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2000-2001
FACULTY COUNCIL
MINUTES
2000-2001
Meeting #20, Tuesday, February 20, 2001
Present:
McKeever (chair), Smelser (vice-chair),
Bitterwolf, Brunsfeld, Chun, Finnie, Fritz, Glen, Goble, Goodwin, Guilfoyle,
Haggart (w/o vote), Hong, Kraut, McCaffrey, McClure, Nielsen, Olson, Norby,
Thomas (w/o vote) Absent: Foltz, Meier, Nelson, Pitcher,
Thompson, Trivedi Observers: 9
Call
to Order. A quorum being present, Faculty Council
Chair, Professor Kerry McKeever, called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m. in
the Brink Hall Faculty Lounge.
Minutes.
The council, by voice vote, accepted the minutes of the February 13, 2001,
meeting as distributed.
Chair’s
Report. Chair McKeever reported that the salary
package, including a 2% base salary equity adjustment, had cleared the
Joint Appropriations Finance Committee in the state legislature. She
encouraged the council to personally email or write letters to individual
legislators, thanking them for their consideration of the higher education
salary request. We need to build positive relationships with all members
of the legislature. The Idaho government web page contains the email
addresses for all of the members of the legislature.
McKeever
said that flowers and a card had been sent from the Faculty Council to U of
Idaho faculty members Alice and Erol Barbut. Their daughter died in an
automobile accident last weekend.
Vice
Provost’s Report. Vice Provost Dene Thomas noted
that this week is the opening of the jazz festival at the U of Idaho.
The Provost and other university personnel are in Coeur d’Alene for an
opening gala, which is actually a scholarship fund raising event for the U
of Idaho. She encouraged faculty members to interact with the young people
who will be visiting our campus this week – remembering that these people
are potential future U of Idaho students.
FC-01-021
– Report and Recommendations on Tenure Review and Development.
The council had been provided, during the past week, with a number of
documents and memorandums that reviewed what had transpired so far and
discussed a variety of options that reflected the viewpoints of Provost
Pitcher and Faculty Council Chair McKeever. Chair McKeever also reviewed
documents relating to the faculty review process at Washington State
University (WSU). She explained that the major difference in their
policy from ours was the fact that WSU faculty members were provided with
the opportunity to sign-off and comment on their reviews. This procedure
puts an added emphasis on the acceptance or rejection of the review. It also
makes administrators pay more attention to the way reviews are written –
keeping in mind how they will be received. She also told the council that
annual performance reviews at WSU allowed refereed materials to be
considered as a "peer review" of that faculty member’s work.
McKeever said that during the next visit of the accreditation team from the
National Association of Schools and Colleges (NASC) the faculty needs to
make sure that NASC fully understands the faculty review process. A
report needs to be presented to the accreditation team by members of the
faculty.
Chair
McKeever outlined the process that should take place at this meeting
regarding today’s agenda item. The first part of the meeting would be used
for further discussion of the report recommendations. The council would then
provide specific directives to the Faculty Affairs Committee. The Faculty
Affairs Committee would then work with these directives and report back to
the council at a later date with specific recommended changes to the Faculty-Staff
Handbook. The council then continued the discussion it began last
week regarding the issues raised by the Tenure Review and Development
Task Force in its report and recommendations to the council.
While
most of the discussion points raised at this meeting had been discussed
earlier, Councilor Kraut raised the issue of from what source the funds
would come from to allow the proposed reward system to be funded.
McKeever indicated that the funding could come from the Campaign for Idaho
fundraising, which does have money ear-marked for faculty development and
salaries. Professor Mark Anderson, from the College of Law, warned the
council to be wary of funding promises made by any administration.
Administrators do not have the longevity of faculty members and their
successors are not obliged to keep those promises made earlier. He said it
is difficult to build a reward structure on promises. Accept the fact that
promised rewards may never materialize. He reminded the council that if the
money is not ear-marked new funds, it must come out of existing funds, which
means that the reallocation is being taken from other parts of the salary
budget. Vice Provost Thomas said that if it did not involve new funding then
the reward funds would have to come off the top of the salary budget.
