How to Become a Senator (procedures per school)

Shared Senator Requirements Across Schools

Regardless of your School here are the basic requirements for being nominated and elected to Senate:

• You are a minimally half-time continuing appointed DU faculty from one of the following lines:
  • Professorial Series in University Libraries
  • Teaching Professorial Series
  • Clinical Professorial Series
  • Professors of the Practice Series
  • Research Professorial Series
  • Tenure-Line Professorial Series
  • VTAP

• You are a Department Chair, Assistant Dean, Associate Dean, Dean, Vice-Assistant Provost, Associate Provost or Vice Chancellor who devotes at least one-half of your time to teaching and research.

Procedures Per School

Each school has its own processes for nominations and elections; we are working with your Deans' offices to assemble all those procedures on this page; meanwhile, reach out to your Dean's office for details.

• College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS)
  • Conducts nominations and elections for Senate at the end of spring quarter along with the nominations and elections for other committees.
  • The whole process from nomination to results usually takes the entire month of May.
  • Process involves representation by department/school within CAHSS.
  • Departments run their own nomination and election processes and reports the results to the Dean's office.
  • There are a few "CAHSS general" seats that are elected by the entire College and are expected to represent the College generally rather than their own programs. Those are nominated and elected though the committee ballot organized by the Dean's office for CAHSS elections to all committees. The Dean's office solicits nominations for those seats at the same time that they solicit nominations for all other open committee roles. Any faculty member may self nominate or nominate someone else for a "CAHSS general" seat.
• Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW)
  • Solicits nominations in the early spring for any vacancies
  • During the call for nominations, any eligible faculty member can self-nominate or may nominate other faculty members (though the nominee must agree to the nomination)
  • Holds elections in April/May (along with committee and other service openings) 
  • Announces the new senators when the elections are complete.

  [From the GSSW faculty governance document]:

  Elections: Elections to the Senate shall be conducted by members of the University faculty in each unit as follows:

  1. Nominations shall be made by members of the voting unit. Procedures shall provide that every member of the electorate have the opportunity to place names in nomination.
  2. There shall be a reasonable number of nominations for Senators to be elected.
  3. Elections shall be conducted by secret ballot.
  4. Elections in the voting units shall be held before the first day of May.
  5. All faculty members (as defined in Sec. B) shall be eligible to nominate and to stand for the position of Senator at large.
  6. The Senators at large shall be elected, by secret ballot, at the last meeting before the May election meeting.
  7. Newly elected Senators shall take office at the end of the May election meeting.
• Morgridge College of Education (MCE)
  1. When new openings occur due to end of term or other situations (e.g., sabbatical, leave from university, etc) the MCE faculty governance body nominates candidates.
  2. In the subsequent MCE Faculty Governance Body meeting, we entertain question and comments for the candidates. Then, faculty vote on nominated candidates.
  3. Nominees who receive the majority of votes are then deemed elected to Faculty Senate.

  This Faculty Governance Body (FGB) is established to provide for the governance of the Morgridge College of Education (MCE) Faculty and for the full participation of the MCE Faculty in determining educational philosophies, policies, and procedures. The FGB represent the faculty voice and as such, advises the Dean and the Dean's office regarding all aspects of the functioning of the MCE, including but not limited to the academic mission, quality of instruction/curriculum, research expectations/quality, service requirements, admissions/retention of students, policies and procedures for students and faculty, as well as guiding efforts for inclusive excellence. Click here for the FGB by-laws.

• College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics (NSM)

  There are currently 10 senators in NSM: Two representatives from each of five departments. Departments run their own nomination and election processes and reports the results to the Dean's office.

• Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science (RSECS)

  RSECS has 5 senator positions distributed across 3 departments as follows: One senator for each department and two senators at-large.

  When a position becomes available, RSECS runs elections:

  • Nominations (including self-nominations) are collected to form the ballot, and nominees are consulted to see if they are willing to serve if elected.
  • Depending on the open seat, votes are collected in the relevant department (for department positions) or at the School level (for at-large positions). Whoever gets the most votes fills the position; in cases of a tie, there is a run-off election.