The Ombudsman serves as an impartial and confidential investigator in any specific case of alleged inequity, unfairness or maladministration.

1: Membership, Election, Tenure

1.1: Qualifications: Rank of tenured associate or full professor with at least five years' service to the College. The Ombudsman may not serve concurrently on the Appointments and Promotions Committee, the Appointment and Promotions Appeals Board or the Academic Freedom Committee.

1.2: Term: Elected for 3 years.

2: Jurisdiction, Obligations, Procedures

2.1: Types of informal actions:

2.1.a: Hearing in confidence and seeking to resolve individual grievances and cases of alleged infringements of academic freedom.

2.2: Methods appropriate to problems of equity:

2.2.a: Afford full opportunity for the presentation in confidence of any complaint or grievance from any member of the Faculty (and where appropriate from any student or administrator or other employee of the College) alleging unfairness, inequity, discourtesy, undue delay, or other malfunctioning in the processes of the College;

2.2.b: Investigate, in confidence, to determine the degree of validity of the complaint;

2.2.c: Mediate or otherwise resolve the problem, arriving in confidence at what appears to the Ombudsman to be a just resolution (in the dismissal of the complaint, or in recommended action based on a warranted complaint);

2.2.d: Referral of cases, with the approval of the complainant, in which informal resolution cannot be achieved to the Academic Freedom Committee for Formal Hearing or Formal Investigation.

2.3: Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Ombudsman will not become involved with the normal operations of grievance processes or disciplinary procedures which are already established by the Faculty (such as grievance procedures already available with reference to matters of tenure, promotion, academic freedom, severance and discipline; and such matters as student discipline as established by College regulations and procedures on matters of discipline and dispute) except that he/she may, on the basis of his/her sole judgment, inquire into possible or alleged unfairness or inequity resulting from possible bias or malfunction in any of these proceedings, and make confidential reports thereon to the individual or parties involved, and subsequently, if necessary, to the Faculty.

2.4: Report and recommend to the Faculty or its committees, on the basis of experience, appropriate changes in the procedures and processes that have given rise to particular grievances.

2.5: Regular reports to the Faculty, including, when appropriate, remarks on the resolution of particular cases.

2.6: Powers:

2.6.a: Access to all pertinent records;

2.6.b: The right to inquire of any member of the Faculty, administration, student body, member of the clerical and custodial staffs, in connection with his/her proper inquiries and to receive full and complete answers;

2.6.c: The right to mediate or otherwise arrive at a compromise or to arrive at his/her own proposal for solution of the problem at hand;

2.6.d: The right to present recommendations for solution to the parties involved and to report such recommendations to appropriate Faculty committees, administrators, department heads, student groups, or other persons, having completed the foregoing processes in confidence, and in terms appropriate to the case and in fairness to all parties involved;

2.6.e: The right to make final public report in the matter to the Faculty, the College, or otherwise as in his/her judgment will promote a just final disposition of any case.

(Passed October 13, 1970, Revised May 5, 1998)