Faculty Assembly
THE FACULTY ASSEMBLY
THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY IN VIRGINIA:
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 2000
The meeting was called to order at 3:35pm. Eighteen members of the Faculty Assembly were present.
I. The first order of business was a discussion of the SCHEV "Reports of Institutional Effectiveness" (ROIE). Lorne Kuffel, Director of Institutional Research, kindly agreed to present an overview of the origin of the SCHEV Reports of Institutional Effectiveness, the current status of William and Mary ROIE, and the next steps for preparing the William and Mary ROIE. His presentation was summarized in a handout presented to assembly members.
Lorne Kuffel began by stating that the Reports of Institutional Effectiveness had their origin in the Blue Ribbon Commission's Report. As part of the 2000-2002 Appropriations Act, the General Assembly required that SCHEV develop such reports in consultation with the public colleges and universities in Virginia. The project is described on the SCHEV website under "Reports and Statistics: Reports of Institutional Effectiveness".
He stated that the goal was for every public institution to develop a report that would summarize its "effectiveness," a report that would be placed on the SCHEV website and updated annually. The target audience would include faculty, staff, prospective students and their parents, and "decision makers." SCHEV presumed that the website would also be used by the legislature.
Last summer SCHEV asked the institutions to name members of a "working group" to develop the report. The William and Mary working group consists of the following members: Gary Kreps, Samuel Jones, Lorne Kuffel, Samuel Sadler, and Susan Bosworth. Lorne Kuffel was also selected to serve as the William and Mary representative to the "toolbox committee," a statewide committee assigned to develop and implement the set of performance measures used for assessment of institutional effectiveness.
The working group met with representatives from SCHEV; Lorne Kuffel reported that it was a positive meeting and that there was a good exchange of information. Currently there are 14 statewide performance measures that will be required for the 2001 report and 9 additional measures that are under study. These are detailed in the handout that Lorne Kuffel distributed to assembly members. In addition, SCHEV will permit Institution Specific Measures that will be developed by each institution and designed to reflect its mission.
Lorne Kuffel then discussed the next steps in the SCHEV ROIE. These included:
* developing a draft plan for the College report by the end of December/early
January
* finalizing plans by March 1, 2001 for SCHEV
* working with campus groups to develop final presentation of our report in
early June, 2001
* submitting a final report for approval by the June meeting
He also reported that the 2002 report must contain assessments of the competencies for both writing and technology; a working group for reporting on the writing competency has already been established.
There were a number of questions and concerns raised by members of the Faculty Assembly. The primary concern, raised by David Lutzer and echoed by other assembly members, was the extent to which faculty or faculty committees were involved in the process, primarily in the design of the institution-specific measures. David Lutzer gave the example of undergraduate research as something that should be included in our institution specific measures and stressed the importance of continuous faculty involvement in this process. He argued that faculty must be involved in setting and assessing faculty standards.
The Provost responded that she desired faculty input but stressed that much of the work for these reports was number crunching and was already completed. She stated that we are not being requested to develop new assessment standards, but rather gather and report data that we already possess. The Provost also stressed that there is a tremendous amount of uncertainly in this process, both in the short and long term. Six institutions were invited to prepare institutional performance agreements. Despite strong hints from the Governor, no additional funding money for those completing these reports appears to be forthcoming. Moreover, the legislature is very skeptical toward these reports. Because of the uncertain payoff for these reports, the Provost suggested that we need to be cautious and not put an enormous amount of work into this endeavor as of yet because it was still a moving target.
It was agreed that the Academic Affairs Committee of the Faculty Assembly should interact with the administration and review progress on our role. The Provost also agreed to share the work that had already been completed with the Academic Affairs Committee and the Faculty Assembly.
David Aday noted that much of the information for these reports already existed in the form of the ongoing assessments of the various programs and departments. The ROIEs will rely on the usual assessments for which the faculty already provide input.
Bill O'Connell raised yet another concern of the Faculty Assembly, namely the enormous amount of work and effort that the University expended on this and other reporting requirements. The Provost agreed that this was indeed the case.
