The
University Faculty Senate
Tuesday,
March 20, 2007, at 1:30 p.m.
The
University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, March 20, 2007, at 1:30 p.m. in room
112 Kern Graduate Building
with Joanna Floros, Chair, presiding.
MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING
Chair Floros: The January
30, 2007, Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the
proceedings, was sent to all University Libraries and is posted on the Faculty
Senate Web site. Are there any
corrections or additions to this document?
Seeing none, may I hear a motion to
accept?
Senators: So moved.
Chair Floros: Second?
Senators: Second.
Chair Floros: All in favor
of accepting the minutes of January 30, 2007, please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed say
nay. Ayes have it, motion carried. The minutes of the January 30, 2007, meeting
have been approved.
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE
Senate Curriculum Report of
February 27, 2007. This document is
posted on the University Faculty Senate Web site.
REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL – Meeting of
February 27, 2007
At the end of the Senate agenda are
the minutes from the February 27 meeting of Senate Council. Included in the minutes are topics that were
discussed by the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President at the February 27
meeting.
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR
Chair Floros: Out of
courtesy to our presenters, please turn off your cell phones and pagers at this
time. Thank you.
The Senate Officers completed
spring visits to University Park
units and will debrief Provost Erickson on April 10.
President Spanier has accepted the
Undergraduate Education committees’ First-Year Seminar recommendation passed at
the January 30 Senate meeting. Following
consultation with Provost Erickson and Vice President Pangborn on committee
membership and charge, Dawn Blasko and I will contact individuals to serve on
an ad hoc FYS committee. This committee
will be charged with developing solutions to the shortcomings of the current
seminar, or offer a suitable alternative first-year experience. The ad hoc committee will be asked to report
back to the Senate no later than the end of spring semester 2008.
The Web site for the Committee Preference
Form was sent to 2007-2008 Senators on March 7 and we request that you complete
this on-line form by March 28. I also want to encourage Senators to consider
serving as a committee Chair or Vice-Chair.
The annual Rally in the Rotunda is
taking place this afternoon in Harrisburg.
I would like to acknowledge the work of the Council of Commonwealth Student
Governments’ efforts to increase public awareness of current funding to
institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania.
At the February 27 Senate Council
meeting, there was a discussion about the exodus of Senators leaving Senate
meetings long before they concluded. The
Senate officers and I recognize that some of you have classes to teach, and
others may be concerned about driving home in bad weather. I want to remind everyone that you are here
as an elected or appointed Senator, and as such, you have a responsibility to
your constituents to stay for the full Senate meeting. In the remaining two meetings of this year, I
look forward to seeing many of you still with us at the end of the meeting.
COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
Chair Floros: At this time I
would like to invite President Spanier to come forward to make some remarks.
President Spanier: I checked
and the weather is very nice today, but I am mindful of the fact that you have
a number of reports ahead of you so I will be brief. It is nice to see that all of you made it
back from spring break, but how many of you were delayed somewhere? I know some of our students were, or that is
what they told us. I want to say
something positive about our students to begin my report. I always put in a plug for Thon before it
occurs, and this year Thon broke its prior record by one million dollars. They raised
$5,247,000 for children with cancer. It
is just a phenomenal accomplishment; I know several of you attended part of
Thon and saw for yourself what a remarkable enterprise it is. I encourage all
of you to think about attending somewhere along the way.
A couple of weeks ago I had my Appropriations
Hearings, both House and Senate, on the same day in Harrisburg, and both were done as panel
presentations. I know some of you were
eagerly standing by your television sets at 3:00 a.m. for the re-run, and I
think they both went very well. The
people were very friendly and it was certainly the most positive hearings that
we had in my 12 years, but that does not mean the number the governor has
proposed for us will increase. It turned
out to be 1.58 percent that he put out there for us, and we were particularly
concerned that there was no increase proposed at all for Penn College,
Cooperative Extension, or Agricultural Research, and a modest two percent
increase in other parts of our budget. We are at a point in time where it is
very important for us to try to hold down the size of our tuition increase. We
are working very hard in Harrisburg
to try to get those numbers up to some reasonably higher level and we will keep
you informed on the status. We did have
an event last night in Harrisburg
as part of the Rally in the Rotunda that continues today. We had members of our
Grass Roots Network our Agricultural constituents groups, Penn State Alumni
leaders, members of our Board of Trustees and others, making their rounds to
the offices of the Senators, talking about Penn State
and its needs. We are very grateful to
these volunteers who, on our behalf, are making the case for Penn State. Today we have bus loads of students from
campuses throughout the State in Harrisburg
who are also making visits. Yesterday we had an alumni reception with the Blue
Band playing in the rotunda, and with just a small portion of the Blue Band you
could have really rocked that building. We appreciate all the support and
encouragement that we can get because we certainly need it.
This morning we had a press
conference announcing Penn
State’s support for the
Jonas Salk Fund. This is a proposal that the Governor has on the table which
takes a portion of the tobacco settlement funds, and uses it to re-pay a bond
issue of $500,000,000. Those funds would
be used across the State to invest in life sciences, construction projects, and
other ways of supporting what we are trying to do in the area of
biotechnology. If that proposal were to
go forward, Penn State would be in line to receive some
support for some of our building projects that are in the queue and are
extremely important to our work. Penn
State along with the
Secretary of Health and Secretary of Community and Economic Development
participated in a public announcement showing our support.
Things continue to go well as we
move through the applications and admissions cycle. We are up approximately 5,000
applications over the same time last year which was an all time record. We will be approaching 100,000 applications
this year by the time it is finished at all levels and campuses to Penn State,
which is quite remarkable. They tend to
be sorting out the way that we would want them; they are actually bringing down
the number of admitted and enrolled students at the University Park campus. We hope more of our
students will accept offers at other campuses and we also hope that increase
will hold. We thank all of you for any
efforts that you might be a part of in converting the students that we have
accepted into actual enrollments. Those are a few things that I wanted to
mention to you and now we will have time for questions.
Chair Floros: Are there any
questions for President Spanier?
Thomas Beebee, College of the Liberal Arts: On today’s Agenda there are several reports
on fixed-term faculty and as a member of one of the committees that debated and
voted on these reports, I found myself in something of a double-bind. On the one hand I wanted to recognize the
outstanding contribution that fixed-term faculty make towards our University in
terms of giving them significant titles and representation in the Senate. On
the other hand, I felt that in voting for these things, I was in some sense
voting against the idea of a University or College as a community of scholars
that are there on a permanent basis for which tenure is the fundamental
idea. According to a December 15 report
in the Chronicle of Higher Education
in 1975 nationwide 57 percent of faculty was either tenure or tenure-track and
by 2003 that had descended nationwide to about 35 percent. I know Penn State
is still above 50 percent tenure or tenure-track, but I wanted to ask you as
President of this University, where you see us headed in this area in terms of
the percentage of tenure vs. fixed-term, and whether this is a topic of
conversation and policy in the higher spheres of administration of this
University?
