Faculty Assembly
The College of William and Mary
Minutes of the Faculty Assembly
24 January 2005
Present: Evans, Armstrong, Meyers, Fuchs, Brown, Orwoll, Canuel, Diaz, Nelson, Kulick, Abelt, Mooradian, Archibald, Lee, Meese, White, Watkinson
Absent: Beers, Clemens, Van Dover, Leslie
Vice-President Katherine Kulick presiding.
The minutes of the December meeting were approved.
The Assembly voted to move up President Nichol's address to the first order of business.
President Nichol's address to the Faculty
I would like to open up the conversation about the question of what it might mean to be great and public. I would like to get from this assembly suggestions, additions, and approval. I bring Julie Williams, an alumna of the College, who is an American Council of Education fellow here this year. She is working with the President's office this year, partly about this question.
"Great and Public"
Greatness is the largest part. The challenge for this campus is to go further along the way. Greatness requires that we compete more effectively with institutions at the highest level. Coming back as a faculty member from the law school, I see similar levels of commitment to teaching and scholarship, yet compared to ten years ago markedly different levels of scholarship and attainment. I hope that in ten years we will exceed that level.
When it comes to competing, what faculty we lose, and how we fight people off for those faculty, how we attract students and which we lose, we know how effective we are in relation to those institutions.
The question is what it might mean to be public at this time. Is there any sense of obligation or requirement?
This question is being recast whether we are thinking of it or not. Rough contracts between the Commonwealths and their institutions are being renegotiated. In Virginia we are overtly renegotiating this - through the charter movement. The Three so-called Level 1 institutions are doing so (W&M, UVA, VT). The purpose of this, the theory behind it, is that more independence will be ceded to the Commonwealth's strongest universities in exchange for post-audit responsibilities.
There are questions: will we end up with a more regulatory regime than we started with? Might we end up with diminished support or diminished responsibilities?
Nationally, Public Higher Education is moving closer to private higher education models: reduced support, higher tuition, student financial aid moving to loans, stronger economic justifications for higher ed in political rhetoric with less about University education as a public good and more about higher ed as a private good, dependence on private fund-raising, increased dependence on outside research, a focus on commercial research, and more entrepreneurial behaviors in academics.
There is a classic response to this shift: the University of Michigan response, where a public institution has closer kinship to private institutions. This is a possibility: no longer preferring in-state students, charging what the market will bear. Given this charter initiative there are certain tacks that are not open to us, based on the state "asks" that are being proposed in the charter document.
We return then to the question of what is great and public. What are those public obligations? Some great Universities say perhaps it doesn't mean anything. A law school dean at U of Michigan spoke to me about a document that outlined their public obligations. The conclusion he came up with was that U of Michigan would train people who would perform greatly on public issues. I have tended to say, access and affordability are our public missions. I have thought of pursuing a heightened mutuality between this institution's talents, work, and scholarship with the felt needs of the Commonwealth. I have thought of an emphasis on civic engagement, so that W&M might become a laboratory for the examination and critique of public policy. Some have argued for no sense of public-ness, only national greatness. Some alumni have even said that being great and public is not possible in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
I would like to open up the conversation, and to come back and to pursue your sense of how this College might be great and public.
[The President's Speech ends here]
Meyers: I had a question about the economic growth of the faculty endowment.
Nichol: The Endowment Association isn't embarrassed but feels it cannot brag about its current performance. Their plan is to hire a professional manager. They home to have more professional and regularized growth planned.
Archibald: How much of the lag might have come from the New Town investment.
Nichol: New Town is part of the story. I have met with Shep McKinney our financial representative in the New Town venture, and New Town was scary for a time. The College has been talking about small acquisitions of property nearby, and it has in fact been hard to convince the Association of the need to buy properties nearby lately, given the New Town venture. But Shep assures me that a fifteen percent return is planned for the next fiscal year.
Meese: It is great that you're talking about this. You seem the perfect person to do it. It seems to me that there are different sources of obligation here. One is our bargain with the state. You want to talk about an independent normative obligation to public-ness.
Nichol: Yes.
