Back to: Senate home page | UNCW. || Comments to Senate Secretary.
| Tuesday, 30 April 2002 |
2:30 p.m. |
Dobo 134 |
We were short of a quorum, but stayed to discuss the RPT matters anyway.
Steering Committee Motion
At the end of the meeting, a motion was put forward concerning the effect of the state budget cuts on the teaching mission of the university. This was approved unanimously by the 35-40 Senators and Faculty present, and will be forwarded by the President of the Senate to the Chancellor. The motion read:
We, the Faculty Senate of UNCW, are deeply distressed at the budget cuts to UNCW and to the UNC system that have been proposed and are moving forward. These cuts, at 4% and possibly higher, will cause permanent harm to the teaching mission of the university and to the education that our students receive. The citizens of North Carolina must be informed as to the permanent harm that the proposed cuts will do to its university system.
Committee of the Whole on the RPT report
The chief part of the meeting continued the discussions of the Committee of the Whole, chaired by President Noland, focused on the RPT committee report. The Secretary does not take official minutes in such a meeting, but I was again asked by the Chair of the RPT Cmte to keep notes, which follow:
A library representative noted that some librarians would fall under the RPT process, and was concerned that the Library was never mentioned in the document.
Discussion focused on Recommendations IV.6 (external review), IV.4 (revise guidelines), IV.7 (link to professional progress), IV.8 (levels of review), IV.9 (written notification), IV.10 (additions), IV.11 (new structure) and B1-4 (Senior Faculty recommendation process)
IV.6 On external review (ER):
Several departments reported up/down votes or specific concerns
A/T not opposed to ER, but questions how to apply to live art performances
ANTH: Supports ER, but questions how much weight will be given letters, if department has few full profs to vote on candidate
BIO: supports ER, notes need for flexibility, given disciplinary differences in some departments
CHM approves ER, but wants to maintain control over process, e.g. solicitation of letters. Number required could be same university wide, but department should retain control of the process.
CW: supports ER; this contributes to desire for national recognition
ENG: full profs should have "regional or national reputation"; this implies ER, and 5 letters seems a good number
FLL concerned about making ER optional at lower level, required at higher; should have it or not.
MAT: opposed to required ER, but notes that many departments have too few full profs to make broad-based decision
P&R: opposed to required ER; believes should be optional for the department
SOC: opposed to required ER for all departments; concerned that this implies colleagues unable to render professional judgment; sees great possibility for abuse of ER
Among other questions/points made and responses by committee members:
Is there ER of teaching, service or just research? Just research/scholarship. This is pretty much standard in all the schools we contacted.
Who did you contact? What % of schools don't have ER? Chair contacted UNC-G, ASU, UNC-C, JMU, Wake, Western Mich, BU, Radford. All had ER, most at both levels. 5 letters in the middle range.
Doesn't this process imply the faculty are unable to judge their colleagues professionally? And won't there be a great opportunity for abuse of this method? As Appendix 4, "External Review Guidelines" indicates, "Care should be taken to assue that the outside evaluations supplement, rather than supplant, the judgment of the departmental voting faculty." We do not believe the process will lend itself to abuse or the selection of prejudiced reviews, if the guidelines are followed.
ECU asks for 5 letters, but often gets less. Department needs some leeway with the number.
IV.4 Among the questions/points made concerning revising guidelines:
Doesn't the issue of revising guidelines relate to the question about external review procedures that are standardized? If guideline revision is up to the departments, shouldn't the decision about ER be also?
Who will judge whether departmental guidelines are "in line" with university-wide expectations? If there is an issue, the decision must ultimately be made by the Provost.
The idea here makes the point that there can be important connections among the three, teaching, scholarship, service, and that profs should get credit for it, when it occurs.
IV.5 There were no questions about a flexible time clock. Everyone seemed in favor of this.
IV.7 Among the points made concerning linkage:
Shouldn't the two parts of the opening sentence be reversed, i.e. the RPT decision must be linked to professional progress, rather than vice-versa? Yes, that is correct.
This is an important point, because it is too easy to treat the yearly evaluations casually, and this will no longer allow that. The tenure decision should not be a surprise. The faculty member should get a clear indication of what they should be doing to make progress.
Yes, and it may be necessary to give new chairs guidelines as to what they should be doing in the annual reviews. Comments from senior faculty must be included. People have been blindsided.
Some thought this might give more power to the chair. But it was pointed out that this report recommends requiring, for the first time, another voice (the report from Senior Faculty) than just the chair's.
This doesn't mention "senior faculty," only "peer review." Correct, that was deliberate. Another part of the document gives power to senior faculty.
Will this tie the hands of the department, compelling them to tenure someone who is mediocre? It might, but only if you have not taken the annual review process seriously.
IV.8 Among the questions/points made concerning levels of review:
Why go forward with the promotion/tenure process, if it has been rejected at the departmental level and the objections are not procedural? Among the replies and comments:
Present rules allow the chair to decide, so if he/she says no, it stays in the department. The assumption that all chairs are fair is naive.
The review committees will have some sense of standards in other departments, and thus may have a better perspective to judge the decision process.
Department members or chair may just say "it is too early"--without any grounds or reasons. This process compells some explanation.
It will be good for smaller departments for negative decisions to go forward, since that will allow vindication of what may be interdepartmentally hurtful decisions
The whole idea is to bring as much relevant information as possible into the process and to keep it open.
Why push it forward if chair and department agree? The vote may be divided. Current rules allow the chair to spin the recommendation too easily.
The current document, section 4D, calls for evaluation of every faculty every four years. This has never been done.
IV.9 Among the points made concerning notification schedule:
The whole process threatens to drag out too long. Why ten days? It is not ten working days; there needs to be sufficient time for decision and response, and also set an endtime.
IV.10 No objections to additions
IV.11 Comments/questions on the new structure.
What is the logic of the new level of oversight? Need process beyond the Dean, at more general level than first review cmte, which may have to deal with content issues, whereas latter will probably just deal with procedural matters. Note too (a) we are getting bigger, the two levels seems to fit new size of UNCW; and (b) new structure changes the order, since now have e.g. College RPT cmte-->Dean-->Uni RPT cmte.
The oversight committees work very differently for departments in the prof'l schools and the CAS, e.g. BIO vs. NUR, where BIO is big, and the review goes to a cmte with perhaps one BIO prof, but NUR is small, and goes to cmte with all NUR fac
Closer you keep the Dean to the Chair, the more likely Dean will assume responsibilty that Departments are fair.
We really only need one university RPT cmte. If we have one at the College/Prof'l school level, why not eliminate the University level? We have to remember that we are members of the University Faculty; there must be some uniformity.
B1-4: Senior Faculty recommendation process.
CHM prefers one decision from the department, made by all the Senior Faculty. The chair has information that the faculty need to know, to make a sound decision.
This is a good idea. There can be problems between Senior Faculty and Chair, and this insures separate comment, since now the Chair need only consult the Faculty.
FLL is opposed to B1-4; Chair may be mentor of person; and whole department should see what Chair writes
Troubling that the Senior Faculty casts votes secretly. Does it have to be secret?
Faculty member needs to know who signs off on letters, including minority reports.
Committee reply: separation valuable to preserve balance between Chair, Faculty. Possibility of dictatorial Chair, who dominates Senior Faculty meeting, especially if votes not secret.
Isn't it time to stop?
The meeting was adjourned at 4:30.