Ombuds Amendment (21-day Review)

Dear all,

In accordance with the University Senate Code 1.8.3., I am forwarding for 21-day review amendments to the University Senate Rules and Regulations Articles V and VI that the University Senate voted on 10/6/22. The University Senate Executive Committee worked on these amendments, regarding the University and Faculty Ombuds, in close consultation with the Ombuds Office. The amendments were approved unanimously by the University Senate. An explanation of the amendments follows:

We changed 5.1 to link to the Ombuds Charter and the charter principles in keeping with best practices of the profession.

We changed 5.1.1.1 to indicate that while SenEx remains engaged in helping the selection of the University and Faculty Ombuds, we defer to these individuals in additional hiring in the office.

We changed 5.1.1.4 to no longer require that an individual have worked at KU for 10 years in order to serve as Faculty Ombuds. The University Senate executive committee and the University Senate had robust discussions regarding this topic. We ultimately decided and the University Senate agreed that while we seek for the Faculty Ombuds to have comprehensive knowledge of the university, which we now define in greater detail in the USRR, 10 years of service are both neither required for, nor necessarily guarantee this comprehensive knowledge. At the same time, we felt that someone should have at least some work experience at KU before assuming the Faculty Ombuds role. Accordingly, the years of experience have now been reduced to 3 years.

Additionally, we interpreted the original 10-year requirement in the USRR to indicate that the faculty member had to have obtained tenure at the university, which we felt was an important safeguard for an individual in this role. This language is in no way a reflection on the profound contributions of our non-tenure track to the university. It is a reflection of our belief that in the occasionally hierarchical climate of a university, the job security that tenure offers, can and should be a helpful tool for advocacy in the Faculty Ombuds role. Moreover, as the University Ombuds role is open to all employee categories, we thought that having the Faculty Ombuds be a tenured faculty would bring necessary knowledge of the tenure and promotion, particularly when disagreement over promotion/tenure constitutes a frequent reason for why some faculty visit the office.

We changed 6.2.2 to indicate that the Ombuds Office aims to help faculty, staff, and students to resolve conflict informally and to provide further references to the ombuds charter.

Finally, the term Ombuds will replace the more dated term Ombudsman as a technical correction throughout the USRR.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at govern@ku.edu.