President Spanier: I feel
exactly the same way you do and Penn
State is doing a lot
better than most other universities in this regard. The Provost and I have in
many ways, and many times over the years, stated our philosophy that is
consistent with yours. There is a
decided national trend, not so much away from hiring people in the tenure-track,
but it is more of a function of the fact that a disproportional large share of
the newer faculty are being hired as fixed-term.
We don’t have any noticeable
diminution of tenure or tenure-track faculty members, and what we have at Penn State
is a lot of additional growth and extra credit hours are being taught by people
on fixed-term. This is not the preferred
approach and there are some units where for good organizational, academic,
pedagogical, reasons there are some very good things that fixed-term people can
do, and you would want to lean that way. In many cases it is being done for budgetary
reasons. It is being done because there are so many courses that have to be
taught, so many students to deal with, and they can do it for less if they go
the fixed-term route. There may be
programs that are in a rapid transition, where enrollment is growing very fast,
enrollment is decreasing, or there is some uncertainty about enrollment, and
you don’t want to bring people in on the tenure-track that you are not sure
about making a long-time commitment to.
For a combination of reasons we are seeing more fixed-term people and it
is a larger percentage of our employee-base.
Philosophically, what Rod Erickson
and I are saying to the Deans is that we have to keep up significant tenure or
tenure-track faculty members, and not fill the ranks with fixed-term
people. This is a tug and pull that we
have with the Deans because they have certain realities that they are trying to
deal with. At the department head level it
is very much where the decision is being made with the resources they have. At Penn State
a certain portion of our faculty are not going to be fixed-term. We have to
treat them fairly and we want to make sure the proper array of titles,
benefits, and opportunities of salary increases are there for fixed-term
people. I don’t like the idea that we have in higher education, and in America, two
classes of citizens. Anything we can do to minimize the gap would be a step in
the right direction.
Chair Floros: Any other questions
for President Spanier? Thank you very
much, President Spanier.
As we begin our discussion of
reports, I remind you to please stand, wait for the microphone, and identify
yourself and the unit you represent before addressing the Senate.
FORENSIC BUSINESS
The Senate Committee on Educational
Equity is sponsoring a forensic session entitled, Revision of SRTE: Inclusion
of Campus Climate, Appendix B in your Agenda.
Committee Chair JoAnn Chirico will introduce this report. You will see there are four questions on page
three of the report. We will move
through the questions in order.
EDUCATIONAL
EQUITY AND CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT
Revision
of SRTE: Inclusion of Campus Climate, Appendix B
JoAnn
Chirico, Chair and Harjit Singh, Vice Chair
JoAnn Chirico, Penn
State Beaver: In the mid 1990’s, the Faculty Senate
considered questions related to climate on the SRTE. At that time the issue was addressed very
narrowly in terms of multicultural concerns.
Penn State’s Framework to Foster Diversity in
the strategic planning process has recognized and elevated the importance of
climate issues as they impact all students in achieving their academic
potential. EECE would like to use this
time to initiate discussion about piloting the SRTE as a tool for faculty to
access student’s perception of classroom climate. I would like two other members of the
committee to make brief statements from their perspective on the SRTE.
Christopher Engelhardt, Penn State Erie: As a student representative, I took the
question of the climate back to my campus and there was an overwhelming
response that we should have a climate question on the SRTE, and it should be
mandatory. To what extent the student
input matters to the Faculty Senate here, I think it should have a big
influence.
Susan Faircloth, CORED representative to EECE: I was asked to speak on behalf of the Commission
on Racial and Ethnic Diversity (CORED).
We had an extended discussion about this issue yesterday and decided
that we would firmly support this initiative to add a climate- related question
to the SRTE, and we firmly felt that this question should be standardized
across units. We proposed a question
which would read as follows, “To what extent does my instructor create a
learning environment where all students are treated with respect and are
enabled to achieve their academic goals?”
We also thought that it was
important before this question was instituted, and became a part of the
promotion and tenure process, that it be piloted. We also understand and recognize that this is
a question that we are recommending, but some other version of that question
might actually be adopted. We are
recommending that the question be piloted across all colleges and units for a
period of three years. At the end of those
three years, data would be collected, and then brought back to the Committee on
Educational Equity and Campus Environment. It would then be analyzed to look at
what are the potential ramifications of that data, and use of that question
particularly to look at what is the potential impact on the promotion and
tenure of junior faculty and minority faculty?
We also wanted to note that although we support the inclusion of a
climate-related question, there are other issues related to that, particularly
the issue of diversity. At some point we would push for a discussion of whether
or not this question that gets at the issue of climate, also adequately gets at
the issue of diversity. The discussion
should deal with whether or not they are two separate issues and if they are
how we would address that? We want to
make sure there is ample opportunity to look at the potential implications of
what data is being collected as a result of this question, and the extent to
which this question needs to be revised, kept as is, deleted from the SRTE, or
completely re-written.
JoAnn Chirico: The first
question on our agenda is, “should there be a climate question on the SRTE?”
James Donovan, University College, Mont Alto: On the question of whether the Faculty
wants to include an SRTE question which deals with diversity climate, and I
don’t know how we can respond without knowing just what the question will be,
although I just heard one version; I could approve of the inclusion of a
diversity question but it must be very carefully worded. It should: 1. not appear to prescribe course
content as did one of the questions from 1990 which asked students to “rate the
degree to which the instructor included course content representing a different
or culturally diverse perspective.” This
has many implications regarding course descriptions and redesigning of courses
and syllabi.
2. Not entirely unrelated to the
above, the question must not be framed in such a way that it violates academic
freedom. 3. The words “appropriate and applicable” must be clearly defined or
understood by the students within the context of the course. 4. The word climate should be avoided for
obvious reasons.
JoAnn Chirico: We proposed
this forensic to be a step one in the process. For step two we want to do a
small validity study in the fall term. That would take these questions into
some of your classrooms, not to be piloted with students in terms of accessing
that classroom, but to be interrupted by students to see whether or not we are
capturing what we want. We are trying to avoid the use of the word climate, but
it is hard to come up with another word that has the same kind of
objections. We see doing a validity
study of the questions, which Beverly Vandiver is going to design, and then
getting authorization from the Senate to do the pilot study.
Leonard Berkowitz: As you
develop and continue to work on this, I would ask that you be very careful to
keep in mind what the SRTE was designed to do and its purpose. It was designed very specifically for the
evaluation of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure. It was expanded to include the natural
expansion for teaching effectiveness for personnel decisions. The reason that there are two substantive
global questions was that the research showed that the best way to get an
overall view of faculty members’ teaching effectiveness was to ask global
questions by themselves, in addition to specific behavioral questions. That is the reason you have a section A which
has two substantive global questions and two data gathering questions about expected
grade. I am not sure the way you framed
your questions get at those assumptions.
