General Faculty Council
University of Virginia

July 13, 1998


Dear Mr. Low:

After almost a year of 'toil and trouble', the General Faculty Council (GFC) is pleased to submit our suggested revisions to the Draft Policy on the General Faculty that was revised and distributed by your office in July 1997. Let us first provide you with some background information on the process we used in making these revisions. The GFC held a forum for all members of the general faculty in October 1997 to provide an opportunity for response to the revisions made in the July 1997 draft. A working group of the GFC was then formed to redraft the policies based on the feedback and suggestions provided by individual members of the general faculty. In the past several months, several working drafts have been submitted to the GFC by the working group for their feedback and in May '98, a final draft was disseminated via e-mail to the general faculty at large to once again solicit opinions and comments. The copy we are submitting to you (Draft 7 - July 1998) reflects the collective opinions of the General Faculty Council and interested members of the general faculty.

To simplify your review of our suggested revisions, we will briefly outline some of the key changes which we have made to your revised policies of July 1997.

Section on definition: changed the two categories of "Academic" and "Administrative" to "Teaching and Research" and "Academic and Professional" to more closely reflect the definition used in the Consolidated Salary Authorization Policy. In addition, we included the Senior Research Staff in our definition of Teaching and Research Faculty.

Section on Standards of Notice: revised to provide clarity and which better serve the interests of the general faculty member

Added new sections on performance review, promotion, and professional development

Added a grievance procedure which parallels the Faculty Senate grievance procedure

Reordered the sections included in the policies to better reflect the career path which the general faculty member will follow here at the university

We would be happy to receive your comments in writing or alternatively, to discuss them with you during a meeting of the General Faculty Council. Our council meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month from 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. in Room 389 Newcomb Hall with the next scheduled dates being August 11th and September 8th.

We appreciate the opportunity we have had to review and suggest further revisions to the Policy on the General Faculty.

Sincerely,

Joyce Green Pastors                                      Jane Penner
Chair, General Faculty Council                        Chair, GFC Policy Committee
1998-99                                                         1998-99

cc: Ed Ayers, Chair
Faculty Senate (1998-1999)