1.    The department chair, program director, or other designate of the Provost is appointed as Chair of the Search Committee. 

When circumstances such as conflict of interest, personal relationship with an applicant, or status as an internal candidate (anyone currently employed by the College) may limit an individual department member’s or a program member’s full participation in the search, the Provost and department chair must develop a clear statement specifying that member’s role in deliberation or voting at each stage of the search, recognizing the necessity of maintaining disciplinary expertise and a common understanding of the search criteria by the Search Committee and department faculty throughout the process.  This statement should be in writing and made available to the entire search committee at the outset of the search.

In cases where a potential applicant has a personal relationship with another employee at the College (i.e., is a spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, sister, brother or other closely related relative of a current employee), the current employee  will not participate in the search process in any way (e.g., serving on search committee, meeting with candidates, attending candidate presentations, providing feedback on candidates, participating in meals with candidates). Internal candidates (anyone currently employed by the College) will likewise not participate in the search process in any way outside of the individual’s own candidacy. Any exceptions must be made in writing by the Provost before the search begins.

In any case where a member of a department is not participating in a search because of a conflict of interest, personal relationships with an applicant, or status as an internal candidate and a question arises from an applicant or candidate about the reason why the department member is not participating in the search, the stock response from the search committee chair should be “X is not participating due to our guidelines about potential conflicts of interest.”

2.    The Chair should submit names of potential Search Committee members to the Provost.  Many departments include all tenured and tenure-track faculty on the Search Committee, although larger departments may have a subset of department members serve officially on the Committee.  ‘Best practices’ suggest that membership of the search committee does not include the person being replaced.

3.    The final membership, appointed by the Provost, should consist of at least five faculty, including some or all department members, and two or three other faculty members, at least one of whom is from outside the division, and usually one who is outside the department but within the division.