SUBJECT: Final Report

Attached is the final report of the Special Committee on Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards, including recommendations we wish to bring to the College Faculty during the spring semester of 2001. The report is long and addresses many interrelated issues. We wish to give people a chance to familiarize themselves with it and have an opportunity to discuss and clarify their understanding with us and with each other. We are aware of the difficulty of discussing complex proposals while adhering to established parliamentary procedures. We want to air the document initially in a less formal, more wide-ranging, democratic setting than faculty meetings. We have therefore scheduled a series of informal discussions concerning the report. We would like to provide some initial organizing framework for each session; thus faculty should feel welcome to attend more than one session as their interests and schedules permit. We hope that the ensuing conversations will be broadly attended and helpful to all concerned. The initial themes and times of the sessions are as follows:

Session 1: Wednesday, January 31, 2:00-4:00 PM
How will the recommendations affect the scholarly lives of faculty?

Session 2: Friday, February 2, 10:00 AM-Noon
How will the recommendations affect teaching?

Session 3: Monday, February 5, Noon-1:20 PM
How will the recommendations affect Oberlin's ability to recruit, sustain, and support faculty of color, women faculty, and faculty members of sexual minorities?

Session 4: Tuesday, February 6, 12:15-1:20 PM
How will the recommendations affect junior faculty?

Session 5: Friday, February 9, Noon-1:20 PM
How will the recommendations affect the institutional responsibilities of faculty and faculty governance at Oberlin?

All sessions will take place in Wilder 101.

DATE: January 10, 2001
TO: Clayton Koppes, Chair
The College Faculty Council
FROM: Special Committee on Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards
David Benzing Albert G. Miller
Susan Colley Steven Wojtal
Jan Cooper Sandra A. Zagarell
Heather Hogan

SUBJECT: Final Report

We are pleased to submit our final report to you and the College Faculty Council. In the course of our work, we were asked to address the following questions:
· What are the most important considerations in recruiting and retaining an excellent and diverse faculty?
· What new pedagogies (including those based on information technology) should be adopted, and how should we promote them?
· How should we balance teaching, scholarship, and service in the liberal arts college context?
· Can we devise mechanisms that allow for maximum flexibility over faculty members' careers, recognizing that they may wish to focus more intensively on one or another career objective at different points?
· How can we integrate the idealism that impels many people to go into academic life (and especially to be involved in community outreach) with other professional demands?
· How can we foster intense participation in the Oberlin College community while still maintaining the cosmopolitanism essential to sophisticated intellectual work?
· Can we devise a reward structure that recognizes varied contributions more equitably?
The Special Committee on Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards has met regularly to consider these questions and to develop structural and procedural changes that will ensure that Oberlin College remains a place where a diverse, talented, and accomplished faculty can pursue meaningful and personally satisfying careers. We believe that the attached report responds to the issues these questions raise in a manner that will be of benefit to the institution and the faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The report itself is organized as follows:
Introduction and General Principles
I. Scholarship, Artistic Production, Performance
II. Teaching
III. Service
IV. Workload and Morale
V. Junior Faculty
VI. Joint Appointments
VII. Salary System
VIII. Department Chairs and Program Directors
IX. Annual Reports
We are simultaneously sending copies of the report to the College Faculty. In late January and early February, we will hold a series of informal discussions with the faculty concerning the substance of the report. Shortly thereafter, we expect to present formal motions to the College Faculty.

Finally, we remark that it has been a most stimulating and valuable experience to consider faculty life at Oberlin College. We are grateful to the many faculty who participated in the focus groups we held in Spring 2000 or otherwise offered their insights to us; we also wish to express our appreciation to Dean Clayton Koppes and Associate Dean Robert Geitz for their support.
Report of the Special Committee on
Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards

