Faculty Senate

Updating the Faculty Handbook: Reinventing the Liberal Arts

Following the successful March 7, 2025 Resolution on the Reorganization Effort, the Faculty Senate worked with the Provost’s Office to generate a set of handbook amendments meant to implement the new structure.

In December 2018 the faculty adopted, as a pilot program, new voting procedures. The goal of this experiment was to increase then-low faculty participation in governance. The pilot was designed by the Faculty Governance Reform Task Force in collaboration with the administration and the Senate.

The new voting procedure was widely appreciated and no necessary adjustments were revealed by experience. The pilot was extended during COVID. In April and May, 2022, the faculty voted to incorporate the new voting procedure into the Handbook. The revision was approved by the Board of Trustees on May 20, 2022.

• Handbook Revision on Voting Rules- Background
• Electronic Participation and Voting Memo, October 23, 2018

The Faculty Senate bylaws (adopted March 12, 2021) govern the structure and operations of the Brandeis Faculty Senate. They expand on, and are subordinate to, the Handbook’s discussion of the Faculty Senate (HB VI.B).

*The Faculty Senate voted to rely on Robert's Rules version 12 at its May 6, 2022 meeting.

Documents

• Adopted by the Faculty Senate, March 12, 2021 (pdf), Effective, March 12, 2021
• Senate Roles as Listed in the Faculty Handbook (pdf)

The Faculty Senate issued the following statement on April 2, 2020. Signatories are listed at the end of this document.

The Faculty Senate commends our university leadership for its wise and humane response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Brandeis' response has been exemplary among universities in giving students time to vacate campus, in providing detailed messages to our constituent communities and in acting responsively and decisively when new problems arose.

We acknowledge the administration as well for its decisions to keep staff and contractors on the payroll, to address issues of pass-fail grading, to extend the tenure clock and to send an important message through voluntary 10% pay cuts at the highest level. Regular communication from President Liebowitz, Provost Lisa Lynch and other campus leaders has helped all of us to navigate this unprecedented challenge.

In addition, we express our deepest gratitude to our colleagues and staff involved with the full range of student services who continue to be available around the clock at this stressful time for both graduates and undergraduates. We could not do our work in virtual classrooms and online office hours without the support you are providing.

The Senate would also like to applaud Mary-Ann Winkelmes and the staff at the Center for Teaching and Learning, as well as Jim La Creta and the staff in Information Technology Services, all of whom have done an astounding job moving faculty to an online environment. The CTL's 24/7 support, resources and responsiveness have made a huge difference in helping us weather the initial phase of this uncertain new territory.

We thank the dedicated staff in our academic departments, research centers and institutes, as well as in other parts of the campus enterprise. In every case, the important work that each does has been redesigned on short notice, and every effort has been made to attend to the needs of our diverse internal and external stakeholders.

As we all know, there is no telling what trajectory this crisis may take in the months and even years ahead or what financial ramifications the university may encounter. We may be facing hardships for a long period. We applaud the decisions recently communicated by President Liebowitz that suggest an approach more just and equitable than that undertaken during the financial crisis in 2008. We are committed to working with the administration so that all measures undertaken in response to this crisis continue to be aligned with our values of justice, equity, integrity and inclusiveness.

We expect that any financial burden will continue to be distributed in ways that shield, to the greatest extent possible, the most vulnerable employees, including front-line service workers, contract faculty, adjunct instructors and early stage tenure-track faculty. Continued special care and attention is especially needed for marginalized groups, people with disabilities, people under great financial stress in general, those whose residency/visa status is uncertain and others whose voices are not always well represented.

We trust that our collective decision-making process will continue to honor the university's principles of shared governance, and that transparency will be prioritized over shielding employees from "uncomfortable truths."

We recognize that even with the strong internal alignment and good will that has been evidenced by all parties, issues on which there is disagreement will likely arise. In engaging these issues, it is important that we continue to treat each other at all times with compassion, respect and kindness — honoring and addressing the differences even as we all work for the common good.

