GENERAL FACULTY ELECTION RULES

GENERAL INFORMATION

Handbook of Operating Procedures 2-1010 General Faculty

Changes in the Rules and Regulations of the General Faculty and the Faculty Council were approved by General Faculty on October 27, 1998, and transmitted to President on October 30, 1998. President sent to Chancellor on January 19, 1999, with recommendation for approval. Approved by Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs on March 15, 1999. The changes were made to clarify the rules for all-University and college and school elections, to facilitate an electronic voting process, and to improve, but not substantially change, the basic method of counting votes.

Hillary Hart
Secretary of the General Faculty and Faculty Council
 

Voting members of the General Faculty
Briefly, the voting members of the General Faculty include:

• all professors, associate professors, and assistant professors.
• all instructors and lecturers who have had a total of four or more long session semesters of service, at least half time, at these ranks.

The Election Process

General Faculty elections use a version of the Hare-Clark preferential voting system. In the final elections, each voter ranks the candidates in numerical order, using "1" for first choice, "2" for second choice, and so on.

Voting members of the General Faculty
Briefly, the voting members of the General Faculty include:

1. All tenured and tenure-track professors and tenure-track instructors.
2. All lecturers and clinical faculty who teach organized courses as the instructor of record (with the exception of those listed in B.4. below), who have a total of two or more academic years of service at these ranks at The University of Texas at Austin and who meet these criteria for an instructional appointment:
   (1)  were appointed an average of at least 50% time at UT Austin during each of the two preceding academic years (excluding summer), and
   (2)  are currently appointed at least 50% time at UT Austin (faculty who have served an average of 50% for the past two years become eligible to vote in the next semester they are appointed at least 50% time), and
   (3)  have their primary academic home at UT Austin.
   (4)  Those faculty who satisfy b (1, 2, and 3) will maintain their status except if they fall below an average of 50% appointment for more than two academic years. Also see 4.b. below.

Any faculty member may request to know the status of their voting eligibility by contacting the Office of the General Faculty (OGF). Any member who believes he/she has the appropriate title and meets the other criteria for voting rights but is not listed as eligible may submit a request through the OGF to the Faculty Rules and Governance Committee to be added to the voting faculty. The Rules and Governance Committee will consider any such requests to determine if the faculty member meets the criteria set forth above, and if so, will add their name to the list of voting members of the general faculty.

For Faculty Council Membership, See Handbook of Operating Procedures, Faculty Council HOP 2-1110, section C and for Election Details, see  By-Laws of the Faculty Council HOP 2-1120