Introduction and General Principles

Nearly eighteen years ago, the Committee to Review Tenure Procedures issued its final report to the teaching faculty of Oberlin College. Since then higher education nationwide has faced many challenges that make it critical for liberal arts colleges to reflect on their mission and their effectiveness. A national emphasis on pre-professional training has led some to discount the role of colleges and a liberal arts education while the cost of such an education has escalated. At the same time, increasingly diverse faculty and student populations have brought new expectations to higher education in the United States.
Over the past few decades, changes at Oberlin too have been wide-ranging, if not always apparent. Here as elsewhere, students expect faculty and staff to provide an increasingly broad array of services. Oberlin faculty are, if anything, more committed to scholarship than ever before. At the same time, many faculty are also implementing pedagogical innovations based on new philosophies of learning and generational changes in students. Rapid advances in information technology demand that faculty members regularly acquire skills in areas quite removed from their original training. Legal concerns increasingly complicate administrative duties. Institutional needs have grown dramatically, and faculty governance has become more complex and time-consuming.
This is also a crucial time of transition and renewal for the Oberlin faculty. For many years, nearly 75% of the faculty have held tenured positions; by fall 2001 the figure will be close to 65%. Perhaps most important, the demographics of the faculty continue to shift towards much greater diversity. Hence mechanisms for dialogue that were forward-looking ten or twenty years ago may no longer be so.
Oberlin College has a solid foundation for meeting these challenges. Our educational mission-with its combination of scholarly rigor, pedagogical excellence, artistic creativity and social responsibility-has been grounded in our democratic practices and established tradition of self-examination. We can affirm our strengths and reinvigorate our ideals by once again engaging in a substantive exercise of self-examination. The product of our last such examination nearly eighteen years ago, the "Tenure Report," focused on the career period from initial appointment to re-appointment with continuous tenure. Our current situation requires a more comprehensive examination of faculty life. We must assess the strengths, demands, and contradictions of working at Oberlin at all stages of a faculty member's career and coordinate the ways in which our unique resources can be optimally deployed. Current positive changes also make this an appropriate time for such self-assessment. It is no longer the case that any addition to a department or program must be compensated by the loss of a position somewhere else. We no longer have a merit review system that directly balances larger merit awards for some individual faculty with smaller increases for others. Moreover, salary increases have been relatively generous in recent years.
One reality of our working lives has remained unchanged, however. Our time is finite. If we are to respond positively to our own professional needs, to the needs of our students, and to the needs of the institution, we must devise new ways to prioritize and conduct our work that enable us to value the stimulation of academic life and contribute substantially to it. To this end we must establish a system that recognizes the need for flexibility and rewards the diverse ways faculty contribute to the educational mission of the college. Above all, we must continue to keep our intellectual community vital. Thus we must recognize changes in knowledge and in ourselves, and have the energy and generosity to renew our processes and procedures to respond to these changes. The recommendations below were developed using the following general principles as a guide:
1. If we want to continue to recruit and retain an excellent and diverse faculty, we must create a climate that more fully acknowledges, accommodates, and appreciates the differences among us.
2. Faculty should use their professional time to attend to their core responsibilities of scholarship and teaching, and should assist in meeting other needs of the institution.
3. The reward system should be sufficiently flexible to encourage all faculty to engage in significant and meaningful work.
4. We should establish greater equity, efficiency, and clarity in our practices and procedures.
5. We should better align our practices and rewards with institutional goals.
6. We should foster greater communication among ourselves, within and between departments and between departments and administrative units.
7. We should separate practices of assessment and evaluation so as to encourage individual and collective development.
8. We should sustain the cosmopolitanism essential to sophisticated intellectual work while fostering significant participation in the Oberlin College community.
9. We should keep vital the idealism that impels many people to go into academic life.
We fully recognize that our recommendations are no panacea for all the pressures that faculty experience, but we believe that they will improve substantially the conditions of employment for Oberlin faculty and reaffirm the mission of the College. We caution that not all of our recommendations represent actions that the College Faculty alone can undertake. Some recommendations involve substantial commitments from budgets over which the College Faculty does not exert sole control; others require attention from non-faculty divisions of the College. Nonetheless, we believe that it is appropriate for the College Faculty to discuss institutional priorities and goals. Should the College Faculty endorse our recommendations, it would be articulating priorities and proposing initiatives in matters that affect faculty duties.
Finally, we expect that the impact of these recommendations will arise from their cumulative-rather than individual-effect, and we urge that they be read with this in mind. Our intent is to improve our overall system-by enhancing morale, encouraging a greater level of collective responsibility for the quality of life, and recognizing the new demographic reality of more people of color and younger faculty, with their particular perspectives on academic life.

I. Scholarship, Artistic Production, Performance

Summary Recommendation

That the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences affirm the importance of high quality scholarship, artistic production and performance as activities central to its role; that it establish more thorough and substantive ways of evaluating and rewarding these activities; that it recognize changes in the character and production of scholarship, artistic production, and creative performance; that it request an expansion in institutional support for scholarly and artistic activity and performance.

