The University of Texas at Austin Policy Memorandum 1.101
Office of the President September 1, 1977
Subject: BY-LAWS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY
Chapter 1, part I of the HANDBOOK OF OPERATING PROCEDURES contains
information regarding the General Faculty of the University. The following
rules and regulations of a procedural nature constitute the by-laws of the
General Faculty.
1. The order of business for meetings of the General Faculty
shall be as follows:
a. Approval of minutes
b. Secretary's report
c. Discussion of the Secretary's report
d. Questions to the President (limited to 30 minutes
unless extended by vote of the University Council.)
e. Special orders
f. Petitions
g. Unfinished business
h. Reports of the General Faculty, Faculty Senate,
School and Colleges, and Committees
i. New business
(1) Matters presented by the President
(2) Matters presented by deans or other
administrative officials
(3) Matters presented by other members
j. Remaining questions to the President. Involved
questions, questions of major importance, and
questions the answer to which may require
preparation of factual material should be submitted
in writing to the Secretary for transmittal to the
President at least one week before the date of the
meeting at which the question is to be considered.
The document should be in duplicate, one copy for
the President and the other for the Secretary's file.
k. Adjournment
2. Reading of the minutes shall be omitted unless called for by
a member.
3. The following rules of debate shall be followed:
a. No one, with the exceptions stated below, shall
speak more than ten minutes upon any question without
an affirmative vote of the faculty.
b. No one, with the exceptions stated below, shall be
allowed to speak more than once upon any question
without an affirmative vote of the faculty. A motion
to extend the time of a speaker shall be in order at
any time and shall not be debatable.
c. The chairman of the committee whose report is under
consideration shall not be subject to the preceding
rules and shall have the privilege of concluding the
debate in a five-minute speech.
d. A similar privilege of summing up for the opposition
shall be granted to the leader of the opposition if
the name of the leader is certified to the Secretary
in writing by five members.
4. ln voting, a record vote of yeas and nays shall be taken only
when requested by a majority of the voting members of the
General Faculty, present and voting, provided that
immediately after any vote is announced, regardless of the
method of voting, any voting member may hand his signed
ballot to the Secretary, who shall record it in the minutes.
5. An affirmative vote upon a motion to table an amendment shall
operate to table nothing except the amendment in question.
6. All resolutions shall be in writing, and all motions and
amendments shall be reduced to writing upon the request of
the Secretary or any other member of the faculty.
7. No standing procedural rules may be suspended except by
two-thirds vote of the members present.
8. Changes in the standing rules of procedure of the General
Faculty shall be proposed in writing and shall lie over until
the next meeting of the General Faculty, regular or called,
before they may be finally approved. This rule may be
suspended and the matter taken up at once and disposed of if
(1) a quorum being present unanimous consent of all in
attendance is given to immediate action; or (2) the proposed
change has been put in legible form and copies thereof have
been distributed among all members of the faculty at least
three days before the date of the meeting, together with
notice that the proposed changes will be considered at the
meeting.
9. Questions of interpretation of rules of procedure shall be
determined by the Rules Committee of the General Faculty.
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(Publication) HANDBOOK OF OPERATING PROCEDURES
CHAPTER 1 - FACULTY GOVERNANCE
I. GENERAL FACULTY
The following excerpt is from the RULES AND REGULATIONS
OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM FOR THE
GOVERNANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM, Part One,
Chapter IV (Faculty Organization):
Sec. 1. Educational Policy.
1.1 The Board of Regents will devote its best efforts
to making all of the institutions composing The
University of Texas System institutions of the
"first class", as the Texas Constitution directs
in Article VII, Section 10. The Board of Regents
will be guided in general by the best practices
of the best universities in the United States
state universities.
1.2 The Board of Regents will not, except in
extraordinary cases, act on important matters of
academic policy until it has received, or
requested and obtained, advice thereupon from the
institutional faculty or faculties affected or
their legislative bodies. When new policies
originating in any faculty give rise to serious
differences of opinion in that body, the advice
and recommended legislation shall, at the request
of the minority, be accompanied by a record of
the vote and by a summary of the reasons for and
against matters proposed.
Sec. 2. Institutional, College, School, and Departmental
Faculties and Legislative Bodies.
2.1 General Authority.--Subject to the authority of
the Board of Regents and subject further to the
authority that the Board of Regents has vested
in the various administrative officers and
subdivisions of The University of Texas System,
the faculties of the component institutions
regularly offering instruction shall have a major
role in the governance of their respective
institutions in the following areas:
2.11 General academic policies and welfare.
2.12 Student life and activities.
2.13 Requirements of admission and graduation.
2.14 Honors and scholastic performance generally.
2.15 Approval of candidates for degrees.
2.16 Faculty rules of procedure.
A. Authority and General Functions.
1. The areas of authority of the General Faculty are
listed above. The General Faculty, however, has
delegated the detailed exercise of its powers to the
University Council (see III of this Chapter). Of
these powers, only the following shall be exercised
in the first instance by the General Faculty:
a. Establishment of rules of membership and
procedure for itself and for college and
school faculties except for the Graduate
School. (See Sec. II for rules of the
Graduate School.)
b. Choice of its Secretary and its
representatives on the University Council.
c. Structure and legislative powers of the
University Council.
d. Action on recommendations of Rules Committee.
2. The exercise of all powers is subject to prior action
by the University Council and appeal from the
University Council to the General Faculty in
accordance with the rules and regulations relating to
the Council.
3. Questions of jurisdiction arising between the
University Council and the General Faculty shall be
referred to the Rules Committee for determination.