Meese: We are accountable, and depend on the state, are regulated by the state. What is it about these attributes that creates obligations?
Nichol: That part of what I'd like to see you discuss in the coming months.
Provost's Report
Institutional Performance
We have drafts of the Institutional Performance Standard from the State Council
of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV), but I hesitate to pass them out as
they are not yet our documents. Technically they are still draft documents that
are in the control of SCHEV. These metrics will be evaluated at an open meeting
of the Faculty Committee on University Priorities (FCUP) this Monday (January
30th) at 3:30 pm in the basement of Swem Library. FCUP will discuss goals and
priorities in the state "asks"
VP Development
The VP Development search is ongoing. The Committee's short list has been cut
to five. The first person will arrive on campus next Monday (January 30th).
The entire search will be done on the 17th-19th. There will be no public announcement
of the names of the candidates until 24 hours before their arrival on campus.
A couple of candidates asked for this and we decided to do it for all of them,
to give them an opportunity to work out how this will play with their local
constituencies.
There are two faculty members on committee in addition to Arts & Sciences Dean Carl Strikwerda. We hope to have person on board first of April.
Phased Retirement
The other matter is the phased retirement situation. A couple decisions need
to be made, some need more information. One of the things people asked, had
to do with our current policy of an 8 & 7 percent increase in the two years
of the final retirement agreement. Legislation has come to our attention. With
the 1980 creation of the Optional Retirement Plan, there was language to the
effect that anyone hired after 31 March 1980 may not be entitled to receive
additional retirement benefits if they received significant benefits or pay
increases that made retirement take place. Under this legislation VRS may take
action to prevent this raise from happening.
We do believe right now that we can continue this under the following conditions:
1. can do it for anyone. (the 8 & 7 percent raise), as long as we don't
set aside a class of beneficiaries
2. We cannot do this solely to enhance the benefit. If we do it as an early
retirement incentive, we can still do this.
That is our thinking. Even so, VRS might overturn the benefit. In case a period of no raises occurred, if VRS discovered that people got raises and then retired, VRS might disallow those raises. There is a bit of a risk. The bad news is that the risk is individual. I have no idea if you can challenge a VRS ruling.
With Phased Retirement There are also two technical problems and one uncertainty.
One technical problem is, that this can't be done as an entitlement. Secondly, language be added to the document that will say that this can only be approved if there is no negative consequence for units. Several deans have said that half a faculty retirement does not pay for a new faculty member in their units, give current market adjustments. (That is new faculty make as much or more than senior faculty).
The other uncertainty is the Health benefit piece. Some sources say if you retire, you must go onto a retirement health plan or you may have a problem getting it afterwards. (given the two month gap required in our language). Under current state rules, if you go onto the Virginia retirement plan, you can't return and have your state institution pay your health care. The College's having to pay state premiums on health care for these folks is getting expensive, and it can only come from private funds. It might become prohibitively expensive.
Archibald: Might round two of restructuring change this question of whether we can pay for state premiums with state monies?
Feiss: Two to three years from now perhaps. I don't know which walls between monies will go down in the future.
Meyers: The Faculty Affairs Committee of Arts & Sciences is looking at salaries by department. Do you have comparative funds for VIMS and Law.
Feiss: We do have current info for Education.
Meyers: Could we ask you for that?
Feiss: I could get that. We are starting a salary equity study. Bob Archibald & David Finifter have spoken to us about methodology.
Feiss: We have found that you can get very good data if you're willing to pay for it. CUPA (College and University Professional Association for Human Resources?) has put together such a package.
Meese: The Law schools tried to collect this information, and the Justice department said this data-collection constituted a cartel. The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) is a parallel organization that has been created (in part) to collect this information.
Meyers: Oklahoma State has done a survey like this. That's what we're relying on.
SACS Accreditation
David Aday, the SACS accreditation officer gave his report.