Rationale

It is time to re-examine what we mean by scholarship, artistic production, and performance. We need to acknowledge more fully, and reward more reliably, the entire range of professional activities in which the faculty of a first-tier liberal arts institution engages. We must also formally take note of recent changes in the form, content and venues of scholarship and artistic work and of performance. Since change itself is now ongoing and often swift, we must establish ways to continue to take note of it.
Oberlin faculty members generally agree that they should be scholar- or artist-teachers. Many participants in the faculty focus groups affirmed that scholarly and creative activity are indispensable to excellent teaching; that scholarship, creative production, and performance are independent goods; and that active scholars, artists and performers bring credit to the institution. Faculty also agreed that all of these are intensive and exacting activities, demanding under any circumstances and particularly arduous given the exigencies of teaching at a premier liberal arts institution.
Despite the premium we all place on this work, however, we must reflect on what scholarship, creative production, and performance entail. Certainly we should hold in highest regard the principles that have traditionally informed scholarship and the kind of scholarship such principles have informed. We should place principal value on scholarship that is conceptually original and rigorous, that involves high quality primary and/or secondary research, that meets professional criteria such as peer review, and that makes an impact on the scholar's field after publication. We should also value premier synthetic scholarship, which can result from the unique stimulation of teaching Oberlin students. Here we think of historian Frederick Artz, biologist Warren Walker, art historian Ellen Johnson, and others; their scholarship involved work that coalesced, modified or altered paradigmatic structures within their academic discipline.
But our current Personnel Information Report (PIR) suggests that we do not take sufficient account of, or reward, some of the other important forms that professional activity also takes. Further, we have not given sufficient attention to cultivating the conditions under which the full spectrum of scholarly and creative activity flourishes. Emphasizing traditional research and publication too exclusively discounts, and may work against, faculty members' engagement in a range of desirable intellectual and professional activities. It fails to acknowledge explicitly professional work that does not lead directly to publication. Thus, evaluative work, editorial work, or filling leadership positions in one's discipline, all of which are informed by and rely upon excellence in traditional scholarship and are based on professional standing attained as the result of significant scholarly or artistic activity, may be discounted. Likewise, intellectual work emanating from one's own scholarly expertise and designed for the educated general public (e.g., serving on the editorial board of a journal for the lay public or serving on the state Humanities Council), may not be taken into adequate account. Further our current model may not place sufficient value on collective work that sustains the disciplines and assures the vitality of higher education and advanced learning. It also overlooks the fact that scholarly, professional, and creative activities involve a dynamic mix of interrelated, mutually sustaining, and evolving enterprises.
Our current model also has other drawbacks. It may reward those engaged in the production of printed scholarly work more than those engaged in creative work and/or performance. It may apply more readily to certain disciplines than to others. It does not recognize that the proportions among the different endeavors that constitute scholarly and creative activity are likely to shift over the course of an individual's career. Finally, placing a premium on production with all possible dispatch may discourage intellectual and professional growth, including the willingness to work in disputed or uncharted territory.
In recent years, the limitations in our formal measurement and rewarding of scholarship, artistic production and performance have been compounded by changes in the nature of all of these enterprises. Developments in cognitive, pedagogic, and curricular research as well as the expansion of knowledge, often in interdisciplinary areas (e.g., film studies; neuroscience; African-American studies; Asian-American studies), have created a need, not simply for new educational materials, but for new kinds of materials-often electronically based, and often collaborative, interactive, and/or focused on process as well as product. Moreover, while peer-reviewed articles and monographs continue to play primary roles in scholarly production, these are no longer the sole venues of significant scholarship. In the last decade, scholarship and publication have begun to take new forms, including electronic journal and CD-ROM; these do not always utilize the mechanism of traditional peer review. Further complicating the picture, the expansion of non-print publication, along with changes in the speed and expense with which printed material can be produced, have often made "publication" an on-going process, in which authors continually alter and update what they have written, rather than create a final product. Indeed, given the changes in content and medium that scholarly and artistic production are undergoing, any summary of them, however comprehensive initially, would soon be outdated.
Our objective is not to establish new definitions of scholarship, professional activity, and artistic performance, but (1) to articulate parameters for assessing more accurately the full range of professional activities we value as a faculty and an institution; (2) to assure periodic calibration or affirmation of our understanding of what these activities encompass; and (3) to increase material support for the full range of scholarly and creative activities of the faculty, all of which are essential to the College's mission and to its status as an institution.

Proposals

In order to accomplish the summary recommendation above, we make the following specific proposals:

A. That "scholarship" as recognized and rewarded at Oberlin College be understood to include the true variety of significant activities in which productive scholars engage.

Explanation: We recognize that distinctions of value prevail among various kinds of scholarly activity, and we maintain that certain kinds of scholarship, including what has traditionally been understood as research and the production of original, synthetic, innovative and/or field-changing articles and monographs are particularly valuable and should be more substantially rewarded than most other scholarly activities.
We draw no absolute line between kinds of professional activity solely on the basis of form, however. Value-quality-is as important as the form professional activity takes, and professional activity is in practice often continuous, not compartmentalized. Thus it is crucially important that departments and the College Faculty Council make informed judgments about the character and venues of an individual faculty member's professional activity.

B. That College Faculty Council routinely ask faculty to include in Personal Information Reports (PIRs) the kind of explanation of scholarly and artistic work and performance now invited for teaching. These explanations should outline the nature and objectives of work in progress or completed, its implications for the field and, for work that is published or accepted for publication, presented orally, communicated electronically, exhibited, or performed, information about the venue in which it appears or will appear. In addition, faculty should be invited to describe in comparable terms professional activities in addition to traditional scholarship in which they engage.

