at Duke University

History of the Academic Council: An Introduction to Who We Are and What We Do

The Academic Council and the Executive Committee which it elects are the chief instruments of faculty governance at Duke University. The Bylaws of the University invite the Faculty in general, and the various quorum as well, to organize themselves in representative councils for discussion of matters of interest to each faculty grouping. These councils provide for representation of considered faculty opinion to the Administration, and less directly to the Trustees and any other bodies.

The Academic Council was created in 1962, growing out of a predecessorUniversity Council. The University Council had consisted of administrative officers of the University and their appointees, and included some senior faculty members elected through departments. This arrangement, much dominated by the principal administrative officers of the University, failed to accommodate the concerns within the faculty on a numbers of issues. Most notable among these was a governance crisis in 1960, when the President resigned and the Vice President in the Division of Education (Provost equivalent) was removed from office in a highly differential action reached among the Trustees. The best forum then available to the faculty for discussion of this crisis was the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors. There was also a memorable meeting called by interested faculty and presided over by out-going President Hollis Edens.

In due course, the groundwork was laid for an Academic Council, initially of some 48 elected members, increasing to 85-90 eventually, with only the President and one or two other administrative officers as members ex officio. A school-based and divisional-based system of election and representation was worked out, rather than a departmental system, with a requirement from the very outset that junior ranks be represented at a significant level. The two largest academic units, Arts & Sciences and the School of Medicine, were and are represented by three and two divisions each. For Arts & Sciences the divisions are the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Natural Sciences including Mathematics. The School of Medicine quite soon came to have two divisions, the Basic Sciences and the Clinical Sciences. All five of these divisions have from the early days been large enough to elect a maximum of ten members each. Six other Schools (five before there was a Business School) elect members based on the size of the School Faculty, up to that same maximum of ten representatives.

Academic Council elections are conducted by a Committee on Faculty Elections, operating initially through the office of the University Secretary, but now wholly independent of the administration. The Council was to elect its own officers and Executive Committee (ECAC), who would call the meetings of the Council at generally monthly intervals, set up agenda for the meetings, meet oftener themselves as an Executive Committee, and serve as Committee on Committees with respect to faculty representation on University committees. For the first ten years the entire membership of the Academic Council was elected every two years, in the spring, with by-elections as needed. A first order of business for each new Council was the election of a Chairman, a Vice Chairman, a Secretary, and four additional members rounding out the Executive Committee of seven members, all serving one-year terms. This election was accomplished by a long series of successive ballots, first to identify nominees for each position in turn, and then in turn electing one by majority vote. This process was repeated for each of the seven positions while the Council occupied itself with any other business of the day. For those who can recall this cumbersome proceeding, it was interesting to see how the Council, quite without discussion, balanced the Executive Committee membership among the various Schools and divisions of the Council.

In 1972 a committee chaired by Prof. George Christie of the School of Law fine-tuned the Academic Council in a series of reforms. The Council two-year terms were staggered by having annual elections, and the Executive Committee likewise was placed on overlapping two-year terms. The election of a Chairman of the Academic Council was made quite separate, and not necessarily from among the immediate membership of the Council. The Chairman was elected for a two-year term, with an overlap of several months with the previous Chairman. The Council had several times, prior to that reform, elected a Chairman who was still absent from campus on leave at the time of election, since those able to be present were understandably likely to decline the office on such short notice. The Executive Committee worked out a process of ad hoc biennial nominating committees, charged to find two agreed candidates to stand for election as Chairman of the Academic Council. The election of the other members of the Executive Committee is from among the Council membership. Each spring, once the new Council membership is known, ECAC is charged to present slates of two agreed candidates for each open position among the six regular members of ECAC. There is provision for introduction of alternate slates from the floor of the Council, subject to a requirement that any candidates so presented must have agreed to serve if elected. When that check on any perceived narrowness or bias of nomination from the prior ECAC is exercised, a prior run-off election among the slates is conducted.

