Section VIII - Faculty & Instruction

VIII A 1

Faculty - Academic Freedom and Responsibility

To state the College’s dedication to academic freedom and expectation for responsible judgment in exercising academic freedom

Randolph Community College recognizes that the most important responsibility of the institution is learning. It is the goal of the College to maintain an environment which maximizes the teaching and learning process and in which faculty members are able to pursue the search for the truth in an atmosphere of academic freedom.

Academic freedom entitles faculty to freedom in the classroom in presentation and discussion of the subject matter of the course. Faculty are expected to maintain the relevance of lecture content and course requirements as specified by the Combined Course Library of the North Carolina Community College System. Implicit within academic freedom are the requirements of academic integrity that include the responsibility of the faculty members to conduct their classes and, where applicable, research in manners consistent with generally accepted levels of professionalism, rigor, scholarship, and fairness.

Faculty members at Randolph Community College are citizens, members of a learned profession, and representatives of the College. When speaking or writing as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline. As persons of learning and as representatives of the College, however, faculty members should be aware that the public may judge their profession and institution by their actions and utterances. Thus they should at all times be accurate, exercise appropriate restraint, and show respect for the opinion of others. The public may assume that one speaks for the College; therefore, each employee is responsible for alerting the public when he/she is not serving as a College spokesperson.

Faculty are obligated, as are all employees of the College, to support the mission and policies of Randolph Community College and to refrain from activity which would violate such policies and/or tend to hamper the achievement of the College’s mission and goals. While the right to disagree with or criticize College operations remains inviolate, faculty members are, as are all employees of the College, expected to understand that the policies, perceived by them as improper, should be altered not by violating the policies, but should be discussed through established appropriate channels.

The Board of Trustees, therefore, shall guarantee and protect academic freedom in the College. The Board shall likewise require the exercise of responsible judgment on the part of personnel of the College as they exercise academic freedom in accomplishing the objectives of the institution.

The College offers a means of safeguarding and protecting academic freedom through its Employee Grievance Policy. Employees who believe they have experienced an infringement of their academic freedom can seek resolution through the procedures outlined in the policy.

Adopted: 04/15/1999

Revised: 05/20/2010