C. That departments and programs develop, articulate, and periodically review ways to assess the full range of their members' scholarly and professional activity and creative production, and that chairs convey the department's assessment of individual faculty member's scholarly activities as part of departmental merit evaluations.

Explanation: Quality is the key desideratum for scholarship. We have tended to rely almost solely on the traditional guarantor of quality, external peer-review. We also use sheer quantity (e.g., number of pages published) as though it were a determinant of quality. Especially as faculty undertake meaningful and important work that may lie outside more traditional venues, fairness, precision, and justness require that we develop more appropriate ways of judging the full range of scholarly, creative, and professional activity.
This process of explanation and assessment will make the quality of faculty members' work a central matter and assist us in addressing it more directly and substantively. Moreover, it will be generally advantageous to our common intellectual and creative life, since department members will be more informed about their colleagues' professional work. Further, comprehensive evaluations of scholarly and artistic activity and of performance will enable the College Faculty Council to make more informed judgments of such work part of the process of awarding merit increases.

D. That the Dean and President endeavor to expand the College's support for research and other forms of scholarship in the following ways:
1. Regular sabbatical leaves for tenured faculty members should take place every sixth year rather than every seventh.
2. A task force should be established to reconsider the current sabbatical leave policy with an eye to offering increased flexibility for leaves (i.e., the possibility of reduced teaching load over a period of time in lieu of complete release from teaching).
3. A year-long "service leave" should be granted at some point between sabbatical leaves, to involve year-long exemption from all College committee work and related service, exemption from Winter Term duties and exemption from service on the Mediation and the Professional Conduct Review Committees and the assignment of light duties within any department, program or program committee to which one has responsibilities.
4. Faculty should be supported for attending two conferences per year, and should be given full reimbursement for conference registration.
5. The number of research status appointments per year in the College should be increased as necessary to ensure that all worthy proposals are funded.
6. The amount of money available for travel for the purpose of conducting research should be increased.
7. Student research assistants should be made available to faculty on an as-needed basis, rather than competitively.
8. Technological support for faculty should be improved. Improvements should include but should not necessarily be limited to expanded support, including trouble-shooting, for the specific software that faculty members use for their work.

Explanation: The justification for many of these proposals is self-explanatory. The student assistantships discussed above are distinct from other student research activities in that their purpose here is to support faculty members in their professional work, not to provide individual mentoring of students. (Nonetheless, we believe that this work will prove valuable to students.) This assistance might extend to such activities as bibliographic work, indexing, proofreading, and copying and other clerical work. Assistants might be hired by departments, with new funds allotted to departments for that purpose.

E. That Oberlin's support for faculty application for external grants be improved.
1. New faculty should be systematically mentored in the development of portfolios that will maximize their chances for winning grants.
2. Grant-writing workshops should be held at regular intervals for all faculty interested in applying for grants.
3. The faculty should be more regularly informed about funds, and funding initiatives, for specific topics.

In addition to these proposals, many of the recommendations elsewhere in this report are intended to facilitate the faculty's engagement in scholarship, performance, and creative activity. Among these are recommendations to streamline committee work, to reduce bureaucratic stresses, to distribute academic advising and committee work more equitably, and to provide greater opportunity for the mutual enrichment of teaching and scholarship.

II. Teaching

Summary Recommendation

That the Dean and President establish a Center for Teaching and Curriculum Development, which will be a staffed office. The Center will serve three principal duties: (1) provide resources for Oberlin faculty who want to hone their teaching skills or explore curricular initiatives; (2) provide support for faculty in assessing their teaching; (3) provide support for departments and programs for designing more fair and effective teaching evaluation processes.

