MINUTES OF THE FACULTY HANDBOOK REVISION COMMITTEE
NOVEMBER 10, 2006
– 12:00 noon – 1:30 p.m, Mason Hall, room D5
Present: Lorraine Brown, Professor of English,
College of Humanities and Social Sciences and President of the AAUP Chapter of
George Mason University; Rick Coffinberger, Associate Professor of Business and
Legal Studies, School of Management, Chair; Martin Ford, Senior Associate Dean, College
of Education and Human Development; Dave Harr, Senior Associate Dean, School of
Management; Marilyn Mobley, Associate Provost for Education Programs and
Associate Professor of English; Suzanne Slayden, Associate Professor of
Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Science.
Absent: Kevin Avruch, Associate Director and
Professor of Conflict Resolution and Anthropology, Institute for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution; David Rossell, Associate Provost for Personnel and
Budget, ex-officio.
Revision to
Minutes of November 3, 2006: AAUP Statement on Professional Ethics was
last updated in 1987, not 1984 as previously written; the direct link will be
added to 2.11.7.1 General Policies at
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/statementonprofessionalethics.htm .
Revision: 2.11.5 Faculty Availability – paragraph two: Fiscal Year Appointments (12 months):
To add sentence at
the end: For academic purposes,
instructional faculty on 12 month appointments are expected to be available for
work approximately two weeks prior to the beginning of classes until two weeks
after the end of classes.
Requests for new faculty appointments to allocated
positions normally originate with the local unit administrator, acting upon the
recommendation of the unit's faculty. In particular, the administrator seeks
the assistance of the faculty in defining the requirements of the position to
be filled and the qualifications to be sought in the appointee. Authorization
from the appropriate dean and the Provost is necessary before a search is
initiated to fill a vacancy or a new position.
The local academic unit
establishes a faculty committee, possibly a committee of the whole to advise
and assist the local unit administrator in carrying out a search. These
committees handle correspondence; review the dossiers of applicants and make
recommendations concerning them; establish the schedule and make other
arrangements for the on-campus interview of finalists; and perform other
search-related duties as necessary. All full-time faculty of the local academic
unit will have an opportunity to meet with the finalists. The unit's faculty
then evaluates the finalists and formulates a recommendation. The local unit
administrator transmits the faculty recommendation, together with her or his
own, to the collegiate Dean or to the Provost. A copy of the local unit
administrator's recommendation is furnished to the unit's faculty. Faculty
appointments to any local academic unit require the concurrence of that unit's
faculty.
Before extending an offer of
appointment, the local unit administrator or the chair of the faculty search
committee must secure affirmative action clearance and the concurrence of the
relevant Dean or Director and the Provost. All offers of appointment at rank
above assistant professor must include the statement "conditional upon
approval by the President of the University and upon election by the
University's Board of Visitors." Offers of employment in any rank must
include the statement "Contingent upon availability of funding for the
position" and must be made and accepted in writing.
Tenured and tenure-track faculty receive initial letters
of appointment; acceptance in writing of these letters constitutes a contract
between the University and individual faculty members. Letters of initial
appointment to tenure-track faculty also indicate the expiration date of terms
of appointment. Tenured and tenure-track faculty also receive annual letters
indicating salary.
·
removal of phrase “usually by election” from first
sentence of paragraph two.
·
change “probationary” to “tenure track”
·
capitalization of Dean and Director
2.6 Annual Evaluations; 2.6.1 Annual Review of Faculty; 2.6.2 Faculty Role in the Evaluation of Academic Administrators – the current text appears (in italics) with questions for discussion below:
2.6. Annual
Evaluations
Universities have a long tradition of self-examination and improvement from within. That process includes the annual evaluation of faculty and administrators.
Faculty are evaluated annually by local unit
administrators and/or committees of peers who report to the collegiate deans or
the Provost. The criteria for the annual faculty review are the same as those
listed in Section 2.4,
except that the evaluation is based only upon the contributions of the
preceding academic year and, where applicable, the succeeding summer. These
contributions are to be evaluated in the context of the faculty member's
long-term career progression. The results of the evaluation are discussed with
the faculty member, who is also given a written summary. For purposes of annual
salary review, faculty are evaluated on the quality of overall performance in
terms of individual work assignments. Local unit administrators may average
performances for years in which merit raises have not been available.
1. Should criteria from 2.4. be expressly articulated here? (research and scholarship; teaching and service; entrepreneurship)?
2. Keep the phrase that evaluation is ONLY based on contributions from the preceding academic year and the “succeeding” summer term.
3. What does sentence #3 mean and should it be kept as is or modified or eliminated?
4. Should the person responsible for discussing the evaluation with the faculty member be specified? (Local unit administrator or chair of committee of peers?)
5. What should the “written summary” include (at minimum) if the review is to be a useful tool for improved performance by faculty?
6. Now that “equity” adjustments are common, should the Handbook address them including the process and criteria?
7. Ditto for “off cycle” salary adjustments.
8. Perhaps we should develop a separate section on salary increments to better emphasize the distinction between development functions of annual reviews and their relationship to salary adjustments.
