Revised 5/11/2020 

I. Director

1. The Director shall be elected by the CCA Executive Committee, subject to approval by the dean of SAS, for a three-year term, renewable by election of the Executive Committee. No Director shall serve more than two consecutive terms.

2. The Director shall be responsible for executing the Center’s policies and administering its affairs, in regular consultation with the Executive Committee. The Director shall be responsible for: preparing reports and keeping records; working with the Chair of English to oversee the Center’s budget and to hire and supervise its staff; completing any and all staff assessments required by the University; acting as a liaison between the Center and the English department; coordinating relations with other centers, programs, and departments; representing the Center on University bodies; and performing all other functions assigned to program directors by University regulations. In addition, the Director is responsible for representing the Center at meetings of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes.

3. In coordinating all programming activities in the Center, the Director is responsible for calling and chairing all meetings of the Executive Committee.

4. The Director of the CCA will propose, and receive proposals for the CCA’s programming. The Director will then seek the guidance of the Executive Committee on programming decisions.

II. Executive Committee

1. The Executive Committee shall consist of the Director of the Center, elected members, at least four of whom shall be from the English department, and the Chair of English, who will serve with voice but not vote. Executive Committee members will be nominated by the Chair of English, by the Director of the Center, or by current members of the Executive Committee, and confirmed by majority vote of the Executive Committee. Members of the Executive Committee will serve staggered, renewable three-year terms. The Executive Committee will meet at least once a semester.

2. The Executive Committee is responsible for the nomination and election of the Director of the Center and, at the end of each Director’s three-year term, considering the re-appointment of the current Director.

3. The Executive Committee is responsible for assessing and approving any and all applications from faculty members, administrators, staff, or graduate students in the University proposing activities to be housed in the Center. Such activities may include but are not limited to reading groups, discussion groups, speaker series, and course offerings. The Executive Committee may choose to allocate research or staff support to such activities as necessary.

4. Seminar leaders, in coordination with the CCA Director and, if necessary, the members of the Executive Committee, read applications for graduate student fellows, internal faculty fellows, and external faculty fellows in each year’s seminar, and are responsible for selecting the seminar’s participants. On the advice of the director of each year’s seminar, the Executive Committee is empowered to appoint up to three associate fellows to the seminar. These associate fellows will have all the rights and responsibilities of other fellows but will receive no research funding or course release.

III. Affiliated Scholars

1. Affiliates of the Center will be appointed by the Executive Committee for renewable one-year terms.  Affiliates can be faculty at Rutgers teaching courses linked to the interdisciplinary mission of the Center or to the Center’s year-long program.  They can also be faculty - directing activities through the Center such as reading groups, discussion or working groups, or conferences and lecture series.  In addition, Affiliates can be scholars or faculty external to the University whose actual title (Affiliated Scholar, Visiting Fellow, Visiting Faculty Fellow) will vary according to circumstances of rank and activity.  It is expected that Affiliates, in addition to hosting or directing their own projects at the Center, will be involved in the Center’s activities as much as possible.

IV. Adoption and Amendment 

1. Any member of the EC, including the Director of the CCA and the Chair of the English Department, may propose alterations to the bylaws.  Amendments to these bylaws shall be considered at a regular or special meeting of the EC, provided that they have been circulated at least one week in advance of the meeting.   If approved by a majority of the voting members present, the proposed amendments shall be adopted if subsequently approved in an electronic vote by a two-thirds majority of the voting members. 

2. These bylaws, and any amendments to them, shall at all times be consistent with relevant sections of the University Regulations and the bylaws of SAS and the English Department, which shall prevail in the event of any conflict. Amendments must be submitted to the Dean of SAS within thirty days of their approval by the CCA EC. 

 

Appendix A - Structure of the CCA’s Programs 

The CCA shall establish a variety of programs, with the dual goal of producing original research and disseminating interdisciplinary work throughout the University and beyond.

The programming activities of the Center are determined by the Executive Committee. They may include but are not limited to: the yearly seminar, interdisciplinary courses, reading and discussion groups for faculty and graduate students, lecture and reading series, national or local conferences, classroom visits by distinguished scholars or artists, and publishing projects.

The yearly seminar is a group of faculty and graduate students who meet regularly to work on a particular topic that has been approved in advance by the Executive Committee. The seminar is directed by a member of the Executive Committee or by an Affiliated Faculty member, to be selected each year by the Executive Committee. All participants shall be chosen through application by the Executive Committee for each year’s seminar. The Executive Committee determines the conditions governing participation in the Center: traditionally, external faculty fellows have received a stipend, internal faculty participants in seminars have received a course release, and graduate student participants have received a stipend.

Reading and discussion groups are composed of faculty and graduate students who meet regularly to work on a particular topic. These groups may be independent of the overarching project of the yearly program. The Executive Committee may grant funding to the leader(s) of a reading group for publicity, refreshments, and honoraria, but participants do not receive stipends or course release.

With the goal of maximizing the impact of the Center, the Executive Committee will seek a variety of projects aimed at a variety of audiences from across the disciplines. In a given year, although a majority of programs will normally be run by members of the Executive Committee, others activities will be directed by Affiliated Faculty or graduate students. Some programs may be competitive and selective (as with the Center’s yearly program), while others will allow open participation of a broader audience. Each year, some programs will be designed to pursue scholarship in particular areas at the highest levels, drawing into the work of the Center faculty and students from across the University. Other programs will be designed to reach out to the University at large, to a broader academic audience, or to a community audience, in order to disseminate work that the CCA supports, or to initiate conversations that connect the multiple constituencies served by the University.

It is expected that programs will be conceived at various levels of formality and longevity, some envisioned only as a single event or a semester-long series, and others conceived as more long-term projects. Programs conceived as long-term remain under the discretion of the Executive Committee, and must be reviewed and approved for continuation each year.

 

May 2020