I think one is a mandatory question, but that doesn’t make it a good
candidate to sit with the other two global questions because these are getting
at specific behaviors. That is what is in the B section and you may want to do
a little more revision of what we do with the SRTE if you should decide this is
important enough to include.
Dennis Gouran, College of the Liberal Arts: Did your committee grapple at all with the
question of what you mean by effectiveness?
It is difficult for me to assess the value of adding an item like this
to an instrument, when many of the items that already comprise that instrument
had dubious relationship to any concept of effectiveness that I’m familiar
with. If we are going to make this
mandatory, rather than elective, then it seems to me all the more important
that everyone have a common understanding of what we are talking about when we
refer to teaching effectiveness. I
always have had some problems with the SRTE’s, because I don’t think the
University has addressed this. We had testimony of this kind that Professor
Berkowitz just offered and the evidence shows that you get at this better with
global items than with behavioral items.
How can a particular item that may be included on a questionnaire, in
which students record their perceptions, get at effectiveness in terms of what
they know or what they are able to do as a result of the instruction that they
received? As a University, we keep ducking this question, but it seems to me
that it is a fundamental one.
Richard Yahner, College
of Agricultural Sciences: I like the idea of not having arrogant
professors in the classroom. I like the idea of tolerance and value of
diversity of opinions, because diversity means different things to different
people. In my program it could be
gender, and it certainly is not ethnicity or race because we don’t have that
diversity. I don’t like the word climate
and I think that would be clear to the students because diversity can mean
something to a lot of people, but it may not be appropriate to some programs.
JoAnn Chirico: I think we
have addressed some of the items in the following questions, but were there
other opinions as to whether it should be mandatory.
Beverly Vandiver, College of Education: I
am on this committee as well as the College
of Education caucus and
we are supportive of this question being piloted as a mandatory question. I think there are a couple of reasons for
that. Some very good questions were
asked and those can’t be answered unless we imperatively take a look at
it. By doing a pilot for three years and
collecting the data, we would be able to answer more clearly and more objectively
the questions that have been asked. I am
supportive for a couple of reasons and as a cultural worker it is important for
us to live up to the mission of this University. We are acknowledging and
taking some steps in terms of making this a more welcome place, on the campus
as well as inside the classroom. I
recognize that sometimes when you get into cultural issues it begins to become
very sensitive, and people worry especially as faculty members, what is going
to happen and how is it going to label you.
That is the reason I support a pilot, however at the same time, I think
that it is a double edge sword. Not only for white faculty who may worry about
getting labeled, but minority faculty and women aren’t going to get a pass on
these questions. They are going to be at the same risk as the white
faculty. I hope we would want to move
forward to at least consider a pilot of a mandatory question and see what comes
out of data and then re-visit it in a more objective fashion.
JoAnn Chirico: Is there an
opinion as to open-ended or scaled item?
Chair Floros: Now you have
some feedback. Thank you, JoAnn and
Harjit.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Chair Floros: A report from
Faculty Affairs held over from the January 30 Senate meeting appears on today’s
agenda as Appendix C, entitled Revision of Policy HR-21 Definition of Academic
Ranks. Committee Chair Cynthia Brewer
and Faculty Rights and Privacy Subcommittee Chair, Zachary Irwin will present
this report and respond to questions.
SENATE
COMMITTEE ON FACULTY AFFAIRS
Revision
of Policy HR-21 Definition of Academic Ranks
Cynthia
Brewer, Chair
Zachary
Irwin, Subcommittee Chair
Zachary Irwin, Penn State Erie: The report you see before you, the
Revision of HR-21, is a result of two things.
First is some prior work that the committee has been dealing with about
HR-21 in the earlier revision, and also a forensic discussion in April 2006, on
the question of fixed-term faculty. What
we did in that report was to ask four questions. One of them was should qualified fixed-term
faculty with terminal degrees be awarded professorial ranks comparable to those
of standing faculty? After a lot of
discussion, our sense was yes they should, and in addition we concluded that in
some cases because of professional achievement, individuals with terminal
degrees should also be considered for professorial rank, in particular this
notion of professor of practice ranks.
It turned out that similar institutions already do have professor of
practice. Sometimes they call this a
clinical or adjunct professor of practice; but the pattern seems to be fairly
similar. What it involves are programs typically
in criminal justice, in colleges of schools of law, medicine, and I suspect in
our planned School for International Studies. All of these have need for this
particular rank. Finally, it is our hope
in this particular legislation that it will be understood as nothing that is
going to alter or change existing ranks or reassign some kind of
appointment. We are looking forward to a
change that we think will add some much needed flexibility to different units
of the institution and should be seriously and positively considered.
Cynthia Brewer, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: We are proposing adding three ranks for
fixed-term faculty to the ranks at Penn
State, which is Table 1
in the Agenda and there is an additional one beyond the ones listed. Our proposal is for two groups of faculty
that do not fit into the current set of ranks that are missing those three,
full-time teaching faculty with a terminal degree who are in fixed-term
positions, who are part of the curriculum and are innovative teachers actively
sought by their units. This includes people with exceptional professional
experience in industry and leaders in the arts who are also sought by teaching
programs and don’t have a terminal degree.
Penn State ranks are complex; these are ranks
not titles, so titles may have additional specificity to them, and all of you have
one of these ranks. To make a distinction between rank and title, between
fixed-term and standing appointments, between tenure-line and non-tenure-line,
between professorial and lecturer or instructor, none of those are one-to-one
matches in which they have slightly different overlaps with each other. When I say professorial ranks I am talking
about Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor. We are proposing a sequence of ranks for
teaching that are parallel to the existing sequence of ranks for research
appointments: Scientist, Research Associate, Senior Research Associate and Senior
Scientist that people that are appointed for research specifically fall
into.
The new ranks, the professor of
practice ranks, provide a career path for teaching faculty that does not exist
in the current structure. At the end of
the report I have an appendix that gives you some data on the number of faculty
and there are over 5,000 full-time faculty that are in varied ranks, because we
do a wide variety of tasks that mix teaching, research, and service in
different proportions. Forty-five
percent of those 5,000 faculty are not in tenure-line positions. Of the faculties
who already have professorial titles, 17 percent of those are not in
tenure-line positions. We already
appoint people who are not tenure-track to professorial positions. This proposed revision does not require your
unit to use these new ranks, but it does provide you with an option of
distinguishing teaching faculty from the faculty who combine teaching and
research in your college if you want to make that distinction in the
ranks. I am seeing a wide variety of
opinions and some of you believe that all faculties should be in professorial
ranks regardless of your tenure status.
Some of you believe that only those in tenure-line positions should be
in professorial ranks. Resting between
those opposing opinions is a large number of teaching faculty on our campus
without adequate career tracks in our current structure and we have the ability
to remedy that in our proposed rank structure.
Chair Floros: Are there any
questions?
