Responsibilities with Rewards

Last year’s responsibilities and rewards committee, appointed by Provost Lee Huntsman, produced a positive report outlining a sound process for doing the University’s business. Starting with a clear mission statement for the University, the report called upon the various units and the individual faculty members to adjust their goals and plans toward the realization of this mission. To assure success and a degree of accountability, the report also advocated more frequent faculty reviews to supplement those related to promotions and tenure. The initial reaction by the faculty was positive.

The recommendations advanced by the committee were put in code language and were submitted to the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs for its consideration. Following their approval by the Council, the recommendations were sent to the Senate Executive Committee where they are currently being deliberated. In the meantime, the chair and vice chair of the Faculty Senate visited more than twenty departments, including the Council of Chairs of the College of Arts and Sciences, to discuss the anticipated changes and ask for the faculty’s feedback. This proved to be a very useful undertaking because it contributed in elevating faculty affairs in the minds of many of our colleagues.

One message that came through very clear to us was that the faculty was not in the mood to consider responsibilities without rewards. This simply meant that the faculty did not wish to go through the time-consuming process of additional reviews unless there were rewards attached to these reviews.

This message was brought to the attention of the administration at the highest level, and a request was made to address immediately the issue of rewards by initiating work toward the implementation of a new salary policy, as proposed by another ad hoc committee that was also appointed last year jointly by the provost and the chair of the Faculty Senate. This new salary policy, along with the recommendations on responsibilities, would constitute a package to be presented to the faculty for approval. The package would call for reasonable increases in salary based on periodic reviews.

However, there was the problem of finding the resources for funding such a plan. The faculty leadership proposed that the resources come mainly from monies recaptured from retirements. This would, though, reduce administrative flexibility in dealing with recruitment and retention, and in meeting other programmatic needs at the unit level. Thanks to President McCormick’s leadership, a compromise is now being sought that would provide regular and predictable salary increments for meritorious faculty, while, at the same time, it would preserve a reasonable administrative flexibility to meet other needs. It appears that a final agreement on this issue will be reached within the next few days. ¶

Theodore Kaltsounis, Faculty Senate Chair