Rationale

The Faculty Guide states that "[t]he ability to teach is the quality most fundamentally prized in members of the faculty. The College seeks to recognize and encourage teaching of unusually high caliber." To date, we have taken for granted that all faculty know what constitutes excellent teaching and that excellent teaching will naturally occur with minimal institutional attention paid to its support. All faculty hired at Oberlin presumably have received training in the scholarship of their specific disciplines, but graduate education rarely prepares new Ph.D.s for the challenges they will routinely face in Oberlin classrooms. Faculty who come to Oberlin with some teaching experience at other institutions may have good pedagogical skills, but may know little about the special demands of teaching in a residential institution with undergraduate students as intellectually committed as ours. Even faculty who have successfully adapted to the special demands of instruction at Oberlin may find in mid- or late-career that they need additional training and resources to keep their teaching vital. The changing demography of Oberlin's student body (in terms of ethnicity, nationality, race, socio-economic background and level of preparation for the liberal arts curriculum) requires regular review of pedagogical assumptions and practices. Although several faculty committees and offices address specific teaching issues (e.g., the Committee on Teaching's Brown Bag Pedagogy discussions, the Committee on Integrating Research in Teaching's AIRE grant activities, the Educational Technology Committee and the Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching), we currently have no central office or staff person available whose sole responsibility is coordinating efforts to foster excellence in teaching.
We can anticipate developments in teaching and scholarship that will create new synergies between these two activities. In addition to on-going curricular change, diversification of faculty and students and technological changes are leading to rapidly expanding bodies of knowledge. The Center would provide a place where pedagogical and curricular changes could be nurtured and brought to fruition. It might also provide more opportunities for collaborating with students on curriculum and pedagogy. The climate created by such endeavors can promote faculty effectiveness in reaching across the broad spectrum of our students and ensuring an excellent education for all. The Center should become a useful liaison with the Educational Plans and Policies Committee to foster curricular development and should work closely with the Office of Sponsored Programs.
Many institutions comparable to Oberlin have established centers for teaching and learning. Oberlin needs a clearinghouse for the efforts to support teaching currently underway and to initiate new pedagogical endeavors. We propose that the Center be created by assigning one full-time position to it, and that it be staffed by a person with a relevant doctoral degree and experience in working with faculty to promote accomplished undergraduate teaching and curricular development. The primary staff person will also need access to secretarial assistance and interns or student assistance to maintain a web site, a library, and other appropriate resources.
We imagine the Center could undertake the following tasks:
w To foster knowledge about undergraduate instruction, to supply Oberlin College faculty with resources for developing and refining their teaching skills, and to provide a venue for exploring curricular development. The Center should accomplish this in a variety of ways, for example:
· It should sponsor discussions of teaching philosophies, values, and methods in order to align what has historically worked well at Oberlin with new approaches. We imagine that discussions might be disciplinary, interdisciplinary, cross-generational, or focused on newly developing bodies of knowledge.
· It should coordinate efforts already underway in the Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching (OCTET), the Committee on Teaching (COT), the Committee for the Integration of Research and Teaching (CIRT), the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), etc., to address specific issues in teaching and to publicize specific events.
· It should provide workshops for educating faculty on the particular needs and interests of underrepresented groups.
· It should assist the faculty in staying current with national trends in undergraduate education by sponsoring lectures or workshops in relevant teaching innovations or in ways to assess what best addresses the needs of Oberlin students.
· It should maintain both a virtual (online) and actual collection of resources on undergraduate teaching, such as books, journals, monographs, videotapes. COT has already begun such an effort, but this effort would be enhanced by being broadened to include materials from other sources and by being maintained by a central staff person.
· It should plan, apply for, and conduct external grants for teaching improvement and curricular development.
w To address the need for better assessment and evaluation of teaching. An entire body of scholarship on assessment and evaluation of teaching has emerged since most departments' teaching evaluation forms were first created. One of the most crucial ideas to emerge from that research is the importance of separating assessment of teaching for purposes of improvement from its evaluation for bureaucratic decisions, such as salary increases and promotion or tenure. In order to assist Oberlin faculty in both tasks:
· The Center should create opportunities for junior and senior faculty to form effective reciprocal relationships to enhance their teaching.
· The Center should devise means for faculty to request specific advice on teaching, such as properly contextualized classroom observation, by establishing a group of faculty trained in classroom observation to be consulted, or by making videotaping of teaching available upon request.
w As an entirely separate service:
· The Center should provide expert assistance for departments in revising teaching evaluation forms to be used in salary, promotion, and tenure decisions. The purpose of this function is to help departments and programs create instruments appropriate to their subject matter that accurately measure students' learning in courses. This will mean that the Center's staff will need to be trained and experienced in the creation of learning measurement instruments. This person should be well-grounded in the current research on teaching evaluation and able to communicate with faculty from a wide range of disciplines about the issues in learning and its evaluation that are significant in their fields.
· The Center should make available to department chairs and academic program directors information on how to write evaluations of individual faculty and on how to create effective documents for tenure, promotion, and salary evaluation.

III. Service

Summary Recommendation

That the definition of faculty service at Oberlin College comprise governance, administrative activities, community participation, and other activities that contribute to the College's well being; that the kinds of service viewed favorably during evaluations for reappointment, tenure, and salary adjustments more fully reflect the need for faculty engagement in services beneficial to the institution as it strives to remain a premier college in an increasingly complex and challenging environment; that all service deemed beneficial to the institution be routinely considered during all personnel evaluations.