Dennis Gouran, College of the Liberal Arts: Over the period that I have heard this
proposal discussed, I have not seen any consideration of the pragmatic aspects
of doing this. The emphasis has been on
what it would be nice to have, and how this creation of a new set of ranks
brings symmetry to an asymmetrical kind of structure. I would like to be a little more pragmatic
here and ask what the consequences would be of a positive nature that would
stem from the passage of this proposal, and the negative consequences associated
with the failure to pass this, especially under circumstances in which the
utilization of it is going to be voluntary.
Cynthia Brewer: I would
expect that a college or unit would adjust their Bylaws to specify whether they
are using those ranks, and for what situation they are using them. In terms of
the practical implementation, it is up to the unit as to whether they want to
use them. I have heard strong support in
which some people that are fixed-term, currently in an assistant professor
position, have been offered the option of being promoted to a lecturer, which
is a rank that only has a master’s degree requirement. There is an honoring in the excellence of
people and that is very positive. I received a letter from a person in the Harrisburg campus who
feels that if we had these ranks, we would be able to attract better people and
stronger candidates if they had a better ranking position to put them
into. If this doesn’t pass you will
continue to have people who are working hard and for a long time with no
promotion path. Penn
State values teaching,
and the people who come to teach are in a gray area where they don’t have an
obvious set of ranks that they fit into.
Zachary Irwin: When people
seek money or support outside the institution and they are able to say that one
is a professor this obviously means that one’s application for support is going
to be taken a lot more seriously. I
think it is very easy to underestimate the impact of being able to offer a
person professorial rank who might have some appealing alternative and what a
difference that really makes. Going over the literature I really don’t see the
negatives.
Tramble Turner, Penn
State Abington: I appreciate all the thought that Faculty
Affairs has given to the issues associated with this. If we compare Table 3 to Table 1, am I
correct in assuming that the 580 non-tenure line professors that currently
teach at the University are not reflected in Table 1 where we don’t see a
listing of that professor title with a non-tenure line designator.
Cynthia Brewer: You are
saying that these people in these ranks that are not tenure-track, and they are
in here because these ranks are here. In the agenda, I have the columns labeled
tenure-line or fixed-term. Some units choose to, or choose not to, appoint
people who are fixed-term into these ranks, and the 580 are in the count.
Anthony Ambrose, College
of Medicine: You talk about remedying in essence a
deficit. What I don’t understand is why
that deficit can’t be remedied by leaving that table exactly the way it is and
erasing the words “of practice.”
Cynthia Brewer: You are in
the College of Medicine and that is what the college chooses
to do. You appoint both your
tenure-track and your fixed-term people; associate professor vs. professor and
that is your choice. As we talk you will find that many units think that is a
terrible thing to do; they only want tenure-line people to be in those
professor ranks. It is a different
culture and I think we should not impose a uniform culture, but honor those
cultures by having the options of these ranks for people to use. Some people find out that professor rank is
the key thing that identifies them as tenure-line, and that is not so important
in your group.
Matthew Wilson, Penn State Harrisburg: I have been asked to read a statement
into the record from Penn State Harrisburg Faculty Senate. “The
Faculty Senate of the Capital
College has voted to
reject the proposed revisions of HR-21.
The Capital College, Penn
State Harrisburg Senate supports the institution of
the rank of professor of practice for individuals who have achieved exceptional
and unique professional distinctions in non-academic professional
activity. Its members express grave reservations
about including individuals who do not merit full professor rank at the time of
appointment.” I am in a difficult
position because I was on the other side of this issue. I think the reservation
was that they didn’t understand the idea of assistant and associate professor
of practice for people who have less than exceptional and professional
experience. From the prospective of Penn State Harrisburg, we didn’t see the
need for the professor of practice for those people who are in non-tenure track
lines who already have a Ph.D.
Kathryn Dansky, College
of Health and Human
Development: How would the promotion
decisions be made? Would you have a separate committee for people who are not
involved in research?
Cynthia Brewer: We wouldn’t
try to cover those in HR-21 which just lists the ranks, but in my college we do
have a separate promotion committee for fixed-term faculty, because they are
doing different things than the tenure-line people. I believe that it would be
a college decision, and other units may choose to have their promotion, tenure,
and evaluation committee all in one group. Currently fixed-term people can be
appointed as graduate faculty. I have
repeated all of HR-21 and I am not trying to edit the portion that refers to
instructors and lecturers, it is written that HR-21 recommends that when a
person is promoted, for example, from lecturer to senior lecturer that
promotion includes a salary increase.
That is also a college-level decision, though. If we were talking about
meaningful promotion steps, they would include a salary increase with a
promotion step.
Mary Beth Clark, College
of Health and Human
Development: I am also on the
Faculty Affairs committee and I would like to clarify that one of the issues that
came up is, do we really need another professor of practice? In my specific school, faculty who are hired
with terminal degrees and are clinically expert; if they do not have a
tenure-line position, they cannot have a professorial rank. They have to be
known as an instructor. This has led to
a problem in recruitment of qualified faculty, because they can easily go to
another university and be accepted in a non-tenure line or tenure-line with a
professorial title. We are not competitive when trying to recruit faculty. Nationwide there is a nursing and nursing faculty
shortage, and by creating this parallel line to the tenure-track would enable
us to alleviate some of that problem.
This would hopefully give each school or department within a certain
college more flexibility and more ability to encourage the Dean to accept this
type of an appointment.
Leonard Berkowitz, University College, York: I find myself persuaded by your argument
that there are good reasons to have three additional ranks for recognition for
faculty who are not on tenure-track. I
am still troubled by the actual titles you have chosen: professor of practice,
associate professor of practice, and assistant professor of practice, which are
almost identical to the tenure-track professorial titles. I think in practice the “of practice” is
going to drop out and people will be know as assistant professor, associate
professor, and professor, and that troubles me. If you look at one of your
arguments, we need something parallel for research, but we didn’t make those
professors of research, associate professor of research, assistant professor of
research, we found names that made them different. Since they are different, if you can find
some other name that doesn’t make it exactly like the professorial titles, I
will vote for it. Until then I am too
troubled, and if indeed it becomes a real major problem for any unit, they are
entitled to use the current professorial titles. I don’t think the negative consequences are
there, and I think if it is something important enough for a unit, use that now,
and if you can find another title, you’ve got my vote.
Cynthia Brewer: The word
professor is not a mistake, these people profess. Their teaching is a key part
of that and a key part of recruiting people to these positions, and we require
people to use specific titles and they would have those as part of their rank.
Cynthia Lightfoot, University
College, Delaware
County: I think what you are doing
here is a wonderful idea and I think it is appropriate. I do have a couple of problems with what you
have proposed. The tension between
promotion on the basis of innovative course and curriculum development,
delivery, and assessment on one hand, and on the other hand, it sounds like
there is an effort being made to reward performance in one’s discipline and
that seems to be a conflict.
Cynthia Brewer: Are you
talking about past performance?
Cynthia Lightfoot: You are
instituting this structure in order to reward people who are absolutely
outstanding in their field. The narrative description of all of these sounds
like the promotion is based on innovation in teaching and learning.
