Mission Statement and Charter for the Community Relations Committee Mission As a public institution of higher learning, The Citadel has a responsibility to afford leadership in addressing the social, cultural, and technical needs of the public. The Community Relations Committee serves to facilitate the college's fulfillment of this responsibility and seeks, moreover, to monitor the community's perception of The Citadel. Charter I. Membership A. Representation Academic faculty members of standing committees are selected by the Committee on Committees, and membership is restricted to tenured/tenure track faculty who have been employed at The Citadel for at least one semester at the time they begin committee service. The Community Relations Committee is made up of six academic faculty members (two from each cluster) and a military faculty member from one of the ROTC departments; the Director of Public Relations, the Director of Alumni Affairs, and the President (or their designees) serve as non-voting liaison members. B. Tenure Faculty members are selected for three year terms and may request a second consecutive term; no faculty member may serve on a committee for more than six years consecutively. If a faculty member cannot complete a term, the Committee on Committees will select another member to fill the unexpired term. Time spent filling the term of another faculty member will not count toward the "six-year rule" outlined above. II. Structure A. Chair The committee, at an organizational meeting held before the end of spring semester, will elect a chair from among the faculty members. The term of chair lasts until the next election. A member may not serve as a committee chair for more than three years consecutively. The chair schedules and presides over meetings, represents the committee before outside bodies, produces an annual report of committee activities, and undertakes whatever other measures are necessary to facilitate the work of the committee. B. Subcommittees The committee may form other subcommittees not specified in the charter. C. Meetings The committee must meet at least twice during the academic year (once in the Fall and once in the Spring). The chair will call meetings at the request of the faculty members or at the request of either liaison member. The chair must hold a meeting if requested in writing by at least one-third of the voting members. Each faculty member will have one vote; a quorum consists of four voting members. III. Activities and Responsibilities III.1 General Activities of Standing Committees A. Information The Community Relations Committee gathers, analyzes, and disseminates information relevant to how The Citadel can function and is perceived as functioning in the community. It is authorized to gather information by means of (a) direct request to a college administrative department or activity, an academic department, another standing committee, or any group or association of Citadel faculty, staff, or students; (b) the development and use of questionnaires and surveys; and (c) the use of previously published information. The committee analyzes information through statistical summaries, compilation of written material, or other established methods. The analysis may provide the college with information pertinent to a particular issue, or it may substitute a recommendation for administrative action. The committee disseminates information by means of (a) a report to a department or committee based upon a request for information, (b) reports generated from within the committee, and (c) periodic status reports to the college as specified in the charter. B. Annual Report The Community Relations Committee will prepare an annual report summarizing the committee's activities over the previous academic year. The report must include all non-confidential decisions of the committee. Copies of this report, both in hardcopy and in electronic form, will be made accessible to all Citadel faculty, staff, and students. C. Other Reports The Community Relations Committee is responsible for the timely dissemination of all non-confidential reports to the Citadel community. Committee reports shall be made available through the library and through college-wide computer system access. Reports may contain recommendations or proposals. For the purposes of gathering information (see above), all committee reports are to be considered published information. D. Tasks The work of the Community Relations Committee consists of a series of tasks--units of work involving the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information. The committee will assume tasks through one of the following means: 1) Completion of tasks as articulated in the .Specific Activities. section of this charter. 2) Completion of a report which includes information requested by an administrative department or activity, an academic department, another committee, the Faculty Council, or the Academic Board. Requests of individual faculty members must be made through the Faculty Council. Students or other individuals may not assign a task to the Community Relations Committee except through one of the above-mentioned bodies. 3) Tasks can be generated from within the committee. Any committee member may request that the committee study a topic or issue within its sphere of interest. The committee may also develop its own long-range projects or studies as part of its ongoing mission. III.2. Specific Activities of the Community Relations Committee The Community Relations Committee coordinates with the Public Relations Department and the Director of Alumni Affairs to maintain a Faculty Speakers Bureau. So as to monitor the perception of The Citadel within the community, the Community Relations Committee coordinates with the Public Relations Department and the Director of Alumni Affairs regularly to conduct a survey of public perceptions of The Citadel. IV. Autonomy To ensure the efficiency and quality of committee work, the committee is granted a degree of autonomy over its own operations. Upon receiving a request from another college body, the committee will vote to accept or reject the request. A request for information can be rejected for the following reasons: 1) the request is unclear, in which case the committee chair will ask the requesting body to clarify any ambiguities and resubmit the request; 2) the committee's workload is currently too great to perform the task in the requested time frame, in which case the chair will return the request and suggest a date for re-submittal; 3) the task falls outside the scope or sphere of interest of the committee, in which case the chair will ask the requesting body either to submit the request to another committee, or (if the task falls within the scope of more than one committee) divide the task between the committees; or 4) the committee does not have the resources or the authority to complete the task, in which case the chair will explain which parts of the task cannot be completed, and the requesting body may resubmit a modified request. V. Amending the Charter The Community Relations Committee may modify its charter in consultation with the Committee on Committees. Proposals for changes in the committee charter come to the Committee on Committees, which negotiates the changes with the standing committee and with any affected administrative departments. Consensus requests are forwarded to the Faculty Council for approval. In case of a lack of consensus, competing proposals may be sent to the Faculty Council for consideration.