Williams College Employee Handbook
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Faculty Appointments and Potential Conflict of Interest From Family and Other Special Personal Relationships
Family Relationships
The College has no so-called "anti-nepotism regulations" governing its faculty appointments and permits the employment of more than one member of a family. However, in order to ensure objectivity and impartiality in matters of personnel administration, the College does not permit a direct reporting relation that involves immediate family members (defined as parents, children, husbands and wives, brothers, and sisters; see Other Special Personal Relationships below). In this matter it adheres to the policy statement, "Faculty Appointment and Family Relationship," endorsed in 1971 by the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges. That statement recognizes "the propriety of institutional regulations which would set reasonable restrictions on an individual's capacity to function as judge or advocate in specific situations involving members of his or her immediate family." It stipulates, therefore, that "family members should neither initiate nor participate in institutional decisions involving a direct benefit (initial appointment, retention, promotion, salary, leave of absence, etc.) to members of their immediate families." The College has adopted this same policy for other special personal relationships, as specified below.
The College endorses the above provisions with the following further specifications:
- At the College-wide Level
No member of the Committee on Appointments and Promotions may participate in a Committee decision involving a direct benefit (as described above) to a member of his or her immediate family, or, if that immediate relative is an untenured member of the faculty, in any similar Committee decisions affecting the other non-tenured members in that relative's department. In addition, no executive officer shall make any decisions involving a direct benefit to an immediate family member employed at the College. Authority for such decisions shall be transferred instead to another executive officer at the direction of the President.
- At the Departmental Level
No member of a department may participate in a departmental recommendation or decision involving a direct benefit to a member of his or her immediate family. In addition, no tenured member who has an immediate family member holding a non-tenured appointment in his or her department may participate in decisions or recommendations conferring direct benefits on, or withholding them from, other non-tenured members of that department. This last provision does not apply if the immediate family member holds a visiting appointment or an exclusively graduate teaching appointment, or is a Senior Lecturer or a Part-time Instructor, as described under groups II (b) and II (d) of the Policy Governing Part-time Faculty. In such cases, however, decisions involving a direct benefit to an immediate family member must be delegated to or made in consultation with other tenured members of the department, or made in consultation with the Dean of the Faculty. In cases where both family members are full professors in the same department, it is permissible for one of them to chair the department, but all decisions involving a direct benefit to an immediate family member must be delegated in the manner described in the preceding sentence. In all other cases, persons with an immediate family member in the department do not normally serve as chair.
Other Special Personal Relationships
The policy described in the above paragraphs applies as well to other personal relationships that might similarly impinge on one's impartiality or might reasonably give the appearance of doing so. The College cannot define every such relationship, and nothing in this paragraph is meant to imply that friendships between tenured and non-tenured faculty necessarily or ordinarily raise issues of improper partiality, but the College does expect everyone to be sensitive to potential conflict of interest.
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