Cynthia Brewer: There are
two things in the report, and one is that we are trying to attract a person
that is well established. If Nelson Mandela or Al Gore were to come and be a
professor, you are not going to appoint them as a senior lecturer. If you only
want him to teach, if you aren’t expecting to evaluate him on his research,
then these would be ranks that would identify that person as a teacher. If you were to move through the ranks, you
would be recognized and rewarded for excellence in teaching. As you come into
these ranks it may be either on the merit of what you want to teach and you
have a Ph.D, or you want to come in and teach and not be evaluated also on
research. You would be in the professor of practice ranks. That is a bit of a
distinction from someone who is well established as the Vice President of IBM,
or as a world leader, or as a performer in the theater. They are already well
established and you want them to come in and bring their abilities to the
teaching program. They wouldn’t be
stepping through these ranks based on their continued performance in theatre;
they would step through those ranks based on their ability to teach.
Cynthia Lightfoot: I can
imagine it being used in that way. I can also imagine you wanting to recruit
someone like Mandela, who you want to continue doing that kind of work and also
doing some teaching. The other issue is
who would have access to this, and I brought this issue up when we had the
Caucus meeting last month. You said, as
you have said today, that individual units will decide whether or not they
would want to institute something like this.
It sounds like the choice is something that would be freely given and
freely taken. My impression is that this
is not the case, and that this structure would be differentially available to
units not depending on the person coming in, or who you want to recruit, but
based on the budget. I can imagine some
units that have sufficient money wanting to support this kind of structure, and
would in fact be giving these kinds of ranks and would be able to move through
these ranks. Faculty in other units who do not have the money and would support
the implementation of such a thing would be left in the dust. I think that makes this policy inherently
prejudicial and discriminatory. Despite
the fact that I would overwhelmingly support what is going on here, I think
that my support would only be in principle, and policy is not principle, policy
is applied principle, and I think it is very important to consider issues of
implementation.
Cynthia Brewer: With the
current structure I don’t think there is anything budgetary that determines
whether you are or are not allowed to appoint someone as a Senior Research Associate. If you have someone coming in and teaching
full time, and you want to appoint them as a professor of practice, you can
make that decision. If you want to appoint them as a professor and they are not
tenure-track you could also do that, but that is not a budgetary decision.
Cynthia Lightfoot: I am sure
I was making reference to some of the comments made by the HHD faculty who
already have on their books outstanding faculty that they would like to see
move through the system and this isn’t just for incoming people. We at the University College campuses have individuals who
want to be promoted to Senior Instructor and we have something in place for
that now, and in fact all eligible faculties are not able to advance to Senior
Instructor for budgetary reasons, which mean a system that rewards
accomplishment turns out to be a competition.
Cynthia Brewer: You are
talking specifically about as we re-work current appointments.
David Richards, University College, Hazleton: I think revising HR-21 is perhaps not a
sufficient condition that what probably all of us would like to see happen
probably will happen. If you are going
to have this at all, you have to start somewhere, and unless you revise the law
in some way you are not going to hear about changing the budget.
Winston Richards, Penn State Harrisburg: I want to say I appreciate the thoughts
given to this issue by Faculty Affairs. I want to also add that my colleague
gave an excellent and objective presentation of the feeling of the faculties at
Penn State Harrisburg even though, as he pointed out, he was on the opposite
side of the discussion. We already have
the mechanisms to correct the illnesses this legislation is designed to correct.
We have current provision for assistant fixed-term person, associate fixed-term
and full fixed-term individuals. In
addition, I would also like to point out that those of you who have been here 37
years or more at Penn State will realize that Penn State
has already dealt with issues like this. We do already have the mechanisms for
dealing with these issues and there is no need for this legislation; this is
bad legislation.
Cynthia Brewer: Some units
would like to assign only people who do teaching and research to the professor
ranks. If you are hiring someone to only teach then you might want a rank that
specifies that role.
Keith Nelson, College of the Liberal Arts: I have both a tongue and cheek and a
serious comment. I think if the
legislation were approved as a senior teaching wizard, an associate teaching
wizard, or assistant teaching wizard, the name should change. I doubt that our Big Ten colleagues and most
competitive institutions are really very often using this, and I may be wrong on
that, and I don’t think it is a great title.
I agree with the last speaker and several other speakers. I think the
remedies are already in the system, and the hard work and the differentiations,
and the research that has been done by the committee might be used more in a
consultative way in which to prod individual faculty units into being more
creative in the use of the current system, and to spread the word about how
other institutions and other units at Penn State are achieving creativity. We don’t have, as far as I know, in
psychology here at University Park,
an applied professor of psychology.
There are people in other units where perhaps if we use a little more
innovation were encouraged to do it, and it was perfectly fine to work that
into the tenure and promotion committee and the salary raise system, then I
think it could done.
Cynthia Brewer: You are
talking about creativity in titles, and titles are different than ranks, so you
may be creative in offering a job and trying to recruit somebody and say to
them that we are going to appoint you as a applied professor in psychology,
when in fact they are going to get a contract from the Provost’s office that
says, if your unit chooses not to use the professorial titles for teaching only,
that contract is going to say lecturer on it. In Smeal all the people who are
clinical professors and associate clinical professors have contracts that are
lecturer.
Keith Nelson: That is
something, that in terms of back and forth both with administration and with
faculty units, they can do it at Hershey and you don’t have something that says
lecturer, so there is no reason that I can imagine why it couldn’t be done
here. We should use the force of the
arguments for giving people respect, using creativity, and having effective
recruiting, but do it within the current system.
Kim Steiner, College
of Agricultural Sciences: I thought I knew how I was going to vote
on this and I am not sure anymore. There
seems to be two issues that are rolled up in this legislation. One involves what is, in effect, the
extension of the professorial label, and I won’t call it a title, into a new
category of employment and that is the fixed-term 100 percent teaching
category. The other element in this
legislation seems to be an extension of the professorial label to faculty who
don’t have the terminal degree in their field.
I think the prepositional phrase “of practice” attached on to the end of
these titles, because both of these are wrapped up into one, makes it hard to
sort out. I happen to agree with both objectives and I don’t mind as a tenured
professor. I am not jealous of fixed-term faculty that have a professorial
label, because they are fully deserving of being labeled professors at Penn
State, but I am not sure this is the way to go. I am confused by the label “of
practice” and the way that table is set up. It appears to me that all of those
ranks can be given to someone without the terminal degree.
Cynthia Brewer: I edited
HR-21 to show that it already exists.
Kim Steiner: If it already
exists then I am even less clear as to why we need the new labels. I have one final thing to say, if we approve
this we need to look carefully at our promotion system for fixed-term faculty
and make that system as rigorous for fixed-term faculty as for tenure-track
faculty so that they have as much respect as anyone who has to go through the
most rigorous of evaluations to get that title.
If we do this I think we should take a look at HR-23 or some other
legislation.