The Christie reform also called for the Academic Council to have an office and a modest budget, among other needs providing for an office secretary. This position has grown to that of a full-time Administrative Assistant, who greatly assists in the order and effectiveness of the Council's work. The Executive Committee elects a Vice Chairman each year, and for some years also elected a Secretary, both from among its membership. When it became difficult to persuade any member to be Secretary, a role chiefly involved in generating the minutes of the Academic Council, members shared this work on a rotating basis, until in 1984 the position of Faculty Secretary of the Academic Council was instituted. The idea was to have a modestly-paid emeritus or near-emeritus member of the faculty serve ECAC and the Council in this way. The Faculty Secretary is elected annually and serves as a non-voting eighth member, ex officio, of ECAC. With the increase in length of commitment of Council Chairman to two years, after 1972, that position had also been put increasingly on released time with respect to teaching and other departmental responsibilities.

The Christie Report also codified a practice already recognized within the Council leadership, henceforth known as the "Christie Rule". That Rule is as follows: "except in emergencies, all major decisions and plans of the administration that significantly affect academic affairs should be submitted to the Academic Council for an expression of views prior to implementation or submission to the Board of Trustees. The views expressed by the Academic Council should be transmitted, along with the Administration's proposals, to the Board of Trustees when these plans and decisions are considered by the Board of Trustees." That Rule succinctly defines the role of faculty governance at Duke University. The Academic Council is only to a very limited extent a legislature. Its primary role is advisory, but it asserts the right of being heard in that advice and of having it considered, under a "Rule" that requires constant and vigilant tending.

From the beginning the Academic Council had the responsibility of approving award of honorary degrees in behalf of the Faculty, and the Christie Report suggested that "the decision-making powers now still retained by the University Faculty, insofar as these powers pertain to University governance, should be delegated to the Academic Council." In fairly short order the University Faculty in called meeting adopted this suggestion, after that time customarily meeting only once each year in an "Annual Meeting" devoted primarily to State of the University reports from the President and the Chairman of the Academic Council. The principal responsibility thus entrusted to the Council was the thrice-yearly approval in behalf of the Faculty of degrees earned in course, a systematic polling of the College and the eight Schools (including the Graduate School) for presentation of lists of candidates for such approval. This process, customarily concluded by a motion of general approval recommending the candidates to the Board of Trustees for final approval, and an entrusting of the Provost to make any last-minute adjustments inthe name of the Faculty, is subject to a special quorum requirement, "the members present," guaranteeing that this process will not be at the hazard of Council attendance. Council attendance is usually good, however, since attendance is recorded and three unjustified absences in succession leads to the replacement of a Council member by the Elections Committee from its alternate list.

During the past ten years, especially, the President and the Provost (members ex officio of the Academic Council) have participated quite actively in Council meetings and discussion, including responding to official questions raised formally by members of the faculty. Quite early in its existence the Academic Council decided that its meetings should be open, accessible to all interested persons including the press. The mode of Executive Session (members of the faculty only) has been quite narrowly limited to discussion of honorary degree candidates and occasionally of impending searches for principal administrative officers of the University. As a result, the Academic Council has become the principalopen forum for discussion of all matters of interest to the University community. Students have learned where to come in order to represent their opinions most effectively in relation to University governance. By long-standing custom, non-members of the Council may address the Council when no member of the Council pre-empts the floor, and the Council is characteristically open to hearing from any of the other constituencies which may be in attendance at Council meetings. Although occasionally having to forbear some pressure of gallery reaction, the Council has only once during its existence had to adjourn by actual disruption of orderly discussion. The minutes of the Council, customarily published in summary form in the Faculty Forum of the Duke Dialogue, constitute a widely-available open record of representative faculty discussion and opinion on all matters which the faculty deems important to consider for the University.

Meeting some thirty or more times each year, ECAC identifies faculty nominees for some 45 or more University committees (including special task forces, for example, and review committees for deans and University officers), 14 committees of the Academic Council itself, and for 12 committees and boards of the Trustees. One faculty committee, the Faculty Hearing Committee, is elected by the Council directly each year, from a slate of nominees developed by ECAC. For University committees ECAC usually nominates a slate of faculty choices for consideration by the appointing officer, usually after discussing preferences with that officer. It appoints Council committees directly, not especially from among the Council membership, and also the faculty representatives on Trustee committees and boards. It is a recognized principle of faculty governance that"faculty representatives" can arise only through this process, and such faculty representatives are understood to be accountable to ECAC for their participation in the various committees, task forces, or boards on which they may serve. ECAC systematically surveys all the bodies on which faculty representatives serve, by report of the committee chair, for activities of that committee over the year. Committee chairs are frequently asked to report to the Academic Council, and even more frequently to report at meetings of ECAC. It is understood that at times administrative officers may wish to appoint faculty members entirely of their own choosing to various groups or committees, usually of some special and temporary purpose, but it is understood that these faculty do not then represent the faculty as a part of University governance.