B. Membership.
1. Voting members of the General Faculty shall consist
of the following:
a. All professors, associate professors, and
assistant professors.
b. All visiting professors and visiting
associate professors who have had two
semesters of service at the rank of
instructor or above at The University of
Texas at Austin.
c. All instructors and lecturers who have had
four or more semesters of service at either
rank at The University of Texas at Austin.
d. Such officers as are designated in the
Regents' RULES AND REGULATIONS as being
ex officio members of all institutional
faculties of The University of Texas System.
e. Such other officers as the Board of Regents,
upon recommendation of the President and the
Chancellor, UT System may designate.
2. In computing a semester of service under the
subsections above, service for two summer terms
shall count as one semester. A faculty member
shall have voting status only on the basis of
half-time employment or more at the University.
3. Those faculty members designated in Section 1
above shall retain their voting status while on
modified service but not upon full retirement.
4. Each voting member, of whatever rank, shall be
entitled to one vote.
5. Nonvoting members of the General Faculty shall
consist of the following:
a. All visiting professors and visiting
associate professors who have served for less
than two semesters.
b. All instructors and lecturers who have served
for less than four semesters.
c. All individuals holding the title professor
emeritus or associate professor emeritus.
6. Non-voting members have the privilege of attending
meetings with the right to speak but without the
right to vote.
C. Meetings.
1. There shall be one regular meeting of the General
Faculty each year on the third Tuesday of October
at which the President shall make an informal
presentation of the more significant recent and
pending developments at The University and at which
questions may be directed to the President from the
floor. (See POLICY MEMORANDUM 1.101 re submission
of questions.)
2. Special meetings of the General Faculty shall be held
at the call of the President or the Chairman of the
Faculty Senate or at the request of at least 25
members of the total voting faculty listed on the
faculty roster most recently published by the
Secretary of the General Faculty.
D. Organization.
1. The President shall be Chairman ex officio of the
General Faculty.
2. At its regular meeting in October, the General
Faculty shall elect its Secretary, who shall serve
for the year beginning on the first day of the
following January. One nomination shall be submitted
by a special committee appointed by the President in
September; other nominations may be submitted from
the floor at the meeting of the General Faculty.
In 1980, the term of the current Secretary will
continue until January 1, 1981.
3. The duties of the Secretary shall include the
following:
a. Recording the minutes in a form both
convenient and permanent, which shall be
paged and for which an annual index shall
be prepared.
b. Handling of any communications or reports
made to the General Faculty when not in
formal session. The Secretary shall
distribute, record, and list such
communications or reports in the order of
business.
c. Sending out to the members notices of the
meetings to be held with the order of
business to be transacted.
d. Bringing promptly to the attention of the
persons concerned the actions of the faculty.
e. Providing copies of the minutes for the use
of the faculty and for filing in all
appropriate University offices. In addition,
bound volumes of the minutes shall be placed
in the offices of the Secretary of the
General Faculty, the President, the Secretary
of the Board of Regents, and the Texas
Collection of the Barker Texas History
Center.
f. Serving as Secretary of the University
Council.
g. Conducting all elections which involve
balloting by the voting members of the
General Faculty.
h. Preparing and distributing in September of
every year the annual report of the Secretary
of the University Council.
4. The Parliamentarian shall be appointed annually by
the President, upon advice of the University Council,
and may be reappointed. He or she shall not be a
member of the University Council and shall be someone
other than the Faculty Senate Parliamentarian.
E. Legislation.
1. Legislation which has been submitted by the
University Council to the General Faculty by
circularization shall be considered General Faculty
legislation if not protested.
2. Legislation may not be initiated by the General
Faculty by the circularization procedure.
3. No legislation of the General Faculty, excepting
emergency legislation, shall be effective unless and
until approved by the Board of Regents. (See
Regents' RULES AND REGULATIONS, Part One, Ch. IV,
Sec. 2.3). Emergency legislation ceases to operate
if disapproved by the Board of Regents.
4. The Board of Regents will notify the General Faculty
of its actions on faculty legislation, in general
giving reasons when disapproving.
5. All actions of the General Faculty which require the
approval of the Board of Regents shall be transmitted
to the Board by the President and the Chancellor, UT
System in the form passed by the General Faculty,
together with such recommendations as the President
or the Chancellor, UT System may choose to make. At
each meeting of the University Council, the Secretary
shall report on all actions of the Council or General
Faculty transmitted to the Board and the action, if
any, of the Board on each. If final action of the
Board differs from the General Faculty's
recommendations, the President shall communicate
these differences to the University Council.
F. Rules of Procedure.
1. The general principles of parliamentary law set forth
in ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER (current edition) shall
govern, except insofar as they may be modified by
the faculty. Any such modification, and provisions
of order of business and rules of debate, shall be
included in the By-Laws of the General Faculty (see
POLICY MEMORANDUM 1.101).
2. At a regular meeting a quorum shall consist of 5% of the
total number of voting members of the General Faculty,
and at a called meeting a quorum shall consist of 15% of
that number. If a quorum is not present at a regular
meeting, business that would otherwise have been
conducted in the first instance at that meeting shall be
discussed; within 20 days after the meeting, that
business, together with the minutes of its discussion,
shall be submitted to the General Faculty by mail
ballot, and at least two weeks shall be allowed for
receipt of the returned ballots. If a quorum is not
present to consider action of the University Council
that has been protested, the legislation shall be
returned to the University Council for action. (See
Policy Memorandum 1.301, 5.b(4)(d).)
