting DEO.  

The department shall have Standing Committees and an Executive Committee as well as a Director of its Writing Center, a Director or Undergraduate Studies, a Director of Graduate Studies Representative, and a TA Hiring Officer. These persons and bodies shall collectively assist the faculty and DEO in the conduct of the business of the department as indicated.

1. Each Standing Committee shall elect annually (normally in Spring semester) from within its current members, a person to become Chair-Elect. The Chair-Elect shall assume the chair of the committee at the end of spring semester for one year. A chair may be reelected for more than one term of office.
2. Each committee shall establish and modify its own rules of procedure (“standing orders”) as rules subsidiary to this Departmental Manual of Operations and Procedure.

The Standing Committees shall be as follows:  

1. There shall be a Core Curriculum Committee that shall take primary and delegated responsibility for matters concerning the curriculum of the CLAS Core General Education courses offered by the department.
2. There shall be a Minor Committee that shall take primary and delegated responsibility for matters concerning the curriculum of 3 the Minor in Rhetoric and Persuasion courses offered by the department.
3. There shall be a Resources and Centers Committee that shall take primary and delegated responsibility for matters concerning the Writing Center and special resources offered by the department. The Writing Center shall have a representative on this committee.
4. There shall be a Professional and Graduate Committee that shall take primary and delegated responsibility for matters concerning the professional development of the faculty and graduate student TAs, including PDP.
   1. The chair of this committee shall act ex officio as the departmental representative all meetings relevant to such purposes in the CLAS and Graduate College.
   2. Members of this committee shall act as a Colloquium Crew for organizing a schedule of Friday Colloquia for faculty and TA development.

• The Executive Committee is constituted from the chairs of the aforementioned four Standing Committees, plus two faculty freely elected without restriction to rank or status from among the faculty for alternating overlapping terms.
• An election for one such freely elected member shall occur during the first faculty meeting of the academic year each year, for a two-year term.
• Previously elected faculty may serve again.
• Elections to fill an unexpired term may take place as needed upon the resignation or departure from office of an elected member.
• The DEO, except during the Executive Committee meeting without the DEO present, is responsible for convening its meetings and shall set and publish the agenda, preside, and ensure timely publication of meeting minutes.
• The Executive Committee is charged with the following duties:
  • Convenes at the request of the DEO and serves in an advisory capacity to the DEO.
  • Makes recommendations to the DEO on the disbursement of any available faculty travel funds, except First Year Seminar [FYS] funds accrued by a faculty member.
  • Makes recommendations annually to the DEO and the CLAS on faculty merit pay adjustments.
  • Acts as a primary body of appeal or referral for decisions made by the DEO during the current academic year. For consideration of such appeals, the DEO shall be recused, and the Executive Committee shall appoint its own chair pro tempore.
  • Meets once per semester without the DEO.

The DEO schedules departmental meetings as needed during the fall and spring semesters.

The duties of the DEO include soliciting agenda items, setting the agenda, facilitating discussion of and recording the voting on agenda items.

Faculty members and graduate instructors submit agenda items to the DEO for inclusion on the departmental meeting agenda.

Faculty may submit a written request to the DEO to schedule special meetings as the occasion arises.

The DEO will provide the faculty with an agenda at least two days in advance of scheduled meetings.

The quorum is a majority of total voting eligible faculty membership except for amendments to this Manual for which a quorum shall be three fourths of the eligible faculty. 

Minutes of departmental meetings are kept by a faculty member serving as recording secretary; the minutes are copied and distributed for faculty review with the agenda for the next scheduled meeting.

The usual order of business is to accept the minutes of the previous meeting, and thereafter to follow the published agenda; at the end of the meeting the DEO will call for new items to be added to the published agenda.

No single member is assigned the role of parliamentarian; in all other respects, the general order of meetings is in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order (current edition).

Voting on general items of business is conducted by a show of hands unless any faculty member requests a secret ballot; absentee ballots submitted to the DEO in advance of the meeting will be counted with the votes of faculty members in attendance. Votes on all decisions concerning individual personnel, including offers or renewals of faculty contracts, will be conducted by secret ballot. Abstentions do count for purposes of establishing a quorum but are not counted in deciding a majority on a question.

Any faculty member may propose an amendment of this manual by submitting the proposed change formally to the DEO in due time for inclusion in the agenda for an advertised departmental meeting.

A quorum for discussion of and voting on amendments to this manual shall be three fourths of the eligible constituency. A two-thirds majority of faculty present and voting is required to approve an amendment. Abstentions shall be counted in establishing a quorum but shall not be counted for the purposes of establishing a majority. A majority for or against the amendments shall decide the outcome, with the DEO following Robert’s Rules in deciding any vote that has resulted in a tie.

All amendments of the manual approved by the faculty shall be submitted to the college for approval and upon receipt of such approval shall become the policy of the department.