Membership

Eligibility

Membership is open to full-time engineering faculty from all the departments and centers of the WSE including faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering who are appointed in the School of Medicine and faculty in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering who are appointed in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The full-time engineering faculty that may serve hold one of the following titles:

  • Tenure-track: instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, professor.
  • Teaching-track: lecturer, senior lecturer, associate teaching professor, teaching professor.
  • Research-track: assistant research professor, associate research professor, research professor as well as assistant, associate, and full research engineering/scientist/scholar.

The WSE Faculty Senate will have 25 members—all of whom are full-time faculty—as follows:

  • One (full) professor and one assistant or associate professor from each of the nine academic departments.
  • One senior and one junior teaching-track faculty member from the Center for Leadership Education [CLE].
  • Two additional teaching-track faculty members elected at large from the WSE.
  • Three research-track faculty members elected at large from the WSE.

Membership on the WSE Faculty Senate is for three-year terms running from July 1 to June 30. Selection of members takes place during the spring semester. The terms are staggered so that roughly one-third of the seats on the WSE Faculty Senate are up for renewal/replacement each year.

Each of the nine academic departments and the CLE select their members by processes of their own choosing. Generally, department chairs/heads/directors and faculty members serving in the Dean’s office are not to serve on the WSE Faculty Senate except in unusual circumstances.

The two teaching-track and three research-track are elected at large by the engineering faculty (as described above). At least five nominations are required to be placed on the ballot for an at-large seat on the WSE Faculty Senate. The nomination and election process will be organized by the Dean’s office.

Current Members

Departmental Representatives

  • AMS: Yanxun Xu and Laurent Younes
  • BME: Alexis Battle and Kathleen Cullen (Steering committee member)
  • CaSE: Michael Shields and Somnath Ghosh
  • ChemBE: Chao Wang and Yannis Kevrekidis
  • CLE: Trevor Mackesey and Eric Rice
  • CS: Chien-Ming Huang and Greg Hager
  • ECE: Vishal Patel and Mounya Elhilali
  • EHE: Ciaran Harman and Paul Ferraro
  • MS&E: Shoji Hall and Kalina Hristova (Steering Committee Member)
  • MechE: Noah Cowan and Jaafar El-Awady (WSE Faculty Senate Chair and Steering Committee Member)

At-Large Representatives

  • Teaching: Rachel Sangree and Joanne Selinski
  • Research: Peter Kazanzides, Patty McGuiggan, and Tilak Ratnanather

Meetings

The WSE Faculty Senate will generally meet at least twice per semester. At least once per year, the Dean of Engineering will address the body with a presentation covering the state of the school (including opportunities and challenges) and an overview of the Dean’s priorities.

As needed, the WSE Faculty Senate may hold additional meetings as determined by its Steering Committee.

Duties

The WSE Faculty Senate is responsible for creating recommendations on matters brought to the body by the Dean of Engineering. The WSE Faculty Senate may also create recommendations on academic matters that they deem appropriate for consideration.

The recommendations to the Dean are generally in the form of a report generated by a subcommittee charged with studying a particular issue. While consensus opinions are desirable, these reports may include a spectrum of opinions and recommendations.

Reports are generated by subcommittees of the WSE Faculty Senate [as assigned by the Steering Committee, described below]. The full membership of the WSE Faculty Senate will have an opportunity to comment on the draft reports and request changes. The Steering Committee is responsible for finalizing reports.

Members who are unwilling or unable to contribute to their duties may be excused from the WSE Faculty Senate by the unanimous consent of the Steering Committee.

Steering Committee

The WSE Faculty Senate will have a three-person steering committee whose responsibilities are:

  • Assign members to subcommittees to examine issues brought to the group by the Dean.
  • Decide what additional issues will be examined by the WSE Faculty Senate and assign members to a subcommittee for its consideration.
  • Organize meetings of the WSE Faculty Senate including setting the dates and agenda for the meetings.
  • Ensuring that reports of subcommittees are available to all members for comment before finalizing.
  • Finalizing reports and presenting those findings to the Dean.

Selection of the Steering Committee members will be done by a ballot (organized by the Dean’s office) after the election of the membership. Any of the 25 new/returning members of the WSE Faculty Senate may be nominated (including self-nominations) and the vote is by the incoming membership.

Amendments

The WSE Faculty Senate is an advisory body to the Dean. Changes to these procedures may be instituted by the Dean. In addition, the WSE Faculty Senate Steering Committee may recommend changes for the Dean’s consideration.

Initial WSE Faculty Senate

The first WSE Faculty Senate was seated during the spring semester in 2021. The terms of the 25 members will be chosen at random to have variable lengths as follows:

  • Of the 20 members from the nine departments and the CLE, (roughly) one third will have a term that ends June 30, 2023, one third will have a term that ends June 30, 2024, and one third will have a term that ends June 30, 2025. These initial terms are (approximately) 2, 3, and 4 years.
  • Of the two at-large teaching faculty members, one will have a term that ends June 30, 2023 and one that ends June 30, 2024.
  • Of the three at-large research faculty members, one will have a term that ends June 30, 2023, one that ends June 30, 2024, and one that ends June 30, 2025.