Task Force on Faculty & Shared Governance
Task Force Bulletin Board
Task Force Bulletin Board
- Last updated on October 4, 2004 by Sarah Holloman. Copyright 1999-2004 Rice University
ISSUES UNDER DISCUSSION
Promotion and Tenure Committee
Common to both of these options is a proposed disengagement of the University's Promotion and Tenure Committee from the election or appointment to the Senate or the Council. One of the obstacles to attracting good candidates for Faculty Council and University Council in past years, we believe, has been the linkage between such membership and service on this busy committee.
POSTED FACULTY COMMENTS
(Posted according to date received)
Date: September 13, 2004 by Jordan Konsiky
I suggest that consideration should be given to devolving responsibility for the P&T decision more fully to the academic schools, thus eliminating the current umbrella P&T committee? This model operates at at least one strong research university that I know about on the principle that it places the primary P&T decision with those that can best evaluate credentials. Decisions made at the School level would then be passed upward to the President and Provost for final action. There are obvious pros and cons, but if we are considering restructuring the membership of the P&T committee, then it might be worthwhile to at least think about a fuller range of possibilities.
Date: September 14, 2004 by Moshe Vardi <vardi@cs.rice.edu>
Yes. The current structure creates an unreasonable load. Furthermore, the amount of work by the P&T Committee in the spring is so high that further relief from other duties is called for.
Date: September 22, 2004 by Gale Stokes <gstokes@rice.edu>
In principle I think it is a good idea to separate the P&T process from other issues of faculty governance. It is an important and time consuming job and should be done by the most senior and responsible faculty members. Under the Senate model, however, it might not be possible to separate these functions completely, given the size proposed for the senate.
Date: September 29, 2004 by Ken Whitmire <whitmir@rice.edu>
Service on the P&T committee is clearly a big deterrent to serving on faculty or university council and decoupling these could help get other folks into these bodies. The thought of serving on P&T is daunting. Appointment to P&T by the deans and/or provost and president may be more appropriate than election.
The suggestion has been made that perhaps P&T decisions should reside solely by the individual schools. This idea has some merit as most tenure decisions are made essentially at the school level regardless. In most cross-university discussions, usually decisions are deferred to the school making the promotion, and rightly so, as the standards and expectations for promotion are so very different. At some level, however, there needs to be a careful review process, not so much for the clear cut cases, but for those where the faculty are split over the appropriateness for promotion. In order to protect the academic future of the departments and schools, as well as to provide a fair and equitable assessment of the faculty candidate's credentials, such an external review would be continue to be absolutely essential. At some point in the process, departments and schools must be made accountable for their decisions to promote (or not to promote), especially in borderline and/or controversial cases.
Submit your own comments to question #1 for the public bulletin-board