Rationale

The components of service have expanded, contributing to its fragmented and often overwhelming character. It is therefore time to affirm as an underlying principle that service be understood as what is needed to create the climate in which we can thrive as professionals and citizens, and in which the institutional needs of the College can be most productively met.
Oberlin College, like all other undergraduate institutions of similar high rank, operates in a much more demanding and complex legal, demographic, economic, and technological environment today than it did just a few decades ago. Moreover, competition for qualified students is stiffening and likely to become more daunting as time passes. Faculty involvement is necessary to attract such students. We also know that delivering quality education is expensive, that student fees and endowment pay out fail to meet fully Oberlin's cost of doing business, and that faculty assistance is often decisive in the competition for the extramural funds needed to secure many of the services, equipment, and additions to staff that Oberlin requires in order to instruct its students. Additionally, the success of the institution depends more on the well-being of its hosting community than at any other time in recent history. Opportunities for productive faculty involvement in the life of the institution and the broader community have grown accordingly.
Oberlin's current reward system ignores these realities and instead encourages faculty to provide service in a manner more consistent with the past than with the present broader array of institutional needs. Our reconceptualized notion of service is grounded in these needs and covers two basic areas: institutional stewardship and governance and the utilization of our skills and knowledge as professionals in activities that benefit the community and in some way, perhaps only indirectly, also address College interests or welfare.
Our failure to define and reward service adequately is costly. A relatively small subset of faculty already provide much of the service that benefits the institution. This concentrates responsibility for the institution as a whole in the hands of a few and indirectly discourages others from participating. Members of this service cadre often feel that their efforts are undervalued and they become frustrated. This frustration over the lack of reward discourages others and hence exacerbates what is already an unequally shared burden. Moreover, such practices have the effect of excluding, however unintentionally, groups and individuals from historically underrepresented constituencies. (See §IV for a related discussion.) A broadened definition of service should help relieve these inequities by fostering a better distribution of important tasks across the faculty. We believe that expanding the set of recognized meritorious activities will also heighten engagement in service because more faculty members will identify worthy targets for their special interests and talents. In addition, by rewarding useful services already provided by some faculty that are not always obvious and have often gone unrewarded, we will enhance the quality of life for the College and community. For example, many people contribute to Oberlin College's capacity to recruit and retain a diverse and multigenerational faculty by their work within the local community. Such involvement also increases the likelihood that all of us will enjoy a safe community rich in important amenities. Furthermore, this expanded notion of service takes into account the fact that teaching, scholarship, and service often overlap and can be mutually sustaining. Thus service, broadly defined, may well feed into scholarly and professional activity.
It is not appropriate for us to attempt to identify all of the service activities we deem meritorious, but we provide the following examples of faculty activity that might qualify as meritorious service to the College:
o using professional skills and knowledge to help a public or community institution conduct a survey or assessment or to write grants; providing expert advice, e.g., on environmental issues; or leading an important local institution, e.g., the hospital;
o developing an outreach program that addresses a community problem or provides opportunities for Oberlin students to engage in community outreach;
o serving on an important local government organization;
o organizing or leading a grass-roots organization dedicated to community improvement;
o spearheading or participating in an important admissions recruitment effort.
A highly visible mechanism that ensures formal consideration of service during merit evaluations is essential to encourage broader participation in this important activity. The widely held perception that scholarship, and to a lesser extent, teaching count exclusively for merit rewards must be dispelled if we expect to realize the full potential of Oberlin's faculty to serve the institution.

Proposals

In order to carry out the summary recommendations, we make the following specific proposals:

A. That "service" as recognized and rewarded at Oberlin College be understood to include the full range of needs of the institution, so as to encourage broader faculty participation in that range of activities.

B. That service be formally recognized along with scholarship and teaching in all faculty personnel decisions.

C. That the College Faculty Council (CFC) routinely ask faculty to include in Personal Information Reports (PIRs) the kind of explanation of service now invited for teaching and proposed for scholarship. That departments and programs develop thorough and consistent ways of assessing the full range of their members' service and that chairs convey these assessments as part of departmental merit evaluations.

D. That CFC appoint a task force composed of faculty and perhaps others to develop criteria to identify meritorious service; a mechanism to evaluate the significance, and quality of service and the extent of its relationship to the individual's scholarship; and the length of time, the depth of involvement, and the effectiveness of such service should be considered. The task force should report to the faculty within six months.

IV. Workload and Morale

Summary Recommendation
That expectations of individual faculty members be formally outlined, and be consistent with the demands of teaching at a high level of excellence, of remaining an active scholar or artist who contributes to his or her profession in significant ways, and of engaging in meaningful service to the College or community.

