Leaving my name on the list (#1394)

Topics/tags: Grinnell

Yesterday, I learned that I am one of only seven faculty members on the list of people who might be nominated to be Chair of the Faculty for 2026 through 2028. Today, I already had people asking me if I want to be Chair of the Faculty. The answer to that question is relatively simple: I am willing to serve as Chair of the Faculty, but I don’t have a special interest in doing so.

So why am I on the list?

Answering that question requires an exploration of the complexity of Grinnell’s elections, particularly the election for Chair of the Faculty.

To start with, Grinnell has a somewhat strange way of determining who goes on the ballot for faculty elections. Rather than asking people to put their name forward, we start with a list of all eligible faculty. The list is often broader than you’d think. For example, it includes faculty with Senior Faculty Status as well as faculty on leave. Faculty members are then asked to fill out a form if they want their names removed from the list.

Got it so far?

Next up is the fun part. At a faculty meeting, we hold a nominating election. The first order of business is usually to have more people remove their names from the list. Then we provide an opportunity for people to suggest potential nominees from among those still on the list. We use the term suggest intentionally; these are not yet nominations. People may also suggest themselves; they rarely do. If someone is present when their name is suggested, we give them another chance to indicate whether they are willing to serve.

Doesn’t that sound like fun? It gets better.

Now we’re ready to vote. Each eligible voter may then vote for one person. They need not restrict themselves to those suggested; all people left on the ballot are eligible. This vote is not a vote for the position. Rather, it is a nominating ballot. The two highest vote getters (assuming we’re voting for a single position) become the nominees for the position provided that they combine for over 50% of the vote. What if they don’t get over 50% of the vote? We take as many of the top vote-getters as necessary to get over 50% and hold another nominating ballot. Ideally, those who find that their preferred candidate is no longer in the running then vote for one of these, and we reduce the pool to only two people. If not, we do it again. And again. I recall few elections in which we needed more than two nominating rounds.

At this point, we have two nominees. Since not every faculty member attends the main faculty meeting, we hold a subsequent election. When I started at Grinnell, paper ballots with the two names were distributed to all faculty. These days, we vote online [1].

And there you have it. Someone has been elected. All is good.

At least most of the time. I recall a time or two in which the person elected had to withdraw for unexpected reasons and we went through the whole process again.

Now we can return to the question at hand: Why are there only seven candidates for nomination for the position of Chair of the Faculty? I suppose we should start by considering the initial pool of available candidates. That consists of all of the Full Professors at Grinnell. I had thought that we required at least three years of service to the College, but I don’t see that clause in the handbook. How many Full Professors are there at Grinnell? I’m not completely sure. IPEDs says that we have 115 tenured faculty members. So we probably have between fifty and sixty Full Professors.

How do you get from somewhere above fifty down to seven? Lots of people remove their names. And there are a lot of good reasons to remove names. You might remove your name because you’ll be on leave over the next two years or even because you’re on leave this year. That cuts out between 2/7 and 3/7 of the faculty. You might remove your name because you’re already serving in a leadership role on campus. You might remove your name because this is the wrong time professionally to be Chair of the Faculty: Perhaps you’re in the midst of a large research project, perhaps your department can’t spare you. You might remove your name because this is the wrong time personally. The job of Chair of the Faculty is time-consuming enough that most faculty with school-aged children probably shouldn’t undertake it. And there are many other personal reasons.

Given the complexity of the role, why would anyone leave their name on unless they particularly wanted to serve? I can’t speak for others, but I left my name on because I have no good reason to remove it, and I believe that successful faculty governance requires us to be willing to serve. In my ideal world, at least a dozen faculty would be on the ballot, all because they have no good reason not to be. That gives the faculty more of an opportunity to determine who will best represent them.

What does the ballot currently look like? All seven candidates are male. I think all of us present as white. Four are in the arts. Two are in the sciences. One is in the non-arts humanities. None are in social studies. I believe at least one of the seven of us is moving to SFS next year. I think most of us would do a reasonable job, although some would likely do a better job than others; there are those who regularly involve themselves in governance and those who do not.

What does all of this say about my chances for being nominated, let alone elected? I have no idea. I’ll admit that I’m a bit worried by a comment someone made to me this afternoon: Sam, you’re the only one of the seven who has already served on Council.

As I said, I don’t have a particular desire to serve as Chair of the Faculty, but I’m willing to do so if my colleagues wish.

We’ll leave it at that.

[1] I’m happy to say that we use a relatively secure online voting platform, rather than, say, a Microsoft Form or a Qualtrics Survey.

Version 1.0 of 2026-01-30.