Faculty Advisory Council Report

The Faculty Advisory Council is composed of five committees: Academic Environment, Teaching, Research, Compensation and Benefits, and Website and Communication.

Faculty representatives from the College of Humanities served on two of these committees: Academic Environment and Research. Our faculty is represented by Tony Brown, Jeffrey Turley, Stephen Tuttle, and Charlotte Stanford.

The Research committee began to collect and analyze faculty rank and status data in an effort to clarify advancement policies and help faculty prepare for successful reviews.

The Academic Environment committee worked on helping make BYU a more “family-friendly” university. One proposal it submitted was to require those involved in hiring and making CFS decisions to receive training regarding gender bias and existing policies designed to accommodate parents of newborns and young children.

Another proposal requested that the administration establish an exploratory committee composed of members of the faculty and human resource professionals to consider how BYU could cultivate a more family-friendly environment.

This exploratory committee would evaluate current institutional policies and practices at the university that might differentially impact the tenure of male and female faculty, gather data on how caring for children and elderly family members impacts faculty members’ ability to discharge their professional duties, and consider the feasibility of the university offering assistance with childcare.