Dear Colleagues,

One week into the winter semester, the Faculty Governance Review Committee wants to share with you our plan for faculty engagement this semester, as we continue to evaluate faculty governance at Bates, and begin to develop changes to our structures. We will engage with you in several ways, listed below, and we hope for robust participation as we continue this important work. 

1. We’ll offer regular blog posts, where we’ll give updates and also seek your anonymous feedback. Look for an announcement of our new postings in your inbox.
2. We have retained Susan Baldridge as one of our external consultants, and she will be visiting campus January 27-29 to meet with faculty in various groupings, as well as selected committees. Please be on the lookout for invitations to meet with her, and give her your thoughts on faculty governance at Bates. Susan is a professor of psychology at Middlebury, where she recently also served as provost. Here is more information on Susan: https://www.susanbaldridge.com/about
3. February, 3rd Faculty Meeting: we will seek feedback from you at the meeting. 
4. March 2, Faculty Meeting: Susan Baldridge will report back to the faculty.
5. March 9: One-day visit from Sheila Piñeres, PhD in Economics, currently Dean of the Burnett Honors College, at the University for consultation. She is the former dean of Austin College in Texas, where she led the effort to reform faculty governance.  
6. February 24-March 15, members of our committee will begin to reach out to faculty for informal conversations about governance.

Sincerely,

Susan Stark (co-chair)

Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir (co-chair)

April Hill

Carrie Diaz-Eaton

John Baughman

Lynne Lewis

Mara Tieken

Peter Wong