Councilor Brunsfeld said that he was not willing to give up the rewards
part of the proposal just because it might not be funded. He indicated
that because the administration was anxious to see the faculty solve the
tenure review issue, that it might be more easily convinced to keep a
promise of funding rewards. McKeever told the council that she has received
draft wording from the provost for a Regents’ Distinguished
Professorship and from the Development Office a variety of endowed
professorships. Both of these draft proposals show that the university is
actively seeking funding to reward members of the faculty whose work is
exemplary.
Professor
Nicholas Gier, speaking as the state representative for the American
Federation of Teachers, told the council that he favored the removal of
the five-year review from the Faculty-Staff Handbook. He thought
that the policy would not stand up to a test in a court of law. He favored
the strengthening of the annual review process and the approval of a faculty-friendly
"trigger" that allowed under-performing faculty members to be
identified and helped.
Councilor
McClure provided the council with a written report of her reactions
to and concerns with the proposed policy. While indicating that the
recommendations were notable aspirations that would certainly benefit the U
of Idaho, she outlined a number of concerns with the proposed policy. She urged
the council to seek a streamlined, yet effective process, that
emphasized faculty development and a system to reward accomplishments, in
addition to the normal review of past accomplishments.
Councilor
Goble noted that the process really involves several areas that are under
review – job descriptions, annual evaluations, and post-tenure review
are all parts of the same process. Something needs to be done to bring
all of these parts together into one interrelated package.
Chair
McKeever asked the council to issue specific directives, by way of
adopted motions, to the Faculty Affairs Committee.
It
was moved and seconded (Goble, McClure) that
the content (what is submitted) of faculty evaluations
(regardless of whether they are annual, three-year, or five-year) consist
of the following items: an updated curriculum vitae, student
evaluations, a brief narrative description of scholarship, teaching,
service, and professional activities for the preceding year – all related
and relative to the faculty member’s job description. The motion was
adopted by unanimous vote. During the discussion of this motion
the question was asked as to the possibility of posting the
curriculum vitae of all faculty members on the web. The response of the
Faculty Secretary’s Office was that, according to a ruling by the
university counsel, it was illegal to make this information public
without the consent of the faculty member.
It
was moved and seconded (Kraut, Bitterwolf) that
faculty evaluations be conducted on an annual basis. The motion was
adopted by unanimous vote.
It
was moved and seconded (Smelser, Fritz) that
faculty members have the right to "sign-off" and add comments to
their annual evaluations. This sign-off would occur on the final draft
of the evaluation document as submitted to the faculty member by his or her
evaluator and before the evaluation document went forward to the next higher
administrative or review authority. That final evaluation document would be
retained throughout the evaluation process and become a part of the faculty
member’s permanent file. The motion was adopted by unanimous vote.
It
was moved and seconded (Goble, Chun) that the
discussion/evaluation of a faculty member’s job description, development
materials, and annual evaluations occur concurrently. Professor Harkins
pointed out that the position description and annual evaluations are already
tied together by current Faculty-Staff Handbook policy. There are
also timing issues involved because the position descriptions are usually
written and finalized in the fall and performance evaluations take place in
early spring. Linking by time will create an impossible situation. However,
he said the Faculty Affairs Committee does understand the concerns raised in
this particular discussion. The motion failed on a vote of 4 in favor
and 14 against.
It
was moved and seconded (Bitterwolf, Smelser) that
a more intensive peer review be triggered when a faculty member receives a
numerical evaluation score in a major area of responsibility of less than 2
(unsatisfactory) in two consecutive years. After considerable discussion
on the finer points of the use of evaluation numbers and the issue of
whether to use the individual position description area scores or the
overall evaluation score as a trigger mechanism, the motion was amended to
read: the Faculty Council directs the Faculty Affairs Committee to come
up with a "trigger" system based on the points raised in the
discussion of the original motion. The motion as amended was adopted
by majority vote with one abstention.
Chair
McKeever said that the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) would return
recommendations to the Faculty Council in time for its meeting of March 6th.
Professor Harkins asked council members to provide him with ideas that
they would like the FAC to consider in their deliberations. He said that
he may also ask members of the council to appear before the FAC to provide
additional testimony on this issue. McKeever reminded the council members to
make use of the discussion web site set aside on the Faculty Council
web page as a way of expressing their viewpoints. All of this information
will be used by the Faculty Affairs Committee in their deliberations.
Adjournment.
Chair McKeever adjourned the meeting at 5:05 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Peter
A. Haggart
Secretary
of the Faculty Council
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