Subjects of particularly noteworthy interest within the Academic Council in recent years have included the intellectual climate of residential undergraduate student life, University finances and related planning including reports from all Deans of Schools, male-female and minority salary comparisons within broad areas of the University, the extent of progress in recruiting and retaining black faculty, the prevention of harassment -- sexual or otherwise -- within University life, proposal of various new departments, renamed departments, and new or renamed degree programs, Library planning, the Duke Press, the role and state of East Campus and North Campus and issues of undergraduate student body size, movie-making on campus, faculty access to basketball tickets, tenure policy and procedure, faculty grievance procedure, fringe benefit issues including health-care benefits and support of basic University amenities, and the operation of the Duke University Management Corporation (DUMAC), these among many others. In recent years the institution of the managed health care plan for faculty and staff, and assessment of client opinion of it in operation, have received much Council attention. Many of these topics are addressed repeatedly in different contexts.

A particularly pleasant responsibility is the selection and recognition of rising-senior undergraduate Faculty Scholars. Particularly long and tortuous discussions over the years have involved major building projects and their financing, especially Duke Hospital North and the Levine Science Research Center as the latter evolved out of the concept of a Technology Center, and a Faculty Titles Nomenclature that could identify and distinguish regular-rank faculty, non-regular-rank faculty, and non-faculty. About the only subject that seems to be avoided in recent years is faculty parking, although at the time that fee-paid parking was introduced (in 1972) that was a very active issue. Parking did get some attention in relation to the Science Research Center. Patent policy, conflict of interest policy, and the direction of communications and computer technology have been addressed, and it should be understood that still more extensive matters are addressed within ECAC, although with no published record. Whatever ECAC thinks should receive wider attention is generally put on the agenda of the Academic Council.

It is of interest to consider the succession of Academic Council Chairmen over the years, beginning with Prof. William B. Hamilton (History) as the first chair.

Council Chairs Elected for One-Year Terms

  • 1962, Prof. William B. Hamilton (History)
  • 1963, Prof. William B. Hamilton (History)
  • 1964, Prof. Richard L. Watson (History)
  • 1965, Prof. Richard L. Watson (History)
  • 1966, Prof. Francis Paschal (Law)
  • 1967, Prof. William Cartwright (Education)
  • 1968, Prof. William Cartwright (Education)
  • 1969, Prof. Donald J. Fluke (Zoology)
  • 1970, Prof. Donald J. Fluke (Zoology)
  • 1971, Prof. Joel Colton (History)
  • 1972, Prof. Joel Colton (History)

Council Chairs Elected for Two-Year Terms

  • 1973, Prof. Carl Anderson (English)
  • 1975, Prof. Richard L. Watson (History)
  • 1977, Prof. Anne F. Scott (History)
  • 1979, Prof. Lawrence Evans (Physics)
  • 1981, Prof. E. Roy Weintraub (Economics) (served one year)
  • 1982, Prof. Arie Lewin (Business)
  • 1984, Prof. Arie Lewin (Business)
  • 1986, Prof. Philip Stewart (Romance Studies)
  • 1988, Prof. Allan Kornberg (Political Science)
  • 1990, Prof. Lewis Siegel (Biochemistry) (served one year)
  • 1991, Prof. E. Roy Weintraub (Economics) (elected to fill out the second year)
  • 1992, Prof. Richard Burton (Fuqua School of Business)
  • 1994, Prof. James Siedow (Botany)
  • 1996, Prof. Leonard Spicer (Biochemistry & Radiology)
  • 1998, Prof. Robert Mosteller (Law)
  • 2000, Prof. Peter Burian (Classical Studies)
  • 2002, Prof. Nancy Allen (Rheumatology/Medicine) (elected for additional year)
  • 2005, Prof. Paul Haagen(Law)
  • 2007, Prof. Paula McClain (Political Science)