Academic administrators serve at the pleasure of the President. In reviewing their performance, the President should normally refer to the annual faculty evaluation of administrators, conducted under the joint auspices of the Faculty Senate and the University's Office of Institutional Planning and Research. The purposes of this annual evaluation are (i) to provide information regularly to the President and the Board of Visitors about the strengths and weaknesses of administrators as perceived by the faculty; (ii) to provide, over an extended period of time, a record of faculty opinion of the performance of administrators; and (iii) to provide individual administrators with specific suggestions for improving faculty morale and the operations of the University.
QUESTIONS
1.
Is sentence #1 correct
for all academic administrators from the Provost to the department chairs?
2.
What process governs
the removal of an academic administrator and how is compensation adjusted?
3.
Should the annual
faculty evaluation of administrators statement include ALL academic
administrators from the Associate/Assistant Deans; program coordinators, and
others; where (to) draw the line?
4.
In recent years,
academic administrators have been “encouraged” to provide an annual rep[ort of
their accomplishments to inform faculty prior to the conduct of the evaluation;
should this become a mandate?
5.
I recommend a stronger
statement regarding the use of these evaluations; “should normally” says
nothing.
6.
Isn’t reality that the
Faculty Senate conducts these surveys and the OIPR merely provides staff
support?
7.
Is the list of purposes
accurate? The results of the annual
reviews are not currently reported beyond the year in question.
Discussion: 2.6.1 Annual Review of Faculty
·
Very helpful to have
redundancy of titles in Section 2.4.Criteria for Evaluation of Faculty –
2.4.1 Teaching; 2.4.2 Scholarship; 2.4.3 Professional Service; and 2.4.4
University Service
·
Remove “succeeding” in
front of summer – as some may be evaluated on previous summer work; cannot get
evaluations in time for succeeding summers
·
Some schools do
summer/fall/spring; some look at July 1 – June 30 for evaluation of research
and service.
·
One school has devised
a system to even out irregularity in work from year-to-year as well as pay
irregularities. Faculty submit portfolios for three-year interval; provide
annual update in intervening years. An
elected group of peers conducts evaluations.
Faculty like this – time consuming to do all each year – to evaluate 1/3
by portfolio each year. If a new
/tenure-track faculty member has a big change of accomplishment, they may
submit portfolio. Issue of not doing
annual evaluation vs. process invented by faculty, not the dean.
·
Should timing of annual
review take place in late spring instead of fall? First month of academic year very hectic; many layers of
bureaucracy in process. What would be a
less stressful time to do this? Timing
varies, departments vary.
·
Annual review procedure
as a developmental process – tied to salary adjustments.
·
Need for common language
in the Faculty Handbook; to take into
account idiosyncrasies of individual units – spacing of publications; uprising
in one class; nature of work itself.
·
To keep, revise or
remove sentence # 3 These contributions are to be evaluated in the
context of the faculty member's long-term career progression.
To retain – If someone was doing poorly and improved
greatly, professional development should have weight in the process; rather
than having publications every year, to give credit for submission to a high
quality journal; also credit for submitting proposals for grants; stages in
publication of books: finding a
publisher, etc. To remove: If
you are a full professor, need only annual review.
·
The criteria for the annual faculty review are the same
as those listed in Section
2.4, except that the evaluation is based only
upon the contributions of the preceding academic year and, where applicable,
the succeeding summer. To remove only? Some units may
do other multiyear evaluations.
·
Promotion and Tenure
Process entirely separate process for review.
·
Salary Committee
different from Promotion and Tenure Committee.
Should it be highly correlated?
·
Post-Tenure Review
requirements – if a faculty member has an overall unsatisfactory rating over
time, then post-tenure review kicks in – required to report to Provost (David
Rossell).
·
To separate into two
parts: -1- Professional Development;
-2- Salary Review
·
Written summary of
evaluation – should the Faculty
Handbook specify what written summary should
address? Should specifics be included
for tenure-track faculty progress toward tenure? The committee was divides on
this issue. Chair should be mentoring assistant professor faculty. To set a floor, minimum to address? Not talking about pages, but something has
to be written and used for guidance.
Need to have language for person to get a fair hearing; some specificity
to hold chair (accountable). To have
feedback in teaching, scholarship, and service as a minimum if performance
“satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory”.
·
Results: Who does the faculty member talk to? Procedures vary – some schools have very
detailed written summary by committee of peers, or committee of tenured
faculty, chairs, associate deans, and dean.
Dean’s office may provide assessment if significant administrative
duties carried out by faculty. Also situations in which chair may want to designate
someone to discuss evaluation.
·
Suppose faculty member
receives a review and wishes to do better, for monetary or professional
reasons? Probably would see committee
of peers and/or chair – opportunity to
discuss results should be in the Faculty
Handbook.
·
To insert:“Faculty members are required to have an
opportunity to discuss the results of the evaluation.” “The results of the evaluation are given to
the faculty member in writing.”
·
Term faculty have no research expectation;
some types of community work open only to tenured faculty – limited
opportunities in some way; gets very complicated. How to structure process to provide opportunity? Very challenging operationally.
·
Some colleagues publish
papers in pedagogical journals – to count towards teaching or research? Arguments on both sides. Faculty members need to know – a perfect example
where feedback is helpful.
·
Bean counting, not
sensitive to individual variations; holistic judgment by a group of
professional people achieves a reasonable result.
Respectfully submitted,
Meg Caniano
Clerk, Faculty Senate