Cynthia Brewer: I agree with
that Kim, I think this should be a rigorous promotion. Right now as it stands, someone who is
teaching and gets appointed into associate professor lands there without any
committee process particularly at all, and I think that is what some people
object to in using the existing ranks. For the teaching faculty that comes down
to college Bylaws, but it is an area that definitely could be improved, and
some units would want to improve it by having a different set of titles for
those people.
Mark Kester, College
of Medicine: There may be a question for our
Parliamentarian at the end of this. I
appreciated your well crafted compromise here, and at the same token I heard
Professor Berkowitz talk about the fact that he does not want to give
professorial ranks to fixed-term faculty.
There is another view from the College of Medicine
unit saying we do it all the time, and we separate fixed-term vs. tenure-track
or tenure. One of the assumptions in your argument is that if it came to a vote
and we took out the words “of practice” then it would fail because there are
enough Senators on the floor who could not give those ranks to fixed-term
employees. Is there a way we can poll
the Faculty Senate to see if that assumption is correct?
Chair Floros: Before we move
on I would like to ask Senator Kester if he wants to make a motion to vote.
Mark Kester: I would like to
move to amend the legislation.
Cynthia Brewer: I think he
is suggesting that it be very clear that fixed-term people can move through the
professorial ranks.
Mark Kester: Right, and at
the end of the day fixed-term professionals should be able to come up with
these ranks.
Chair Floros: Are there any
seconds?
Jamie Myers, College
of Education: Second.
Chair Floros: Now the
discussion will be on the amendment. Are there any comments on this amendment?
Jamie Myers: I would like to
stand and support the amendment and for those people who are worried that
extending titles might affect tenure, I would like to point out in Table 2 that
of the 5,196 faculty at the University, 2,800 or so are tenured, and 2,300 or
so are fixed-term, and I don’t think the particular rank title is what is affecting
any type of an erosion if it exists in tenure.
The second point I would like to make in support of it, is sometimes the
flexibility in our culture leads to inequities. I would like to see us take a
stand on this one, because it is fair that if one unit’s fixed-term faculty can
be a certain title, then another unit’s fixed-term faculty should be able to
access that same rank.
Ricardo Torres, University Park Undergraduate Association
Representative: From a student’s perspective, it is always a little awkward
in the sense that we have really good teachers out there, and when you email
them you really have no idea if you are speaking to a professor, associate professor,
or any other rank. It is really hard because we call the people out there that
are in the classrooms teaching us, professors because we assume that is what
they are, and we can be completely wrong.
So in that sense I would be in favor of such a move. However, I do have
a question on the logistics of the matter.
Am I right by assuming that there will still be two different tracks
either fixed-term, or tenure, and if so would a fixed-term professor have to go
down in rank to assistant professor if they were to enter the tenure-track or
would they be horizontally moved as opposed to vertically moved?
Cynthia Brewer: You would
have a person in front of you whose rank was professor and you wouldn’t know if
they were tenure-track or fixed-term. If
they didn’t have a terminal degree in their field they would probably still be
a lecturer or an instructor; that is not an absolute given the way HR-21 is
written.
Ricardo Torres: We really do
call them professors when they really don’t have the rank, but they still do
the job.
Cynthia Brewer: They want to
be able to call themselves professors because they are standing in front of you
professing.
Leonard Berkowitz: Let’s
take a look at what the new amended version of the legislation would be on page
5, “The Faculty Affairs Committee recommends addition of three non-tenure-line
ranks to Penn State faculty ranks: assistant professor, associate professor, and
professor. We have to vote on legislation, and what we are doing is not
changing anything.
Cynthia Brewer: The current
policy does not say that an assistant professor is a tenure-line person.
Leonard Berkowitz: It is
actually worse than that. There is a
second part to the recommendation, which is to change HR-21 in the following
ways, page 7 in the Agenda: assistant professor
(or assistant professor of practice or research assistant), you can’t do it
this way.
Cynthia Brewer: We are
making a decision on items 1 and 2, and item 2 is more of an editorial change
in the existing policy to just change to the word “rank” instead of “title.”
Jamie Myers: I don’t think
the intention of the amendment was to make this read better; the intention of
the amendment is that we should be extending these titles without the word
“practice” to our entire fixed-term teaching faculty. That was the intention of the amendment and
of course it makes this read as if it were ridiculous.
Jean Landa Pytel, College
of Engineering: I would like to move the question and
speak against this amendment; the amendment offers nothing that does not
currently exist. I think it is making a
mockery of all the hard work the committee has done.
Chair Floros: Is there a
second to move the question?
Senators: Second.
Chair Floros: We are going
to take a vote to end discussion. All
those in favor say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed say
Nay.
Cynthia Brewer: We are
ending discussion of the amendment not the whole issue.
Chair Floros: Are we ready
to take a vote on the amendment? All
those in favor please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed say
Nay.
Senators: Nay.
Chair Floros: The Nays have
it and now we are back to the discussion on the original report; are there any
further comments?
Lynn Carpenter, College
of Engineering: Yesterday we had an extensive discussion
on this matter and the Engineering Senators approved the motion and we are in
favor of this proposed change.
James Ruiz, Penn State Harrisburg: This does not represent the entire
faculty or does it represent the School
of Public Affairs which
is four square for this amendment.
JoAnn Chirico, University
College, Beaver: I am a senior instructor and I really
appreciate having a third level that I can aspire to, and I like the wizard
title, but I will settle for professorial ranks rather than the wizard
rank. I just recently chaired the Promotion
to Senior Instructor Committee for the University College
and among those who were recommended for promotion were people who have quite a
number of publications as well as books under their belt, and were just
promoted in the senior instructor rank. I
would appreciate your passage of this because I think that we deserve to have a
third level.
Anthony Ambrose: I may be
missing the point but unless a lot of really smart people have been around here
for along time, or they are fibbing, the mechanism already exists to call
somebody who’s an instructor, a professor.
Cynthia Brewer: That is
true, but the unit may not want to use that term and they may want to
distinguish the tenure-track and the fixed-term.
Anthony Ambrose: Then why
would you want to give the unit something else if they might not want to use
it?
Cynthia Brewer: They want
their person who is teaching and fixed-term to have professor of practice title
but not the same title as their tenure-line.
Anthony Ambrose: It already
exists.
Eric Paterson, College
of Engineering: In Table 2 you recognize that there are
standing appointments in the University, and that is not reflected anywhere in
the Table. In the research faculty I know that there are standing appointments,
and do you foresee that there will be standing appointments for the teaching
practice positions, and what would that mean?
For research faculty the actual promotion criteria is not only research
and service but also teaching, and therefore to maintain symmetry would you see
that the practice positions also include “service and research” to make it
accurate with the research faculty.
Cynthia Brewer: This table
could get very wordy if I reflected all of HR-21 and I think there is a service
component that I’ve added. Not all
research appointments teach, many of ours don’t, and if they do it is on a
temporary basis. There is a mechanism in HR to have the title of Professor for
just the year that they teach, so those are distinguished in the policy.
