Faculty Assembly
The College of William and Mary
Minutes of the Faculty Assembly
October 25, 2005
Present: Evans, Van Dover, Watkinson, Orwoll, Canuel, Meyers, White, Nelson, Beers, Kulick, Abelt, Fuchs, Leslie, Armstrong, Meese, Lee, Clemens
Absent: Mooradian, Brown
Process and Minutes
President: Per assembly regulations, the minutes will be out to the assembly
ten days in advance of the next meeting. The agenda will be out ten days in
advance of the next meeting to the faculty.
The provost could not be here today and so cannot speak to FRA proposals. Dennis Manos is here to answer questions and to take notes back to the Provost. Discussion here is part of the ongoing discussion of FRA's and not the final.
The Minutes were approved 3:37 pm.
Members of department of academic policy, of W&M student assembly were present here today as observers.
Faculty Research Assignments
The Ad-Hoc committee on FRA's is chaired by Alan Meese and David Armstrong.
The first committee meeting is on November 8th at 3:30. The place is to be determined.
It is composed of selected members of FA and AA committees. The committee's
charge is to consider the Provost's revision of the Faculty Research Program
including FRAs and Summer Research Grants.
Meyers asked if anyone could come to the first meeting.
Kulick suggested the first meeting not invite everyone on the faculty, in order to let the committee organize itself.
The Arts & Sciences Faculty Affairs Committee met with co-chairs of Deans Advisory Committee and with a member of the Faculty Research Committee.
White said that Todd Mooradian has sent out requests for comments. Leslie noted that he has received one extensive comment from a faculty member in education. Meese noted that he has received one comment from Law.
Meyers said of the meeting between ASFAC, a co-chair of DRC and the chair of
the Faculty Research Committee that the central areas of concern raised were
about:
" the cost to students in terms of numbers of seats lost
" the size of classes
" the number of courses offered
" the impact on majors
" the proposed cut in 80% leave
" a concern about dividing faculty.
Meyers continued that some faculty liked the predictability in the proposal. The research committee felt that as long as there is adequate funding, they were happy to go through the stress of analyzing the proposals. But they added that with straitened resources the selection process becomes more stressful and their committee becomes less confident of its judgment.
Armstrong said that a previous FRC member told his committee that they could only fund 70% one year and 75% in another year of all the proposals that were fundable. In one year they simply decided to fund 70% from each school as they could not compare, say, art history to a computer science proposal. The reason for the current tightness of resources is not that the size of the pot has gotten smaller, but that junior faculty members are now all research-active. In past years a relatively smaller number applied, but now almost everyone applies every six or seven years.
White said that the Provost had noted in his report that 3.32 million goes to faculty research. He asked where that is broken down. Armstrong said that a fraction of money raised by grants goes back to departments that raise the money. Some goes to startup funds, some to matching funds. The demand on that pot is larger and larger as time goes on, especially as more and more faculty apply for federally-funded grants.
Manos (for the Provost) noted that research money also goes to debt service, and to operation of the grants office. A-21 regulations say that money from research funds must go back to research.
Meese asked if this proposal was part of a larger attempt to move funding for the grants office away from indirect costs or overhead recovery and back to E&G money. Manos replied that it was.
Watkinson asked if this (3.32 million) included money that went back to the state. Manos replied that it did not include that money.
Fuchs noted that one reason for confusion and contention was that people were assuming that we had to take the provost's guidelines as one whole package. He noted that one part of the issue was one-year versus semester leaves. Now a faculty member has a choice. The proposal would put it in the dean's hands. The 75% leave (versus 80%) is also a proposal. Another is having FRC review the grants as opposed to automatic grants for the research-active. The final question is whether people are replaced and how. We should disaggregate these sections of the proposal and think through each one.
Armstrong noted that there was also the issue of summer research grants.
Fuchs noted that this body had given priority to FRAs over summer research grants.
Armstrong noted that the proposal came not only from the provost but also from the Faculty Research Committee (FRC).
Regarding summer versus FRA grants Manos noted that the pot for summer research and minor research and FRA is about 850k. The FRC committee decides how to draw the line. They ask the provost's office for direction.
Meese: Is there regulatory restraint that prevents outside funding paying for faculty leaves?
Manos: No. In fact Suzann Mathews has helped us.
Meese pointed out that the President's proposed gateway program will cost about $4mil. I cannot see why 200k can't be raised for this. We should not discuss this just within the confines of 850k. I see that faculty has raised money.
