Final Report: SPPT Committee

2008-2009

 

                        Committee Members:                          Judith Emde

                                                                                    Ron Francisco

                                                                                    Cima Katz

                                                                                    William Keel

                                                                                    Elinor Schroeder

                                                                                    Mark Ezell, chair

The members of the Committee are to be applauded for their hard work and the large amount of time they devoted to the work of this Committee.  The workload is very heavy and of great importance.  It is important to remember that the Committee is new, as are the various reviews it is mandated to conduct.  In these reviews, the Committee is required to identify when policies and procedures related to tenure and promotion are and are not consistent with Article VI of the FSRR.  As such, the Committee and its members are likely to be criticized by various colleagues in the University.  It is, therefore, incumbent on the leaders of faculty governance to understand the role of the Committee and to support its work and its members.

STANDING CHARGES

 

1.      Review units’ policies and procedures for consistency with Article VI … 

 

The Committee conducted reviews on the units listed below. Two review strategies were used by the Committee with which Faculty Governance should be aware. 1. We first reviewed the units on campus that conduct intermediate reviews. 2. We consider each of our reviews to be preliminary so that the Committee can work with units to improve their documents. In no case was a final vote to approve/disapprove a unit’s policies taken.  It is too early to tell if either strategy has been effective. (Copies of all reviews will be sent to the Governance Office).

 

      Units Conducting Intermediate Reviews:      CLAS

                                                                              Education

                                                                              Engineering

                                                                              Pharmacy

                                                                              Research & Graduate Studies

 

      Units Conducting Initial Reviews:                 Business

                                                                              Journalism and Mass Communications

                                                                              Law

                                                                              UCPT

 

      Schools Not Ready for Review                      Libraries

                                                                              Social Welfare

                                                                              Architecture

 

2.      Review guidelines and forms developed by the Provost’s Office and procedures developed by UCPT.

 

The Committee initially met with VP Hummert on April 16, 2008 to review a draft of “Guidelines for the Selection of External Reviewers.” The Committee met with VP Hummert again on April 30th and saw the remainder of the 2008-09 blue forms for the first time.  The Committee provided initial feedback but there was inadequate time to provide a full analysis.  That analysis was complete in April 2009.  Concerns were communicated to the Provost’s Office.  Every concern expressed by the Committee included a request to remove language.  In addition, the Committee is proposing amendments to Article VI that are related to every concern.

 

The Committee met with VP Hummert on April 20, 2009 to review proposed changes to the 2009-2010 blue form. Like the prior year, the forms were to be posted on the Provost’s website on May 1st.  The Committee did not have time to express its concerns or approve the forms prior to their use.

 

Note: Article VI is very clear that the forms and guidelines developed by the Provost’s Office must be approved by the SPPT Committee prior to use.  Two years in a row, the Committee did not have time to comply with the process outlined in Article VI.  This is a matter that deserves the attention of the leaders of faculty governance.  The Committee wonders if the use of unapproved forms and guidelines may create a procedural error on which candidates could appeal.

 

3.      Promote and facilitate compliance … with Article VI.

 

One new guidance document was prepared this year.

 

4.      Monitor the implementation of Article VI.

 

This activity is occurring naturally as a result of reviewing units’ policies and procedures.  Two issues that arose were: 1) some faculty on campus believe that a candidate denied tenure in their sixth year (mandatory year) can seek tenure again in their seventh year; and 2) there are some units on campus in which faculty, or a representative body of faculty, are not the ones preparing or voting on policies related promotion and tenure.  In both cases, amendments to Article VI were proposed and approved by the Faculty Senate.

 

SPECIFIC CHARGES

 

1.      Review the 2008-09 guidelines and forms developed by the Provost’s Office to see if any of the provisions should be added to Article VI.

 

A report was provided to FacEx and amendments proposed to the Faculty Senate.

 

2.      Draft Committee procedures to be used when reviewing units’ policies and procedures.  Submit for approval of FacEx.

 

Done.

 

3.      Study the report of the Task Force on the Assessment of Teaching and Student Learning and determine if any standards for teaching should be added to Article VI.

 

Proposed amendments were reviewed by FacEx in April and proposed to Faculty Senate.

 

4.      Review Initiative 2015 to determine if implementation of the recommendations will require modification of the promotion and tenure standards.

 

We didn’t get to this.  Sorry.

 

Possible Charges for 2009-2010

Given the enormity of the task of reviewing all units’ policies and procedures, as well as the forms and guidelines developed by the Provost’s Office, the Committee does not need any extra charges.

The Committee has identified the need for a guidance document on peer reviews of teaching.  This will be needed especially if the amendments on the evaluation of teaching proposed by the Committee pass the Faculty Senate.  Members of the Committee do not think it is their role, or within their area of expertise, to develop this guidance document.  If the Faculty Senate charges another committee to develop this guidance document, members of the Committee would like to review it before it is approved for dissemination.  The purpose of this review is to assure that the guidance is consistent with the requirements on the evaluation of teaching included in Article VI.