Faculty Status Committee

OSU Faculty Senate Faculty Status Committee

Meeting Minutes

Monday, January 23, 2016

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

 

Valley Library 4168 (Kelley Room)

 

Members Present:  Randal Milstein, Cara Walter, Kristen Ziebart, Yuliya Dennis, Yanyun Zhao and Cheryl Middleton

 

Members who were unable to attend and sent prior notification:  Jennifer Beamer and Kathleen Stanley

 

New Business:

 

• Professor of Teaching

Committee members discussed the input from the faculty senate meeting of December 10, 2015.  The response from the faculty was split between support for the concept and lack of support.  Committee will review the different types of tenured roles for instructors that are implemented at other universities.

 

Action items:  Due 2/15/2016

 

Cheryl will set up a meeting with the Executive Committee to discuss next steps related to a new rank for instructors.

 

Kristen will look at examples of tenured roles for instructors at other institutions and provide a brief summary of the types of positions available.  She will begin by looking at the Dreher Professor of Teaching Proposal, California University System and Northwestern University.

 

• Review our committee recommendations for NTT faculty and survey results

Committee members reviewed the committee recommendations in response to the NTT faculty survey and reviewed the progress on a number of recommendations.  Progress includes:

               3% raise for NTT faculty

               Increased promotions to senior instructor rank with 3 year contracts

               Improved promotion guidelines and procedures for instructors

Academic departments informed that they could provide bridge funding for research assistants

               Increased awareness of NTT faculty issues

 

While there has been good effort in responding to NTT faculty issues, there is still a need for transparent and coordinated information related to the University response to  NTT faculty issues.  The committee discussed doing a survey on the Transparency of Employment Practices for fixed term faculty in academic departments and activities the fixed term faculty participate in addition to their primary job duties. We will begin by reviewing the 2013 “We Power Orange Survey” and identifying information not in the survey.  We are looking at survey NTT faculty and administrators separately and comparing the information.  The categories the committee is looking at are:

               Are annual reviews being conducted and are position descriptions current for

               NTT faculty.

               Outreach activities that NTT faculty are engaged in

               Advising or mentoring activities

               Faculty governance within departments/voting rights

               Curriculum development

               Office space

               Support for professional development activities

               Level of courses and number of students being taught by NTT faculty

 

Action items:  Due 2/15/2015

                             

                              Cara will contact Kathleen and review the “We Power Orange” survey to

                              Identify information we can use from the survey and identify gaps information that

                              We might need to survey for.

 

                              Cheryl will check with H.R. to see if annual reviews and PD’s are kept centrally or within

                              academic departments

 

                              Equity of Promotion to Senior Instruction

There maybe an equity issue that faculty that work in more than one department and based on limited FTE by department are not eligible to be considered for promotion to senior instructor.

 

Action item: Due 2/15/2015

 

Cheryl will check with H.R. to identify the number of faculty that fall into this category.