At its January 17 meeting, Concordia’s Board of Governors repealed the 1994 Rules and Procedures for Advisory Search Committees and adopted the rules and procedures as put forward by the Board’s Task Force and revised by Senate. The new rules apply to the Rector, Provost, the Vice-Rectors, academic Deans and the Director of Libraries.

Sister Eileen McIlwaine headed the Task Force, which has met 16 times since its creation in June 1999.

The new rules set out the process for selecting senior administrators and the length of their terms (a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms in the same office), and the composition of search committees for the positions. The new procedure also gives the Board latitude to extend senior terms by up to one year, without undertaking an evaluation.

In an important change of policy, the Task Force recommended the evaluation of incumbents at the end of their terms, rather than an automatic search. This is intended to avoid costly and time-consuming searches when the incumbent is judged to be doing an excellent job. The new policy was adopted without the evaluation procedures; they will be developed by a task force of the Board with both Senate and student representation.

The interim evaluation procedures for the Deans of the Faculty of Arts and Science, Engineering and Computer Science and School of Graduate Studies, all in the penultimate year of their mandates, will be brought forward to the Board in February.