Marla is the department chair in the Psychology department at Lehua U, and just noticed that in the new 2015 to 2017 contract that there is a change in Article X for the department personnel committee procedures. The change states that now DPC members must be at or higher in rank than the applicant, which throws a bit of a monkey wrench in the current panel, specifically in regards to promotions. She mentioned this to the DC of Math who informed her that they already implemented the change when they elected DPC members in August, so they don’t have any problems. Uh oh. What should Marla do now?

 

Answer:

Until midnight on June 30th, the 2009-2015 contract is still in effect. Although the Math department had the foresight to make the necessary changes ahead of time, they were under no obligation to do so. At the next department meeting, Marla brings this issue to the attention of her colleagues. They brought up the idea of just using alternates until the next round of votes is called for in the written departmental procedures, and also the option of voting on an amendment to the departmental procedures to hold a new vote. Because they are a small department, they voted unanimously to add an amendment to hold another vote, ran the changes by UHPA for approval, and are scheduled to re-vote in August 2015.