Standing and multi-year appointments are on permanent funds; fixed-term one
appointments are on temporary funds. The
unit doesn’t have the permanent funds to put them into a multi-year or a
standing appointment. Everyone on
tenure-line is standing, and people on fixed-term are standing, multi-year, and
one-year fixed-term.
Eric Paterson:
I am on the research faculty and I
have a standing appointment.
Cynthia Brewer: There are
some people in that situation, but it is a budgetary decision on whether you
have permanent funds vs. temporary funds in the unit to make that appointment.
Victor Brunsden, Penn State Altoona: The distinction we have here is between
rank and title, what units are currently able to exercise creativity in the
title. When faculty is appointed either
as research faculty or as fixed-term teaching faculty, what title they are
given may have absolutely nothing to do with the rank that they are appointed
to. This is the sort of distinction that
unfortunately Penn
State has allowed to
flourish over the years, and this proposal restores some symmetry to the ranks,
and the kinds of budgetary consideration that these individuals may receive. If
this policy is adopted there would be some degree of parity between those
non-tenure-line faculties whose primary duty is teaching, or whose primary duty
is research. Creativity can continue to
flourish in giving a whole bouquet of titles to various faculties and that is
not going to change, but this does restore some parity in the budgetary
allocations that can be given to teaching faculty.
Caroline Eckhardt, College of the Liberal Arts: Is it your intention that the fixed-term
and associate professor of practice ranks will be people on the permanent
budget?
Cynthia Brewer: Not
necessarily.
Caroline Eckhardt: Is it
your intention that the ladder would start with lecturer, or senior lecturer,
and then move into assistant professor of practice?
Cynthia Brewer: That is not
our intention. I would say someone with a
terminal degree would come into these ranks, and right now we have a lot of
people with Ph.D.s in the senior lecturer rank, so I think a unit could choose
to correct the assignments and make that distinction between their master’s
degree, and terminal degree credentialed people. Once this is established, I don’t see this as
a five-step business, it is one set of ranks and another set of ranks.
Gary Catchen, College
of Engineering: I move to eliminate debate and call for
the question.
Jamie Myers: I have a
question on the Recommendations. There are two Recommendations listed on page 5
of the Agenda. When we vote are we
voting on these one at a time or both together?
Cynthia Brewer: We separated
them so they could be voted on separately.
The second one is literally typographic and I think we are discussing
the first one.
Jamie Myers: Let’s vote on
the first one first, and then we can discuss the second one.
George Franz, Parliamentarian: The
point of order takes precedence on the call for the question, because it was
unclear as to what he was voting on, and that always takes precedence on the
question to close debate.
Chair Floros: We have a
motion and second to close debate. All
those in favor, please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed
nay. The ayes have it and we close the
debate. This report has been brought to
the floor by committee and needs no second, so now we are going to be voting on
Recommendation Number 1 first. All those
in favor of Recommendation Number 1, please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed
nay. The ayes have it. Now we are going to vote on Recommendation
Number 2, but Senator Myers has his hand raised.
Jamie Myers: Cindy, you just
said something that I think is very important and I sense people are interested
in how units might decide on using the new ranks that we will now be
recommending to the President. I am
going to make a motion, and maybe no one will second it but I am going to make
it anyway, because I think we now made available these additional professorial
titles. We need to do a little bit more
in our role as a Senate in recommending that people make use of them and not
just make them available. My motion is
going to be a third recommendation to this report, and I am going to read it
right now and I don’t think it is that complicated. “Full-time, fixed-term faculty who possess a
terminal degree should be moved into professorial ranks over the next three
years.” There are two sets of
professorial ranks, it could be professor of practice, or it could be the other
professorial ranks. My motion again, is
a third recommendation that full-time, fixed-term faculty who possess a
terminal degree should be moved into professorial ranks over the next three
years.
Chair Floros: We are going
to move on to Recommendation Number 2, and then we are going to come back to
the proposed Recommendation Number 3. We
are going to take a vote on Recommendation Number 2, all those in favor, please
say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed
nay. The ayes have it. Recommendation Number 2 passes. There was a motion and second for
Recommendation Number 3.
Caroline Eckhardt: Practice
differs so much by fields nationally and in my own field that would be a highly
unusual thing to do, and for others it may be routine. I think we need to leave
that up to implementation starting with the departments, the Deans, and so
forth, and see the extent to which it is suitable in different disciplines to
be using those titles, rather than making a Senate mandate to move everybody
into those titles within three years. I also think we need to distinguish
carefully between full-time and part-time, because it is a much more complex
situation, and I think it can really be implemented on this basis.
Dennis Gouran: We spent
nearly one hour talking about providing an option to colleges who wish to use
this, and nowhere in that discussion was there very much of a hint that the
underlying motivation was to change the status of those who presently occupy
particular classifications within our given structure, we are just going to
give colleges the option. Now we hear that having created that option within 30
seconds we are ready to insist that the University transforms the structure
that is in place within a period of three years. What did this committee want us to do and I
take it as not Recommendation Number 3?
Cynthia Brewer: Jamie did
not talk to us about this at all. What
would the committee want you to do? We
are Faculty Affairs and I guess I would say we are in the midst of talking
about best practices for fixed-term faculty so I frankly wouldn’t rush into it.
Tramble Turner: I thought I remembered that the Senate used to talk
about costing if there was such a motion, what would be the budgetary
cost? I am curious if it is ever going
to be discussed again. The amendment
that I would like to propose is to take out the two words “moved into” and
replace them in the motion with “reviewed for.”
Then it would be “full-time faculty who possess a terminal degree should
be reviewed for professorial ranks over the next three years.”
Cynthia Brewer: Do you want
to read me the whole thing so people know what we are talking about.
Tramble Turner: The motion
as amended would read “full-time fixed-term faculty, who possess a terminal degree,
should be reviewed for professorial ranks over the next three years.
Chair Floros: Are there any
other comments?
Leonard Berkowitz: The
question was raised but not answered. My
recollection is Senate policy requires costing to be presented with a motion
anytime it has budgetary implications.
The Senate committee made a proposal, it had two recommendations and
they have passed. Is this part of the committee’s recommendation? If so, we can
vote on it, and if it is not, doesn’t it have to sit on the floor? I am
troubled even if we are not required to have it costed because it has significant
implications, and if we are not going to make these anything more than fancy
names for what we had before, we haven’t done much of anything. If it does have
budgetary implications, I am scared to death of asking units to put out
thousands and thousands of dollars without ever giving them the opportunity to
come and talk to us about the implications of what we are asking for. Finally, I think Kim Steiner brought up a
very important point, if we are going to take these new ranks seriously there
has to be a set of procedures, and as Zach pointed out before, this is a first
step towards that, and we have not taken the second step. We are now being
asked to take the third step first and I am interested in hearing what that
second step will be, perhaps an HR-23A.
