Resolution 96-10
Faculty Welfare Committee
UNC Faculty Assembly
February 21, 1997

Change in Open Meetings Law's Criteria for Definition of Professional Staff

WHEREAS, the terms of an agreement between the University and the North Carolina Press Association concerning interpretation of the North Carolina Open Meetings Law (Article 33C. Meetings of Public Bodies) are currently in place; and

WHEREAS, the terms of that agreement as it defines professional staff inhibit the proper functioning of university advisory bodies variously comprised of administrators, faculty, staff and students; and

WHEREAS, the requirements of the Open Meetings Law when applied to university committees inhibit effective and timely conduct of recurring and routine business of the university, and have produced discord between administrators, faculty, staff, and students within the special university culture; and

WHEREAS, this has subsequently resulted in exclusion of faculty, staff, and student representatives from important advisory capacities,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the UNC Faculty Assembly request that the Board of Governors use its best efforts to achieve a change in the criteria by which a university group is subject to the Open Meetings Law, to expand the definition of professional staff to include faculty, staff, and official representatives of student government in addition to administrators.

Peter Petschauer
Chair, Faculty Assembly

Linda Nelms
Secretary, Faculty Assembly