Faculty Handbook (Earlham School of Religion)

The “Earlham School of Religion Faculty” consists of all teachers and administrators at the School of Religion (ESR). While there is a division of labor and a corresponding distinction between administrative faculty and teaching faculty, the distinction is not a sharp one. All of us are “educators” in one way or another; the unity of “the faculty” reflects the fact that ESR educates students in the way it operates as well as in the classroom. Moreover, ESR strives to be a community of persons living and working together to reach common aims. This handbook reports policies and procedures related to both groups, when applicable, and to each group – the teaching faculty and the administrators – separately when appropriate.

This document contains two parts. The first is the Faculty Handbook (Handbook) which is an extension of ESR’s employment agreement with teaching and administrative faculty.

The second part contains the administrative policies and procedures of ESR that pertain to faculty. These policies and procedures are not considered extensions of the ESR’s employment agreement with faculty members.

The aim of the Handbook is to provide faculty members with a clear, accurate and comprehensive overview of their employment relationship to ESR so that important personnel practices and related matters are as transparent as possible. In particular, it describes the processes and criteria of evaluation for hiring, renewal, and retention, as well as the conditions under which   faculty positions may be eliminated.  This Handbook has evolved over time and been revised periodically. It has been approved by the Faculty Meeting and by the Board of Trustees. Unless noted on the specific page, this text is the version approved in 2019.

ESR will use the processes and definitions in this Handbook to guide its decision-making. It is important that faculty members understand their rights as well as the limits to those rights and the Handbook strives to make this clear. The policies in the Handbook aim to be equitable and fair to both ESR and to faculty. We emphasize the decision-making processes of ESR with special attention to the consultation leading to the formation of consensus, as well as the special role of the Dean, President and Board of Trustees who, in addition to being part of the consultation and consensus process, have independent decision-making authority. Faculty members should be clear that they have control over some aspects and parameters of their review files and certain aspects of the decision-making process, but not others; the Handbook strives to make clear where each is the case.

A previous edition of the Handbook cited the Elders of Balby Friends Meeting of 1656, who urged that rules be interpreted “with the measure of light that is pure and holy” in order to avoid narrow rule making, for “the letter killeth and the Spirit giveth life.”* While we affirm that rules should be interpreted in the spirit of community building and not be used punitively when creative solutions to problems may be found, we also believe that a clearly articulated set of guidelines and policies for making important decisions is an important basis for equity. Accordingly, we have tried to provide sufficient detail and specificity to eliminate confusion and uncertainty yet to resist specifying guidelines and policies for every conceivable situation. Good decision-making must achieve a balance between impersonal rules and personal judgments, founded on the evidence under consideration, and this Handbook contains our latest effort to provide a framework to lead us to good decisions.

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*II Corinthians 3:6

Approval and Amendment History

May 23, 2025 – Clerical notes added to record approval history and to note amendments to Earlham policy since Board approval of the ESR Faculty Handbook.

October 17, 2020 – The Board of Trustees approved the ESR handbook revisions as presented. Much of the language in the Faculty Handbook has been updated to bring the content closer to the Earlham College Faulty Handbook with regard to employee agreements, long term employment protections, promotion, and harassment policies.

Policy specifications