During its meeting Tuesday, the Faculty Senate approved a host of changes and clarifications to how personal responsibility statements for faculty are dealt with.

Personal responsibility statements are documents that lay out the specific job descriptions for members of the faculty at Iowa State.

“The [statements are] one of the things the faculty and their chairs should be talking about,” said Veronica Dark, professor of psychology. Dark also led the task force that is responsible for the new changes to the statements. 

According to the report on the current state of the statements published February of this year by the Task Force to Review the Faculty Position Responsibility Statement, the task force found a wide variation in formats as well as general information covered from a survey of 100 Personal Responsibility Statements from many different departments at Iowa State.

Based on the report, when the idea of a personal responsibility statement was conceived 15 years ago, the plan was to have a document that “would serve the individual, unit, college and university by defining an individual’s role at the university.”

In the 15 years since the the statements’ inception at Iowa State, a couple of problems have become apparent.

Currently the biggest problem, according to the report, is that not all members of the faculty actually have one of these statements. The report calls on the provost, as well as heads of departments, to remedy this problem.

The senate also approved a motion that clarifies language in the faculty handbook regarding who needs a personal responsibility statement. The new language specifies that all faculty, including administrators, should have a statement on file within their departments.

During the meeting, the senate approved a motion that would mandate a statement be created within six weeks for all newly hired faculty going forward. 

In addition to the problem of some faculty not having a statement on file, the report also calls attention the lack of standardization in the expectations for faculty set down by their statements.

According to the findings presented in the report, most personal responsibility statements at Iowa State do not follow a standard format nor do they set forth standardized, and even in some cases, clear and understandable expectations.

New language for the faculty handbook, approved by the senate at the meeting, would set down guidelines for what sort of information should be included in a faculty member’s statement.

“People can be creative,” Dark said. “They can do whatever they think is necessary in the creation of their [statement].”

As well as the changes to the personal responsibility statement policies, the faculty senate also approved a motion to discontinue the botany major for graduate students, which has not been utilized since 2003.

The Faculty Senate’s next meeting will take place at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 8 in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.