David Lutzer also voiced considerable confusion and rumor among the faculty regarding the technology assessment and wondered who exactly is responsible for making the decisions regarding this assessment. It was reported that the EPC, chaired by Dean Barbara Watkinson, will be reviewing the computing proficiency requirement and the technology assessment will be folded into this.
David Lutzer repeated his concern and frustration over the fact that the institution-specific measures were due in one month and there was, as yet, no faculty involvement in the process. The administration agreed to share their work with the Faculty Assembly and seek input in the future.
II. The second issue on the agenda was a discussion of the recommendations made by the Faculty Research Committee for the 2001-2002 academic year. As Chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, Katherine Kulick presented the concerns of a number of faculty regarding the FRC decision to raise SRG stipends instead of funding a greater number of FRAs and/or a greater number of SRGs. She reported that, for the past several years, it has been one of the highest priorities of the Faculty Assembly to maximize the number of faculty research assignments. This had been conveyed to the administration repeatedly and this past year the Provost provided a substantial amount of additional funding. However, while all of the FRAs with seven or more years of service were funded, only 2 of 5 of those with 6 years of service were funded. Instead, the extra funding was used to increase the summer stipend of the SRG. This distribution scheme, in which raising the stipend level of SRGs was favored over maximizing the number of faculty to receive FRAs and SRGs, was viewed as seriously undercutting the Faculty Assembly's priorities.
Clay Clemens, the Chair of the Faculty Research Committee, made a presentation to the Assembly to explain the actions and decisions of the Research Committee. He began by summarizing the basic statistics on the number of grants awarded over the past several years.
He then stated that the increase in the research budget was the largest increase in history of the program. With the FRAs raised from $15,000 to $18,000, the committee decided to fund the summer research grants at $6000 rather than $5000. The summer proposals were deemed to be of high quality and, while the Committee could have made a different choice, the decision was not a contentious one. Moreover, it was felt that the Committee was not apprised of the view that funding the FRAs was a priority.
As for the question of the non-tenure eligible faculty being funded with a summer grant, their eligibility is clearly stated in the guidelines and it would have been inappropriate to change the rules for the current round of applicants. It was agreed that this policy would be revisited.
The floor was then opened for questions and comments. There was a considerable discussion regarding the issue of how policy is made for the research committee. The Faculty Research Committee reports to the Faculty Assembly and it was argued that the Faculty Assembly should have influence on policty making procedures and priorities of funding. The Provost agreed and saw no reason why this could not happen. There was also widespread (but not unanimous) concern among Faculty Assembly members concerning the $1000 increase in the summer research grants. Faculty members had put years of work into obtaining the increase and there was a concern that it was being used "frivolously." Many Faculty Assembly members felt that there was no attempt to obtain guidance when the additional funding arrived. In the past several years, every Faculty Assembly stated that the first priority should be to maximize the number of FRAs; this is also clearly stated in the faculty survey. All agreed that there needs to be some discussion of policy before it is made.
Clay Clemens stated that the Research Committee had met with Assembly members, but that the priorities were not communicated; the focus of meeting was on non-academic leave policy. The Research Committee was told that the discussion regarding priorities would take place at a later date.
Discussion continued with the a number of other points beings raised. Some argued that five year research leaves should be funded as well, and that funding of the SRGs at $6000 should be sustained.
The discussion led to a motion by Alan Fuchs that in the future the representatives of the Faculty Research Committee meet and consult with the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Faculty Assembly prior to issuing any funding recommendations. The motion was seconded and unanimously passed by the Faculty Assembly.
III. The last item of business was a brief presentation by Sam Sadler concerning the possibility of a student- run system of course evaluations that were available through the Web. He said that he was approached by students from the residence hall organization who wished to transfer their paper-based system to the Web. He wished to obtain guidance from the assembly on this issue.
The students did not provide him with many details, but he said that the evaluations would be very open- ended. Although the idea was generally well received, there were several questions and comments. There were questions regarding the nature of the evaluations and how long they would remain posted and if (and how) they would be representative. It was then proposed that students could work with the Faculty Assembly on this project. Specifically, the students would contact the chair of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Faculty Assembly.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:25 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Margaret Saha
Secretary