A review was done in November. It is all good news. We did very well. They had recommendations on various matters, which were really more questions: can you explain this? If we do a good job on responding to this, this then they won't pursue it in the April visit. Questions raised: nine total. There was no formal policy for president's formal evaluation. There's a core requirement that deals with it and a comprehensive standard that deals with it, turning that one issue into two concerns. The main concern was with institutional effectiveness, especially student learning. There has been nationally a movement for "outcomes assessment". If you say you teach critical thinking, there would be a critical thinking test. We have developed an alternative model: expectations, the quality of learning experience judged, and not a judge of individual performance. Some departments and programs are not done with their expectations for students, so that part was incomplete. The Dept. of Education is sending a representative with the visiting team because SACS itself is being reviewed by the DOE. The visiting team may be a bit more rigorous than they might be otherwise, given DOE over their shoulder.
If the visiting team does as good a job as the external team did, then we'll be in good shape. They had very thoughtful questions, and were very thorough.
By March 15 we have to have a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The members include the former members of the Compliance Review Team, who had already done some of the groundwork here, having carefully examined of student learning. We added two folks from the SACS advisory team, Joel Schwartz and David Armstrong.
We started with general ideas about enhancing learning environment. In the course of our examination we became aware that a part of the GERs have not been fully implemented, namely, "During the Junior or Senior year, the student will be required to take at least one course designated as an individual or small group experience" We're calling this independent or collaborative scholarship. We'll ask department chairs or program directors what they're doing to give students these experiences.
The next step will be a survey of seniors to ask what they've done in Junior or Senior year, if they've had this experience. The idea will be to build from there a program to actively encourage these activities. What we plan is modest, and appropriately so. We have in mind an Institute to expand opportunities for independent or collaborative experiences. It will have a modest budget. The Sociology Department may say that they have a capstone course, but it is too taxing for faculty. We would like some May seminar-type funds to create a sustainable effort. Biology might say they are aware of undergrad research, as many students have summer research experiences, but that experience may not match the criteria established. Perhaps with May seminar funds we could meet to reframe this summer experience to make it meet the goals.
There are unanswered questions that depend on Department Chairs and Program Directors. These questions must be answered quickly: what is the measurable goal, what is the baseline, how do we measure progress? Other question have also appeared to us: do these experiences have to be for credit? Do they have to be in the major? At this moment we have a kernel of an idea, but haven't committed ourselves to fully implementing it yet.
Archibald: How does this translate to the professional schools?
Aday: SACS doesn't insist that this be University-Wide. They want it to be wide (not focusing on department level). I have some ambitions here: if this encourages cross-disciplinary, cross school requirements that would be great.
Armstrong: This QEP does not have to touch everyone. There has to be improvement but not something that gets to 100%. If we say we have 40% and want to raise it to 65%, this would be acceptable.
Diaz: I think it's great that we don't need to have another student test.
Aday: That battle is still going on. A test of students is not the right metric. Let's say we wanted to examine critical thinking with a student test, asking that 75% pass. If only 50% pass is the problem with the test, with what's taught, the student, the teacher? But if you make the issue the learning experience, and test for that, then we know what to fix: the learning experience.
Faculty Research Assignment (FRA)
Feiss: This is a product of a lot of discussion. It is planned as a revision to faculty handbook. I'm not sure this is the right way to do it, but the easiest way to do it. There have been many questions about whether we can do this. I'm taking a "trust me" position here. One of the questions is how do we start this thing. Getting from here to there, there are processes that need to start. The implementation phase is next: how do we do this without hurting instruction? In looking at the numbers, I am persuaded that we can do this.
There are some problems with the current model of paying for leaves with indirect cost recoveries. Indirect cost recoveries are going to decline given Katrina and the War in Iraq. It's an iffy climate out there. We will need to move additional resources into this. The President will move on working private funds to support this. There are details in respect to implementation by the schools, warranted concerns from the schools. VIMS is one of these places. All the modeling suggests that we can do this with existing funding.
Kulick: Would an implementation document for FRA's come to this body?
Feiss: Also to Procedural Review Committee (PRC).
Armstrong: We are delighted with the document. Has President seen this?
Feiss: I have put it on his desk.