• Joel Christensen, Classical Studies (Chair)*
• Jennifer Cleary, Theater Arts
• Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Heller
• Susan Dibble, Theater Arts
• Jane Ebert, Brandeis International Business School
• Gordon Fellman, Sociology
• William Flesch, English
• Danielle Igra, Education
• Dmitry Kleinbock, Mathematics
• Sue Lanser, English; Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Comparative Literature (Emerita)
• Sarah Mead, Music*
• A.K. Nandakumar, Heller School for Social Policy and Management
• Carol Osler, Economics*
• Rajesh Sampath, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, South Asian Studies, Comparative Humanities*
• Liuba Shrira, Computer Science
• Laurence Simon, Heller School for Social Policy and Management
• Sabine von Mering, German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literature; Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies; Environmental Studies; Creativity, the Arts and Social Transformation Program
• Pu Wang, German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literature; Comparative Humanities; East Asian Studies
• Grace Zimmerman, Brandeis International Business School

* Indicates member of Senate Council.

The Faculty Senate Governance Task Force was charged by President Ron Liebowitz with considering how faculty were currently involved in decision-making at Brandeis, what they norms were at peer institutions and whether the Brandeis faculty wanted to make some changes moving forward. Task From members were appointed in spring 2017.

Task Force Members

Co-chairs

• Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

• Susan P. Curnan, Florence G. Heller Associate Professor of the Practice Chair, Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Members

• Sava Berhané, Senior Lecturer, Brandeis International Business School.

• Adrianne Krstansky, Professor of Theater Arts.

• Anne Marando, Associate Vice President, Information Technology Services.

• Michael Randall, Professor of French and Comparative Literature.

• Robert Reitano, Professor of the Practice of Finance, Brandeis International Business School.

• Gina Turrigiano, Joseph Levitan Professor of Vision Science.

• Pu Wang, Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Culture.

• Bernie Yack, Lerman Neubauer Professor of Democracy and Public Policy.

Task Force Report

• Recommendations From the Task Force on Faculty Governance (pdf) (April 17, 2018).

Updates

Nov. 12, 2018

• Voter's Guide (pdf)

• Faculty Handbook — Task Force Recommendations (pdf)

• Task Force Recommended Faculty Handbook Changes — Sequential (pdf)

• Task Force Recommended Faculty Handbook Changes — Thematic (pdf)

Apr. 17, 2018

• Recommendations From the Task Force on Faculty Governance (pdf)

Jan. 19, 2018

• Summary of Suggestions from the Task Force on Faculty Governance (pdf)

• Suggestions from the Task Force on Faculty Governance (pdf)

Dec. 8, 2017

• Faculty Governance Task Force Update (pdf)

Oct. 26, 2017

• Faculty Governance Task Force Update (pdf)

Aug. 24, 2017

• Welcome Letter from Co-chairs Cadge and Curnan (pdf)

June 15, 2017

• Task Force Membership Announcement — President Liebowitz, Provost Lynch and Task Force Co-chairs (pdf)

April 26, 2017

• Faculty Governance Task Force Announcement, President Liebowitz (pdf)

Jan. 15, 2017

• Senate Chair Report on Faculty Governance Retreat (pdf)

Background Materials

• Brandeis University Bylaws

• Brandeis University Faculty Handbook (updated Aug. 14, 2017)

• Peer Institutions Study (updated Aug. 27, 2017):

  • Executive Summary (pdf)

  • Full Report (pdf)

• Faculty Committees at Peer Institutions (pdf) (Aug. 21, 2017)

• Faculty Senate and Full Faculty Practices at Peer Institutions (pdf) (Aug. 21, 2017)

• Full List of Brandeis Faculty Committees (pdf) (Aug. 21, 2017)

• Executive Summary of Brandeis Faculty Survey (pdf) (updated Sept. 7, 2017)

• Senate Retreat Readings on Faculty Governance, five articles (pdf) (Jan. 11, 2017)

Faculty Career Development 

In July, 2021 the Senate sent a memo to senior administrators encouraging them encouraging them  to press forward on faculty concerns about career development. Concerns were elicited in Faculty Focus groups of AY 2020-2021. In July of 2021 the Senate submitted a list of these concerns to the Administration, together with suggestions for amelioration. Many of these concerns were specific to contract and adjunct faculty.

Faculty Pay 

In February, 2022 the Senate sent a memo to senior administrators encouraging them to address the faculty’s loss of purchasing power since 2021. The loss began with COVID financial constraints and has intensified with ongoing rapid inflation. This loss was highlighted in a February 2022 memo from the Senate to the Administration.  The loss was not addressed in the budget for AY 2022-2023 and, as of July 2022, continues to become more severe.

Dignity at Work

In February of 2020 the administration ceased all consideration of the faculty proposal. It thereafter drafted an unrelated set of grievance procedures. To date, faculty or staff have not been consulted in this second design process