Rationale

Individual faculty members repeatedly voiced two complaints in the faculty forums held in the spring of 2000. On one hand, numerous faculty spoke of the sense of time pressure, often stating that they believed this time pressure was something "that we all feel." Some attributed this pressure to frustrating, unrewarding and meaningless committee work ("service" in a strongly negative context), whereas others attributed it to mind-numbing paperwork both within and outside the formal committee structure. On the other hand, some individuals suggested that the service load is not equitably shared. This suggestion was often supported by one of two arguments. Some argued that faculty engagement in the institutional life of the College has decreased. Others argued that a proto "service-track" has developed, which is bad for the institution because (1) there are too few people "running" the college, (2) there is not enough broad-based participatory citizenship, and (3) the persons involved have reduced time for teaching and scholarship and often burn out. These concerns reflect significant unease about governance. In fact, many faculty members argued explicitly that there is confusion about the processes of governance. (See a related discussion in §III.)
In fact, faculty stated that our committee structure (1) focuses too much on administrative detail and pays insufficient attention to broad philosophical and strategic issues, (2) generates work that "goes nowhere," leaving individuals unsatisfied at making recommendations that are never acted upon, and (3) accentuates the tension between the desire to govern ourselves and resentment at the toll in time governance takes.
Some faculty participants in the focus groups also spoke of significant stresses related to their teaching and advising load. Here too, we heard many comments about the generally heavy teaching and advising burden carried by most Oberlin faculty and the perception that this burden is not shared equitably.
In light of these issues, there is a need to cultivate a genuine sense of stewardship of the college and its educational mission among broad segments of the faculty. Our proposals regarding committee service are intended to address the issue of service from both ends, i.e., to protect those who serve too much and to involve those who serve too little. We recommend less sweeping but equally important changes regarding the advising and teaching workloads of faculty.

Proposals

Committee work and governance

A. That the General Faculty Council (GFC) determine a block of time during the regular working day to be set aside to devote to governance.

Explanation: Attendance at Faculty Meetings is often so low that issues are decided by a small fraction of the faculty. Likewise, the difficulty of scheduling committee meetings has become insurmountable. We recommend, therefore, that the College reserve time (e.g., Monday-Wednesday-Friday, noon-1:20 PM) exclusively for faculty meetings, committee meetings, or all-faculty, all-college events (e.g., speakers, workshops).

B. That the GFC appoint a task force to review all extant committees with the purpose of streamlining the committee structure. This task force should strive to achieve four goals: (1) to reduce the number of committees by combining committees with overlapping workloads and by eliminating some committees; (2) to reduce the size of committees by limiting the number of regular and ex officio members of committees; (3) to determine which "house-keeping" functions do not require committee attention, so that faculty members of committees can focus on issues related to scholarship, teaching, leadership and decision-making; and (4) to decide which committees need regular clerical support. At the conclusion of this review, the task force should rate the workload of each committee on a simple scale, i.e., establish a 1 versus 2 designation for amount of work that individual committees require. This then will guide personnel evaluations for service within the College. The task force should be able to complete its work within a semester.

C. That faculty will normally be expected to serve on two committees per year (one with a level 1 workload and one with a level 2 workload). Faculty in their first year will remain exempt from all committee responsibilities. (See V.A.4.)

D. That the General Faculty or appropriate divisional faculties revise the by-laws concerning service on major elected committees to:
1. Eliminate the General Faculty Planning Committee, and have the General Faculty Council take over the tasks presently completed by GFPC. Individuals elected to the GFC/GFPC would continue to serve two-year terms, with membership elected on a staggered basis.
2. Prevent faculty from serving simultaneously on more than one of the following: CFC, GFC/GFPC, EPPC.
3. Exempt those who have completed two-year terms on CFC, GFC/GFPC, or EPPC from re-election to any of these committee for two years after such service. In addition, exempt those who have completed two-year terms on CFC, GFC/GFPC, or EPPC from election to the Mediation and Professional Conduct Review Committees for one year after such service as well as during their service on these committees.

Explanation: Faculty are interested in undertaking meaningful service, provided that there are limits to the amount of "service" work the institution may ask of individual faculty members. The College should periodically examine its committee structure to ensure that faculty time on committee work is both meaningful and appropriate. Further, we are interested in seeing a greater number of persons serving on the committees whose decisions affect the policy and direction of the College most significantly. But in thinking about service on our elective committees, we need to confront some difficult and paradoxical issues. First, we should acknowledge that elections are political and entail issues of power. Second, we need to understand the contradictory imperatives of one person, one vote (majority rule) and proportional representation (ensuring the voice of minority groups). The proposals we have suggested regarding elected committee service seek to involve more faculty in this work and protect those who serve too much and too routinely. Yet these efforts to democratize service may, in fact, work to disenfranchise underrepresented groups in the short term, since there are relatively few people of color on the faculty. Acknowledging this contradiction, we believe the long-term remedy lies in ensuring the success of efforts to recruit and retain an excellent and diverse faculty. In the short term, we must seek ways to open channels of communication that legitimize and respect our pluralistic community.

Teaching load

E. That all tenure-track faculty should have a four-course teaching load in their first year of appointment.

Explanation: Some individuals and departments have sensibly negotiated four-course teaching loads for new faculty, arguing that it is nearly impossible for these people to prepare and teach, at the level we expect of all faculty, five courses in a single year. It is most fair to students and equitable for faculty to extend this adjustment to all incoming faculty.