Armstrong: There is a hit on external funding at this point. But I'll be heretical here and say that this is more important than a few raises. This makes it easier to do the work that we need to do. Two questions: It is sometimes desirable for faculty to delay their leave for a year or two for targeted research opportunities. I would hope that this would not affect the later leaves. Perhaps a method of swapping order of leaves with other faculties is in order? The history faculty has such a system.
Feiss: That issue doesn't probably need to be in this document. The idea of trading and not messing up your yearly leave rotation makes good sense.
Armstrong: Regarding Item 5, the appeal procedure for research inactive status. What happens in the schools? Would it go to the Dean and then FRC?
Feiis: Would go to FRC directly.
Meyers: The Executive Committee clarified number 32. This does apply to "all full-time faculty" and thus includes folks in non-expiring non-tenuring positions. They might be included in this program.
Watkinson: But a pre-tenured faculty member would not be included?
Meyers: Right.
Meese: Regarding the language, you say faculty who indicate an 80% leave should in their proposal explain why they need 80%. Do you see Dean contemplating saying no, because he doesn't want this to happen.
Feiss: There is no procedure for this to happen. The reason for the request for an explanation is to assure accountability. Folks who do not do what they said they would do might in later years be rejected. My hope is that a conversation would take place.
Strikwerda: Thus the basis for the 80% determination would be previous actions on leave.
Meyers: Responding to Meese, this document is saying that faculty member elects to do so. The dean has no direct say.
Abelt: I had objection to last paragraph. Someone might write a flippant report and be declared research inactive. Then he might publish a book. Then he might turn around and writes a flippant report. I would suggest the provost makes the decision about whether leave activity was acceptable or unacceptable. A finding of unacceptable may be appealed to FRC. A revision may be submitted in the next year. This appeal to the FRC would make people less likely to submit flippant report.
Feiss: I don't want to be seen as invading the turf of deans here.
Armstrong: All the data may not be in yet.
Feiss: other problem. Reports to me range from significant to incomprehensible. The Provost or Vice Provost can't evaluate whether someone accomplishes what they wanted to do. That is difficult. You might say that you didn't accomplish the goals you said you had, then we'd make evaluation.
Strikwerda suggested language change.
Archibald: A diligent faculty member may find four avenues were mined out. The work doesn't have tangible results. The idea is to continue to support research active faculty and ultimately research successful.
Feiss: Sometimes people find that a collection doesn't exist. We're creative people and may do something else with our time. I know there are blind alleys. I don't want the NSF model where you propose work you've already done.
Armstrong: In original proposal we suggested summer research. Can you comment on role of FRC?
Feiss: Until we change Summer Research Grants, they will continue. I may come back to you with suggestions about what to do. I'm not happy with the Summer research grants now. I want a way for senior faculty to get summer research. It works now only for junior faculty. There are some in some disciplines who don't have access to summer funds. With the FRA set up, you don't want to talk to donors about getting time off for faculty. But about Summer grants we can talk openly, and they are a good source for funding initiatives. It is an easier private fundraising sell. There aren't many Kenan foundations in the world.
Meese: Very last sentence. Basis for evaluation: a self-described evaluation is compared with standards of home department or school. Would the standards set up work this way and make a definition of a decent return for an 80% leave?
Feiss: I hope departments will establish general metrics: someone on one year leave would do this. I don't want to create hurdles, but want to be a good steward of institution's resources.
Strikwerda: This just protects you where there are musical performances in one department, versus a book culture, versus an article culture.
Feiss: Different faculties have grad programs, with grad support for their research.
Meyers: the comparison of people with their results, is that a problem?
Feiss: I might say my machine blew up or my rats died.
Feiss: Clarification of number five I will do. Should there be clarification of the FRC proposal from Abelt.
Meyers: I think we're happy with the document. I would circulate it to faculty. I propose after circulation to faculty.
Meyers: Are there flippant reports?
Feiss: I have seen very terse reports, given resources sent to that individual.
Abelt received no second to his motion.
Feiss will slightly clarify section five.
Meese: Line 112 refers to faculty members' "return to campus". Suggest language that says "return from SSRL."
Armstrong: When we distribute this, might you say something about separateness of implementation.
Feiss: I will.
At 5:23 Meese motioned to adjourn. Seconded.
