February 9, 2005 CAS Faculty Meeting

Draft Minutes

1. Approval of Dec 2^nd, 2004 minutes

L. Miners noted it was actually a great honor to serve as the second on the motion to adjourn. The minutes were revised to reflect this.

The minutes were approved with a large majority in favor, zero against, and 8 abstentions.

2. Dean Snyder’s report

I would like to thank all the faculty and departments involved in faculty searches at this time. We have had a wonderful group of candidates come through. One hire has been made in Biology and at least one more is pending at this time.

I would like to thank the committee members (S. Rakowitz (Chair), R. DeWitt, R. Epstein, G. Lang, and J. Yarrington) who worked on the CA&S merit plan committee. We did not always agree but we did have good conversations on many topics and were able to agree on many issues.

3. Sue Rakowitz, Report on the CA&S Merit Plan committee (attached as appendix 1 to these minutes).

I would like to thank Dean Snyder for his time on this committee, we did not always agree and some points are left in contention, but we did indeed have many deep conversations and were able to find common ground on many issues. We started with the understanding that getting no merit represented a truly serious failure on the part of a faculty member and their duties. We also started wanting to insure proper checks and balances within departments and external to departments. We gathered plans from across the University but found ourselves using the plan from Management as useful guide. Management’s plan was clear and succinct and people who have actually studied merit as part of their scholarly world also did it. We were also encouraged by the fact that the management plan was in reasonable consonance with the VPA plan, one of the departmental plans already developed in the CAS. We were looking for a basic plan that included clear and objective criteria for evaluating a faculty member’s productivity with regard to teaching, scholarship and service. We tried to minimize subjectivity and minimize bias. We felt it was important to do this because, unlike the Rank and Tenure committee which has available a full dossier of material collected and collated over many years and a substantive amount of time for the review, we know departments will be looking at much thinner annual reports and will not be able to spend the time R&T does on its applicants. Departments need to be able to verify claims. We developed a wide range of criteria in response to the wide range of activities possible in the various departments. We also expect that departments will, at their own discretion, add criteria that are germane to their fields of expertise.

There are 4 routes to additional merit. No route will allow a faculty member to obtain additional merit without having qualified for sustained merit. All routes must include a teaching component. We decided to clearly privilege teaching in this fashion given the Universities strong commitment to teaching.

(At this time a few questions came up but the College Chair, R. Crabtree ruled that we should wait until Professor Rakowitz had finished her presentation to ask them)

Other points about how the plan came to be by Prof. Rakowitz:

* we included a College wide appeals – departments have been and likely are dysfunctional at times

* we need to have the appeals process in place and doable before money is assigned

* we included only one level of extra merit because this minimizes subjectivity and is in line with the Guiding Principles document approved by the general faculty and the administration.

* we did receive the various emails from the President and we believe our plan does meet his criteria.

* we all agreed, including Dean Snyder and the President, that transparency was key. Faculty have the right to know how they were put into a particular category and what placement into a particular category would mean with respect to their salary.

* we want a clear link between the category of merit achieved and the $ amount gained/lost. Equal evaluations should receive equal money.

The floor was opened for questions.

B. Fine: Can one count an activity more than once? If I present a paper at a conference would I check of “presented a paper” and “attended conference” or just “presented paper” ?

S. Rakowitz: One activity may count for multiple check-offs. If you were invited to give a talk at a national meeting for example you would check off “invited talk,” “presented paper,” and “attended conference.”

C. Naser: What about service to the College?

S. Rakowitz: Depends, often one is paid for such service

C. Naser: For example, J. Beal worked tirelessly for many hours on the new wing of Bannow?

S. Rakowitz: Such a long-standing commitment would be treated like serving on a major committee or serving as a department chair.

C. Naser: We should be careful, texts have a way of becoming canonical and we need to be as explicit as possible and not leave out important types of service.

S. Rakowitz: Appeals are allowed; a faculty member who thought such service was undervalued could appeal to the College Merit Board. [Kraig: I'd auto-replace/spell this out.]

K. Cassidy: What is the purpose of the three-year window?

S. Rakowitz: You can apply each year and include the past three years activities rolled into one report. We wanted to help buffer the effect of variable amounts of money being available for each year.

P. Lakeland: It is good that you have made it clear that you must maintain your teaching while working to achieve additional merit through scholarly output. Is it possible to get extra merit with no scholarly output?

S. Rakowitz: We imagine only a few people going for extra merit based solely on extraordinary teaching. We do expect that it should be possible for everyone to get extra merit.

P. Lakeland: So it is possible to get extra merit without any scholarly output?

S. Rakowitz: Yes, we privileged teaching. You cannot get extra merit with poor teaching and any amount of scholarly output but you can get extra merit with exemplary teaching and no scholarly output

G. Lang: Our faculty Contract privileges teaching

D. Braginsky: What is the rational for giving untenured people extra merit without review?

G. Lang: Based on model from Dickinson U. Untenured faculty are reviewed closely by their department and Dean already, we wanted to relieve the pressure of a double review.

B. Boquet: We wanted the path for untenured faculty to be clear and fair. We need to give them a window of time in which to establish themselves.

S. Rakowitz: Remember, the MRC will remain in existence and will be able to work on consistency and/or revisions of this document.

