Clemson University. Faculty Senate

In April 1956 the Board of Trustees approved a "Constitution and Bylaws" adopted by the faculty of Clemson College in January of that year. This document provided for an "executive committee," called the Faculty Senate, to be elected from members of the Academic Faculty to review and formulate policies that affected academic activities, faculty welfare, admissions, scholarship, and "other matters that promoted the best interests of the College." The Constitution and Bylaws called for representatives and officers to be elected by the general faculty. John D. Lane was elected as first president. In October 1956 the Board of Trustees approved a similar organization known as the Research Faculty. Its Constitution and Bylaws were passed January 1957. The Research Faculty consisted of the "professional research staff," or, more specifically, those certified by the Dean as "being actively engaged in research on an officially approved research project."

Cont. In 1970, these two bodies, the Faculty Senate and the Research Faculty, were unified under a single constitution and bylaws. At that time, the Faculty Senate emerged as the sole representative assembly of the faculty. In 1982 the Faculty Senate underwent another reorganization when the faculties of the Colleges and the University Curriculum Committee were incorporated into the formal faculty organization. In that year, a unitary constitutional format was adopted to replace the previous constitution and bylaws structure.