A corporate body, generally chartered or commissioned by some authority, and configured for the purpose of deliberation, regulation, and/or governance. Because colleges and universities tend, by TRADITION, to be run in a participatory-collaborative way (with substantial faculty and student involvement in policy management), committee-work represents a significant feature of life on campus—particularly for the faculty, one third of whose triumvirate of formal institutional obligations (teaching, research, and service) is largely discharged by sitting on committees. These committees often assemble in seminar rooms on campus, which circumstance probably informs the frequently musing, ruminative, and open-ended character of committee conversations in an academic setting.