Watkinson noted that other monies have come to the dean for replacement costs for faculty who leave for a year. There is never enough to cover a faculty member. More than 250k comes from dean's discretionary funds to cover leaves. As chair of Art History I too want fulltime replacements for people who leave.
Armstrong: There is great variation from department to department about leaves. Does the person get replaced by adjunct? Does the department absorb it? We need in part to find this out. For some departments 16k is enough. History does not participate in this program. Physics generally does not participate in this program. Currently 16k does not automatically go to the department; nor does the 20% plus 16k go to the department. Chairs or program directors propose to make use of this money, and the dean decides.
Watkinson said that the minimum that needs to go to a department is 45k for a full year replacement.
Clemens asked why we are changing this policy.
Manos said the FRC Committee is asking for this because they don't like to deny eligible faculty members. They would like burden of assessment to shift to someone outside of their central committee. The idea is not just to generate better funding, but to work on getting external funding for this. How do we promote faculty research, but have it be required by your peers? We want to draw a line between research-active and those who are not.
Beers said that perhaps we need to get more information from the Provost.
Watkinson: The question is whether the dean gets that money (to replace a faculty member on leave). This is ambiguous in the Provost's document.
Evans: My understanding is that overhead will continue to support this.
Manos: 623k is the long-term commitment from IDC. (indirect cost recovery from research). We expect this IDC money to continue to support this. Indeed, this is an ideal use for this money. But we want this group to craft a program for a long-term commitment.
Armstrong: We'd like to know what departments do with this money, what their commitment is.
Manos: Committee should not think in terms of absolute dollars. We want a structure on paper that grows as we grow. What we have now is a treaty agreement with the old provost.
Meese: If those who are 'research-active' all get funding, how many more would get leaves than under the current program?
Watkinson: Going from present system to one where all are eligible, the additional cost would be 10%. Currently about 40 faculty receive FRAs a year.
Beers pointed out that this percent of research-active varies from unit to unit.
Seventy-Five Versus Eighty Percent Leave.
Watkinson: The Deans advisory Council discussed this. We voted unanimously for faculty not to beg for year long leaves and unanimously for an 80% leave. We felt this would have an adverse effect on young faculty. Removing that extra five percent would be a burden. Some talked of a sliding-scale for leaves (i.e. less than 80% for senior faculty).
Meyers noted that currently the 80% option at recipient's choice is useful for recruiting and retention.
Armstrong pointed out that in the last three years 70% in Arts & Sciences have been taking the yearlong leave. 80% is one of the few things that makes us superior to other programs.
Manos noted that this 80% leave is unlike any other program in the country. An 80% leave which is not guaranteed is more of a problem.
Beers pointed out that with the current proposal, Education likes the idea of every six to seven years getting a year.
Meese differed with Manos's point about uniqueness of our program. UVA gives a semester every four years. Duke gives a semester every three years.
Clemens pointed out that having chairs making the decision about research-active versus inactive (for the one-year leave) could be a real problem.
Armstrong said that the Dean of Arts & Sciences assumes 95% are eligible.
Meese said of the law school that three per year receive the leave. One or two would use the leave.
Beers: There could be an increase in use of this leave in the Education school.
Clemens said that the unpredictability in a chair's job is not so much from FRAs, but more from external grants, open courses. The FRA's are a very small piece of our problems.
Meyers: Late December is when the FRA decision comes in, which is just as we are putting the schedule together. FRAs are a relatively small part of a chairs' problems.
Nelson: Is this program intended to require that faculty will need a dean's approval for outside leaves?
Watkinson & Meyers: Apparently not.
Manos: I've heard nothing but criticisms of the summer program from this meeting. It would break my heart to see it eliminated.
Watkinson & Armstrong: the problem is only for senior faculty, who don't effectively have access to it at present.
White: I'd like to know about Faculty Development Grants, section 15 of the Provost's proposal.
Manos: There are models all over, usually called Dean's discretionary funds. This is ideally to propose something speculative or that has developmental possibilities.
Meyer: Will the committee draft something?
Manos: This discussion is an airing of the issues for Provost Feiss to look at. He has had meetings with Deans on this already.
Armstrong: When is this to be done?
Manos: I will get a timeline from Geoff.
Meyers: Would we get a draft of the final proposal?
Manos: I will ask Geoff.
