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February 13, 2004
2:00 pm
Present:
Dr. F. Sauls (Chair), Dr. Boucher, Dr. Bower, Dr. Brooks, Dr. Pavlac, Dr. Rose, Dr. Sterling, Ms. Tierney, Dr. Wallace
Guests:
Ms. Denion Ms. Easton Mr. Evans Ms. Hook
Mr. Janik Ms. Knechtel Ms. Knouse Mr. Lindenmuth Dr. B. Sauls Mr. Simington Ms. Zawadzki
A. The Faculty Council Chairperson made the following announcements:
1. Fr. O’Hara approved the Forensic Studies Minor and the amended definition of “Normal Teaching Load”, previously approved by Council. The latter will be included in the Faculty Handbook.
2. The Board of Directors approved the “Guidelines for the Proportion of Tenured Faculty”, previously approved by Council. This will also be included in the Faculty Handbook.
3. Faculty members received the FMLA report prepared by the Faculty Benefits Committee. Council will review the report at a future date.
B. Report from Dr. Pavlac, Academic and Professional Affairs Committee Chairperson:
Previous minutes of Faculty Council and A & P have been posted to the college website at:
kings.edu/facultygovern/minutes.html.
1.
2. Responses to the Tenure Clock Survey are still coming in.
C. Report from Dr. Boucher, Curriculum and Teaching Committee Chairperson:
1. Course evaluation forms are still being reviewed.
2. The committee is considering the benefits of alternate models of course evaluation, including interviews with students by faculty peers, as a substitute for the traditional survey evaluation. This would be a labor-intensive process.
(N.B. CELT currently offers this as an option to interested faculty members.)
3. The committee is wrapping up is preliminary evaluation of the CORE.
4. The committee website is up on a trial basis.
D. The Chair reminded Faculty Council that: 1) the Board of Directors approved the conversion of faculty members designated as professional specialists to tenure-track positions and wants a process in place to facilitate this; 2) previous conversations revealed that job security may be the primary concern among professional specialist faculty and Council might want to explore options short of tenure that could address that concern. He then opened the floor for discussion with the Professional Specialist Faculty, in which the following points emerged:
1. On the subject of tenure:
a. The main perceived obstacles to tenure for those in professional specialist positions are the lack of a doctoral degree and the lack of publications.
b. The Faculty Handbook identifies the primary qualification for tenure as a “terminal degree” in the discipline. For those in the ATEP and PA program, the terminal degree is a Master of Science. The handbook also indicates the need for broadly-defined “professional development” activities to achieve tenure, not specifically publications. Faculty in those fields may want to educate the board and traditional faculty about these points.
c. If traditional tenure expectations remained, professional specialist faculty would want to know that resources would be allocated to support their scholarship efforts, professional development, and pursuit of doctoral degrees.
d. Separate tenure tracks for professional specialists and traditional faculty had been considered previously. We could consider a separate “Clinical Faculty” with its own expectations for tenure that take into account the different terminal degree, workload, and professional development activities for faculty that reflect the disciplines involved.
e. Professional specialist faculty would be more likely to apply for tenure if the expectations were clearly stated and achievable, and if the process was perceived to be fair.
f. Concerns remained about losing a position if one was denied tenure.
2. On the subject of job security and longer contracts:
a. The current rank/promotion system for professional specialists results only in a new title, some salary increase, and two-year contract renewals, rather than the current annual renewal.
b. Only tenured professors, who are not professional specialists, review promotion applications. Peers should be involved in this process.
c. The amount of work involved in applying for promotion is the same for professional specialist and tenure-track faculty, but the results are not. This may deter qualified professional specialists from applying for promotion.
d. Professional specialists expressed an interest in a system of extended rolling contracts that would provide greater security after a certain period of time and review process. This might involve longer contracts with longer service.
e. A concerned was raised about the reciprocity of longer contracts, and the extent to which the College would hold the faculty member to the longer term.
E. Following the discussion, a motion was made by Jim Wallace and seconded by Derrick Boucher that Faculty Council should pursue a process for offering longer rolling contracts for longer service by Professional Specialist Faculty members, subject to review.
Meeting Adjourned at 3:15 PM.
Respectfully submitted by Margarita M. Rose
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