CU Faculty Senate: Who Qualifies?

The University of Colorado: Faculty defines the Faculty Senate under 5.A.2: Faculty Government:

5.A.2 Faculty Government

(A) The faculty shall form a Faculty Senate for the purpose of faculty participation in shared governance and other activities deemed important by the faculty.

(1) The university president shall be the president of the Faculty Senate.

(2)Faculty Senate membership shall be defined in the Faculty Senate constitution. Voting membership shall include those members who have a faculty appointment of 0.5 FTE or greater.


(B) The Faculty Senate constitution shall provide a system for participation of faculty in the governance of the university.

(C) On specific matters of shared governance, the Faculty Senate shall assign a spokesperson to address the Board of Regents.

(D) Consistent with the governance responsibilities articulated in regent policy 4.A, each school/college/library shall have a faculty governance body. The structure and operating rules shall be determined by the school/college/library faculty.

The defines membership under.

Please note that due to changes made in  the titles included under membership of the faculty senate have been updated but the changes in the constitution will not be voted on until fall 2024. Faculty senate members now include all faculty with .5% appointments and greater with titles listed below:

  • Tenure and Tenure-Track Faculty (Assistant, Associate, Full, and Distinguished Professor)
  • Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty (IRC) for the following titles only:
    • Teaching Professors (Assistant Teaching Professor, Associate Teaching Professor and Full Teaching Professor)*
    • Research Professor (Assistant Research Professor, Associate Research Professor, Full Research Professor)**
    • Clinical Teaching Professor (Assistant Clinical Professor, Associate Clinical Professor, and Full Clinical Professor)

The Boulder Faculty Assembly meetings are open to the public and welcomes all campus IRC faculty to attend. 

*CU Boulder holds an additional Teaching Professor of Distinction title which is also included

**Professional Research Assistants (PRA), as well as Assistant and Associate Research Assistants are not members of the faculty senate and are represented in shared governance at the Boulder campus with Staff Council.