Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Attendance: Jane Evans (Chair), Paul LaFollette (CST), Robert Aiken (CST), Bonnie Averbach (FSBM), David Baron (Med), Zdenka Delalic (Eng), Luke Kahlich (BCMD), Diane Maleson (Law), Ira Shapiro (STHM), Joan Shapiro (Educ), Roy Stevens (Dental), Karen Schaefer (CHP), Maxine Chisholm (Coord)
1. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:10 PM.
2. Approval of Minutes:
Minutes from the previous meeting were approved as distributed.
3. President’s Report:
Evans reported that the Investiture Committee has met and asks that we save the dates April 11 and April 12, 2007. April 11 will see a symposium and April 12 the actual investiture of President Hart.
Evans asked that anyone who thinks of someone who ought to be invited should get that information to her.
4. Vice-President’s Report: (Given by Evans in Turner's absence):
We have found an editor for the Faculty Herald - Lewis Gordon from the Philosophy Department. He is, at this time, unable to commit to two years. After some discussion the FSSC voted unanimously to approve his appointment.
5. Visit from Bonnie Brennen, Vice Provost-Faculty:
Dr. Brennen greeted us and solicited questions.
Aiken recalled that when we were discussing different university issues, a large swell of enthusiasm with Temple's recent change of course was heard. He asked about the nature of that change, particularly with respect to the kind of excessive paperwork and nitpicking that we have experienced over the past several years.
Answer: We have a new administration and things are indeed changing. It is still too early to understand how and how much. With an interim provost, some changes are on hold. After we have a permanent provost we should see greater opportunity for change.
Using technology, the Provost's office is moving toward less paperwork. We no longer require CV's signed and dated on each page. Now, most material for hiring and rehiring stops at the Provost's office and the President only gets what is necessary for her to make decisions.
The same is true for the P&T process. The President has stated that she wants tenure to be a mentoring process, not an adversarial process.
Aiken expressed his hope that in this time of change, those faculty facing tenure decisions this year not be "fall into the cracks" between the old and new administrations' policies.
There followed some discussion of the re-hiring process for both TT and NTT faculty. Brennen assured us that letters from the President will be more helpful to pre-tenured faculty than they have previously been both in terms of suggesting ways of improving and in not holding faculty responsible for decisions made by chairs or deans. She is considering multi-year contracts for pre-tenured TT faculty and has already begun issuing multi-year NTT contracts on the health sciences campus.
Averbach asked if there is any way to increase the salary of specific NTT faculty members.
Answer: For bargaining unit schools, there is an across the board negotiated increase, and there is the possibility of merit. Beyond this, the deans are able to work with the union in specific exceptional cases of inequity or where there are offers from other universities.
I. Shapiro asked whether the discipline specific tenure guidelines recently solicited from various schools and colleges will be actually applied to next year’s tenure process if approved by December 2006.
Brennen assured him that the tenure advisory committee will indeed pay attention to these collegial guidelines.
Kahlich expressed his hope that the guidelines will be made clear to all deans and will be applied in the clear light of our new more open processes and procedures.
The final discussion was about this year's merit process. Brennen said that the number of units of merit were made much more explicitly clear to the deans than happened last year. There are a total of 1969 units of merit. Englert has access to 50 of those units. The rest are distributed amongst the various schools and colleges based upon the number of faculty and the average salaries within those schools and colleges. The final apportioning of units to departments is left to the deans.
6. Visit from Frank Friedman:
Friedman discussed the process by which the new candidate for editor of the Faculty Herald was chosen. He explained that Dr. Gordon wants his stipend and release time to go to his institute rather than to himself. We voted unanimously to approve this in the event that it should require our approval.
7. Old Business:
There was no old business
8. New Business:
There was a brief discussion about how best to present the suggestions from the Handbook Committee to the Senate tomorrow.
9. Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 3:40 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul LaFollette, Jr.
Secretary