B. Bowen: Will the MRB review all decisions? Or only those that are contested?

S. Rakowitz: They will review the overall data set and work on contested awards as needed

M. Wills: Could you get extra merit by meeting criteria 1 and 2 along with 5 #4’s?

S. Rakowitz: Yes, there is more than one path by which you could get extra merit

J. Escobar: Are the rankings internally consistent? Do the rankings matter?

S. Rakowitz: 1-3 are privileged, i.e. given higher rank. 4-14 are all of equal rank, no meaning in the order.

The COLLEGE MERIT BOARDwould be amenable to the privileging of other items, per a departments request

(unknown): Would a paper count 3 years in a row?

S. Rakowitz: Yes

B. Fine: We are hired as scholars. This plan denigrates scholarship.

G. Lang: Guiding Principles Document makes it clear this is not rank and tenure. In our day-to-day work at the University these principles place the highest value on our teaching well. Our R&T policy clearly indicates that scholarly output is necessary to obtain tenure and move through the ranks.

N. Dallavalle: Most will get extra merit. No real selection in this plan. This would make almost everyone equal in departmental standing.

S. Rakowitz: Departments can add criteria to increase the challenge of getting extra merit. Yes, we did design the plan so that everyone who wanted to would have a reasonable chance of getting extra merit.

J. Beal: Did the committee try some “what if” scenarios? How many would likely get extra merit?

S. Rakowitz: not to a great extent but it is easy enough to do

S. Rakowitz: Move to approve the CA&S Merit Plan as presented

Second by: R Salafia

Discussion of the motion:

S. Rakowitz: We know this document is far from perfect but believe it represents a solid start that can be amended over time – please don’t nit pic – if you see a serious flaw then lets hear it.

D. Braginski: I move that we amend the motion to make scholarship a necessary but not sufficient criteria for obtaining extra merit.

There was no second for this amendment

D. Greenberg: This is a good plan, an excellent start and better than the best that came about the last time we considered merit back in the mid 80’s

G. Lang: I also think this plan is pretty darn good. If we want more gradations then we will need more money. According to many merit experts like D. Tanquay, lack of monetary support is the number one reason why merit programs fail. Many extra levels of merit would be very expensive. It has been since 1993 that anything that drastic has come our way. This plan has good protections and two levels of appeal.

Dean Snyder: I have the following reservations regarding this plan:

* It is not consistent with the memos I have shared from the AVP and President and therefore I cannot support it.

* I did not want another committee (ie opposed the College Merit Board) because it will take too much time for the committee to operate and they will be taking a decision away from those best professionally prepared people to make such decisions, departmental collegues while placing the decision making power into the hands of non-experts.

*President Von Aryx, AVP Orin Grossman, and many other Jesuit schools are calling for a plan or have in place plans which leave the principle decision to the department and the monetary discussion for between Chairs and the Dean.

* The Dean/Chairs are not making the final decisions, as the President's memo of last December 17 asks for

* The AVP’s role in appeals in not in the plans, as specified by the President's memo.

* The President calls for “meaningful distinctions” between faculty merit levels. We need multiple extra merit levels to achieve this

* The merit committee looked only at the Guiding Principles document and neither the President's nor the AVP's specifications; if we vote for this we must face the consequences of this – further conflict, more drain on our time…

* I have seen the annual reports, they are very diverse in style substance and quality. I need more levels to adequately respond to this variety

* We need to avoid a literalist reading of the Guiding Principles document. I was a member of the committee that created that document, and at no time was a single level of additional merit considered. We argued about levels, and even Joe Dennin was talking about three or four as a potential compromise, though he indicated one would be his preference.

* all journals, service, research publications are considered equal under this plan, this is not reasonable. Some conferences in my field have less than 10% acceptance rates; others are "refereed" by the secretary who pulls the abstract from a fax machine.

S. Rakowitz: We have the strong backing of the College, we have stayed close to the GP document, we have College and University votes behind the positions we have taken. Part of the problem of a threatened rejection by the President is the ground keeps shifting under us. each time we adopt and come back to the administration with a merit idea the ground shifts out from under us. We do believe the Presidents views are evolving and we encourage you to support the motion before you.

B. Fine: It’s too easy, we are a community of Scholars. Nobody should be able to get extra merit without some scholarly research output

P. Lane: The motion cannot be amended; lets vote it up or down

I. Mulvey: I appreciate the Dean's reports about the President's wishes, but I also meet with the President, about once per month. I have reason to believe the President had not read the Guiding Principles document when he sent the Dean his December 17 memo. I believe the President is evolving and is now open to other ways to get merit done. The memo’s from the AVP are informal and have no standing. They did not come to the AC as formal proposals.

D. Greenberg: Call the Question

Second: P. Lane

35 in favor, 5 opposed, question is called

Vote on the Original Motion from S. Rakowitz to accept the College Merit Plan as presented:

In favor of the motion: 36 yes, + 16 yes by Proxy

Against the motion: 12 no, + 6 no by Proxy

Abstentions: 1 abstention

Motion passes 52 in favor, 18 against.

(note, it was determined after the meeting that a faculty member who had given their proxy to another person was actually able to attend and did vote on the motion, the person with their proxy also voted since they did not see the faculty member come in. Therefore, since the extra proxy vote was agreed to have been a “yes” vote, the official tally should be: 51 in favor, 18 against, the motion still passes)

B. Bowen assumed the honor of calling for us to Adjourn, with a fine second by B. Boquet. The vote adjourn was unanimous and with great gusto.

Respectfully submitted,

L. Kraig Steffen

College of Arts and Sciences Secretary