Archives West Finding Aid

The records of the Faculty Executive Committee are arranged in five series: Minutes, Correspondence, Confidential Personnel Case Files, Subject Files, and Surveys.

The Minutes are arranged in chronological order in thirty-eight folders. There is some duplication because the nature of the committee, and especially its rotation of officers, did not encourage a central "official" file of committee records, although it is apparent that certain officers did attempt this at different times. For the early years, and for some of the later years as well, the "Minutes" file was considered the file of records and all correspondence and reports were added to it. In some years the correspondence and reports were so extensive that they were relegated to separate files in other series. Basically, however, the "Minutes" series is the main record of the committee's activities; the other series merely supplement it.

The Correspondence series is, because of this, less complete than it might be if all of the correspondence, reports and memoranda were removed from the Minutes series. It too is arranged chronologically.

Following the Correspondence series is the Confidential Personnel Case File series. This series is restricted as it deals with individual personnel matters rather than generalized policy statements, and as such is not available for perusal. Few of the personnel matters brought before the committee have produced any extensive documentation. The major cases have been separated into this series. These are arranged chronologically and alphabetically within each year.

The Subject File series contains an assortment of copies of minutes, correspondence, memoranda, working notes, drafts and other papers on a variety of subjects of interest to the committee. Many of these papers have been separately filed only for convenience. The more recent files also illustrate a common problem of duplication wherein several members of the committee have, through the process of becoming the recording officer, added their one file of miscellaneous material to the common pool. This is the case with several individual folders. Where possible the compiler of the individual file has been identified. These files are arranged by year, or earliest year in the case of several years coverage, and alphabetically within each time period. Again, subject gaps in these files can often be filled through reference to the Minutes and Correspondence series. The final series consists of the completed questionnaires of two surveys of the faculty on the question of faculty evaluation. The arrangement of these folders is by internal categorization for purposes of summarizing the results of the survey.