Cynthia Brewer: From Faculty
Affairs who re-writes the HR policies that are related to Promotion and Tenure
and evaluation I would say you want to come back to us and have us present to
you an HR that is relevant to this step.
This seems pretty speedy to me.
George Franz: Let me respond
to several questions that were raised.
First of all about costing, in 1988 the Senate approved the costing
model, the legislation that was passed was when the Chair of the Senate
determines that pending legislation could result in major direct or in-direct
demand of resources requiring either allocations or re-allocations of funds,
physical facilities, or supporting services, the chairman shall charge the Planning
and Development committee to prepare estimates of such cost. All such estimates shall be reported to the
Senate at the same meeting as the related legislation. However, we have not been doing that for ten
years and I would say in response, since the Chair did not ask for it, it is
not germane at this point, end of discussion, because it leaves it up to the
Chair to make that decision. As to the
other question about does it have to sit on the floor? I believe that what
Jamie proposed was an amendment to pending legislation and we do not require
amendments to sit on the floor for a month.
JoAnn Chirico: Just a
comment that we might be overestimating the budgetary cost, because I think if
we are thinking in the next three years primarily faculty that are already on
board, are already in the ranks of instructor and senior instructor and would
be moving over to assistant professor, and the main jump would be adding that
third level. I think it is only one
extra level that might imply a more direct cost.
John Boehmer, College
of Medicine: I believe the comment that we have
created new ranks, but they are like a room without a door, we don’t know how
to get in or out. I think the promotion
process in establishing how you attain these ranks, first they have to be
created before you establish that, and I think it has to be established before
we can put a time frame on when that is going to occur.
Roy Clariana, Penn
State Great
Valley: I have an
opinion on one side of the issue but I would really like to take it back to my
constituency and find out their opinion before we move forward on this
vote.
Cynthia Brewer: Can I call
the question?
Chair Floros: Is there a
second? We are going to take a vote on
stopping discussion on Recommendation Number 3.
All those in favor, please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed say
Nay. The ayes have it. Are we ready to vote for the third
amendment? All those in favor, please
say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed say
Nay. The Nays have it.
The Senate has approved the
original Advisory and Consultative Report; the Report will be sent to President
Spanier for his approval and implementation.
LEGISLATIVE REPORTS
NONE
ADVISORY AND CONSULTATIVE REPORT
We have an Advisory and
Consultative report from Faculty Affairs, appearing on today’s agenda as
Appendix D, entitled Revision of HR10 Distinguished Professorships. Committee Chair Cynthia Brewer and William
Brockman, Chair of the Subcommittee on Promotions, Tenure, Appointments and
Leaves will present this report and respond to questions.
SENATE
COMMITTEE ON FACULTY AFFAIRS
Revision
of HR10, Distinguished Professorships
Cynthia
Brewer, Chair
William
Brockman, Subcommittee Chair
Chair Floros: This report
has been brought to the floor by committee and needs no second, are we ready to
vote? All those in favor of this report, please say aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Opposed
nay. The ayes have it. The motion carries. The Senate has approved this Advisory and
Consultative report. The report will be
sent to President Spanier for his approval and implementation. Thank you Cindy and Bill.
INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
COMMITTEE
ON COMMITTEES AND RULES
Nominating
Report for 2007-2008, Appendix E. Deidre Jago, Chair, Senate Committee on
Committees and Rules presented the slate of nominations for Faculty Rights and
Responsibilities, Standing Joint Committee on Tenure, and University Promotion
and Tenure Review Committee. The floor was opened for additional nominations
for these positions. There were no nominations made from the floor and the
slate was accepted.
SENATE
COUNCIL NOMINATING COMMITTEE FOR 2007-2008
Nominating Report for 2007-2008, Appendix
F. Jamie Myers, Chair of the Senate Council Nominating Committee and Past Chair
of the Senate, presented the slate of nominations for the positions of Chair-Elect, Secretary, and
the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President. The floor was opened for
additional nominations for these positions. Leonard Berkowitz, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Penn State York was
nominated for the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President at the March 20,
2007 Senate meeting.
ELECTIONS
COMMISSION
Roster of Senators by Voting Units for
2007-2008, Appendix G. This annual
report gives the names of new, continuing, ex officio, and appointed
Senators.
FACULTY
AFFAIRS
Online
SRTE Pilot Project, Appendix H. Angela
Linse, Executive Director and
Associate Dean of the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, presented an
overview of the Online SRTE and Pilot Project.
Faculty
Tenure-Flow Rates Appendix
I.
This report provides data on the percentage of faculty who achieve tenure in the categories
of male, female, minority, and non-minority.
FACULTY
BENEFITS
Faculty Salaries, Academic Year 2006-2007,
Appendix J. This
annual report focuses on comparisons internally among units at Penn State
and externally among peer institutions. Vice Chair Thomas A. Frank stood for questions.
RESEARCH
Annual
Report on Research and Graduate Education, Appendix K. This report will be
rescheduled.
SENATE
COUNCIL
Authors’ Rights and Publishing Agreements,
Appendix L. Mark Kester, Chair of the Senate Committee on
Research presented the following statement.
“The Senate
Committee on Research felt that the overall goals of the Statement by the CIC Provost’s
on publishing agreements were compelling and significant. Protecting
intellectual property rights for academic authors is crucial to ensure optimal
dissemination of information between colleagues, students and
institutions. SCOR fully supports the
goals and objectives of the statement.
However, critical concerns in implementing this document were raised by
SCOR members. The major question
centered around who, in fact, would negotiate an amended publication
agreement? It appears that the onus of
negotiating an agreement with publishers would be placed on individual faculty
members and not the institution. Would this
type of negotiation make publishing more difficult? What happens if the Publisher refuses to sign
the Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC authors? SCOR would like to
suggest that the CIC
University’s and their Provost’s
negotiate these amended publication agreements directly with the Publishers.
UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION
Update
on Academic Integrity Violations, Appendix M. This report gives data on the total number of
academic integrity cases for the past five years. Also included are titles showing violations
by code type, distribution by student enrollment year, and data related to case
management.
UNIVERSITY
PLANNING
Energy
and the Environment at Penn
State, Appendix N. This report will be rescheduled.
NEW LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS
NONE
COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GOOD
OF THE UNIVERSITY
Chair Floros: Are there any
comments?
Donald Rung, Retired Senator: Today
is the last meeting of one of our most distinguished Senators who has over the
years given great service to the community and to the Senate; unfortunately he
will not be at the next meeting. I would
like to personally thank Tom Frank who just gave the report on salaries. Thank you Tom.
Chair Floros: Thank you for
your comments.
ADJOURNMENT
Chair Floros: May I have a motion
to adjourn?
Senators: So moved.
Chair Floros: All those in
favor, please say Aye.
Senators: Aye.
Chair Floros: Motion carries.
The March 20, 2007, meeting was adjourned at 3:58 p.m. The next meeting of the University Faculty
Senate will be held on Tuesday, April 24, 2007, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern
Graduate Building.
