Guidelines for Standing Committee Chair, Co-Chair

Each committee should have up-to-date bylaws. If the bylaws need to be created or updated, please use the Model Bylaws for Committees and structure your work using these recommendations as a guide.

The Annual Committee Timeline provides milestones for committee activities throughout the academic year.

The department responsible for providing staff support for your committee is noted on the webpage. To begin your service, the chair must reach out to the appropriate department to seek the support person’s contact information. We recommend that you send a welcome email to your committee members in early August or as soon as possible in the academic year to introduce yourself. Please include a short statement about your goals for the year as chair, and please schedule the first meeting. Subsequent regular meetings can be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time for the members of the committee.

The Campus Standing Committees website is a resource to inform of campus standing committees’ work and activities. Each committee has its own webpage. Please take time to become familiar with your page and all of the membership roles listed for your committee. If you would like any documents, meeting schedules or links added or removed from your webpage, send that information to MU Committee Service.

Membership
Contact information will be listed on the page.

• Faculty and Staff
  These seats are determined by Faculty Council and Staff Advisory Council. Utilize the committee support email address for any faculty or staff vacancies that need to be filled.

• Student
  MSA and GPC seats are filled by the vice chair in each organization. Each year the officers rotate, please see the organization’s webpage for current names of individuals in the vice chair role and reach out to them for your student membership needs. Student contact information on the webpage membership may be restricted. You must seek FERPA permission from the student before their name can be listed on a webpage.

• Liaisons, Designees
  It is the responsibility of the chair to contact departments from which a Liaison is needed. Each year, these individuals may change. Once the liaison is confirmed, please send their name to MU Committee Service for posting to the committee webpage.
  

It is the chair’s responsibility to report if members of the committee are not fulfilling their service responsibilities, e.g., frequent or complete absence from meetings and/or not contributing substantively to the work of the committee. This can be reported to MU Committee Service or directly to John Middleton, Chief of Staff, or Alex Socarides, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs. For committees that meet infrequently, such assessment may be made at the end of the year as part of the recommendations from the chair on the subsequent year’s recommended membership (see Annual Committee Timeline for further details).

The charge of the Committee on Committees is to review on an annual basis one-third of the campus standing committees and to make recommendations to the Chancellor and Faculty Council on the continuation of the committees, revisions of committee charges or composition, and other improvements to committee functions. Your committee may be in line for a review of function this upcoming academic year, however, the COC makes the determination as the semester begins.

• Faculty Council: For items that need Council attention or assistance, e.g., policies that need Faculty Council approval, please email Faculty Council Vice Chair Carolyn Orbann
• Provost Office: For questions or guidance on matters related to MU academic programs and affairs, please contact the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Alex Socarides
• Chancellors’ Office: For questions or guidance on matters relevant to the Chancellor’s office, please contact President’s Chief of Staff John Middleton
• Please contact MU Committee Service for matters related to support staff, committee operations, meetings, membership, posting of minutes, annual reports, webpage needs, and so on.