Faculty Senate
Recommendations passed on evaluation of
tenured faculty, pay for Preview advising

In an effort "to avoid possible abuse" of university policy relating to the evaluation of tenured faculty, the Faculty Senate on March 30 approved a recommendation from its Promotion and Tenure Committee that new, specific language regarding this process be added to the Faculty Handbook.

According to the committee's rationale statement: "The current Faculty Handbook policy, which indicates that when 'a pattern of deficiency in the performance of tenured faculty is documented from the cumulative annual evaluation for a period of at least two years, the chair or dean shall call for an in-depth evaluation of the faculty member,' has over the past year or two been used in a rather arbitrary manner with regard to senior tenured faculty."

The recommendation, which will be forwarded to the president, calls for the following principles to be stated in the handbook:

  • The in-depth review process must not become a reevaluation of a faculty member's tenured status. In no case shall post tenure review be used to shift the burden of proof from the institution's administration (to show cause why a tenured faculty member should be dismissed) to the faculty member (to show cause why he or she should be retained).
  • The standards and criteria by which tenured faculty are evaluated should be developed and reviewed periodically by the tenured faculty.
  • Under no circumstances should there be a question during the review process regarding the faculty member's ability to meet the current standards for an award of tenure.
  • The outcome of evaluations should be confidential, that is, confined to the appropriate college or university persons as well as the faculty member being evaluated.
  • The strategic plan as cited in Section K ordinarily cannot be imposed on the faculty member unilaterally but should be a product of mutual negotiation. The standard here should be that of good faith on both sides - a commitment to improvement by the faculty member and to reasonable support of that improvement by the institution.

    In other action, the senate approved a recommendation from its Faculty Remuneration Committee that faculty who serve as advisers during Freshman Preview be paid at the same rate as faculty who advise students during Transfer Preview.

    According to the committee's rationale statement, "The existing practice is to pay faculty serving as advisers during Transfer Preview $20 per hour up to a maximum of $80 per day but not to pay faculty serving as advisers for Freshman Preview. While this practice appears to have been followed for some time, there does not seem to be any compelling reason for it to be continued. The principal concern underlying this issue seems to be the unevenness across campus of pay for summer advising."

    The senate also approved the following two recommendations from its Ad Hoc Committee on SSRP Status:

  • That proposed changes in university policy regarding Self Supported Research Positions (SSRP) and Research Faculty be reviewed by the Faculty Senate prior to implementation.
  • That commitments made at the time of establishment of individual Self Supported Research Positions regarding the allocation of Indirect Cost funds generated by the SSRP should be honored, even if the general university policy regarding SSRP changes.

    In other matters, Faculty Senate chair William A. Drewry announced that President James V. Koch plans to meet with senate members in April to discuss senators' concerns about faculty morale that they had expressed in a senate survey earlier this year.

    Drewry also announced that Sen. Paul Champagne has been tasked with creating an ad hoc committee that will develop a plan for giving part-time faculty representation in Faculty Senate governance.