F. That the College Educational Plans and Policies Committee (EPPC) see its study of teaching loads to completion. Upon the study's completion, CFC should establish college-wide criteria for course-release practices, team-teaching arrangements, and individual faculty member's work supervising Honors students, independent research projects, and private readings.

Explanation: At present, significant differences in teaching load prevail among the departments and across the curriculum. Some differences have to do with the number of credit hours assigned to different classes. Others have to do with inconsistencies in how to "count" laboratory sessions in the natural sciences, studio classes and rehearsals in the visual and performing arts, and perhaps courses in other departments and programs. Further, our system is complicated by team-teaching arrangements on one hand and, on the other, by significant differences within and between departments and programs regarding the number of Honors students, independent research projects, or private readings faculty do or should sponsor. Finally, some departments have made informal agreements to determine their course loads in non-standard ways. Establishing what are normal teaching loads by department will contribute to more equitable evaluations in personnel reviews. Further, certain types of teaching, such as the supervision of Honors or independent research students, are effectively "add-on's" under our present system. Establishing criteria whereby a faculty member who supervises some number of Honors or research students (e.g., five students) while teaching a normal load will qualify that person for a one-course reduction in teaching load and will thus help create greater equity in teaching obligations. Finally, ensuring equity of teaching loads will help junior colleagues balance and receive appropriate credit for their teaching as they work toward tenure.
Once this work is completed, it may be possible for the College to find ways to make course loads more flexible. We believe that it is unrealistic to argue for an across-the-board four-course load because of such urgent institutional concerns as class size and class access. However, greater flexibility may enable the College to offer to all faculty, perhaps over a five-year period, one or more years with a four-course teaching load, or the option of teaching 22 or 23 courses over five years, or some other arrangement.
We also believe that there are significant differences among individuals regarding the time required to prepare classroom materials for lectures/discussions, to grade assignments, and to see students in non-teaching contact hours that are correlated to the enrollments in the courses they teach. This part of a person's workload has to do with student demand (the "desirability" of one's courses), but it also depends upon departmental teaching assignments, the relative number of introductory versus advanced courses one teaches, how close to one's specialization the course one teaches is, etc. We do not wish to see minimum enrollment numbers mandated. The College's best interests might, however, be served by setting guidelines for maximum enrollments. In this way, heavily subscribed courses could be offered as multiple sections in which a person would get appropriate credit for teaching to large numbers of students, and the concomitant increase in traffic at office hours, grading exams and papers, and the like.

Advising

G. That the Office of Academic Advising, in consultation with the Office of the Registrar, seek to distribute advising loads more equitably among faculty.

H. That the Office of the Dean of Students maintain adequate professional support for students from underrepresented groups. This might entail establishing positions at the Associate Dean level to effect such support.

Explanation: Given differences in the sizes of departments and fluctuations in the numbers of majors, there will necessarily be differences in the number of students individual faculty members advise. At present, however, some faculty members carry over 50 advisees whereas others have only three or four advisees. Current practice serves neither all students nor all faculty well. We believe that our current system must be overhauled so that advising loads are more equitably distributed. One simple proposal might be to relieve those faculty members with heavy loads of an additional complement of first-year advisees. We request that Associate Dean Hershiser undertake a study of advising loads, to be completed within a semester, with the goal of a more equitable distribution across the faculty and relevant staff.
When examining the advising system, we must pay special attention to the needs of students of color and first-generation students who may require additional time with their faculty advisors; we must be sensitive to the "invisible" mentoring of under-represented groups of students undertaken by some faculty. Such informal guidance is crucial to the success of our students, but it is also time-consuming. Faculty undertaking this special role must be recognized and rewarded for their work. Furthermore, both students and faculty will be more fully supported by the creation of professional positions within the Division of Student Life specifically geared to the needs of underrepresented student populations. (See also the explanation for J. and K.)

Improving work environments

I. The Senior Staff should devise ways to help faculty work more quickly and efficiently with the Office of Human Resources, the Purchasing Department, and the Registrar's Office.

Explanation: In the Spring 2000 faculty forums, many faculty decried the undue complications that involved interactions with the Office of Human Resources, the Controller's Office, and Purchasing, and frustrations generated by the BANNER system. The issues cited include, but are not limited to, the Office of Human Resources's communication with departments regarding administrative assistants, its completion in a timely manner of the appropriate work on visas and other immigration matters, and its regulations on hiring of technicians; Controller's Office requirements for administrating grants; Purchasing's bureaucracy surrounding purchasing equipment or supplies for departments or for individual research laboratories; the BANNER system's limitations on faculty and staff control of student registration. These activities are too often needlessly frustrating and time-consuming for faculty. We recognize that the persons staffing these offices are likewise frustrated by some of these tasks. We ask the Senior Staff to convene collaborative sessions with faculty to seek ways to alleviate these frustrations.

J. Some faculty members feel additional pressures due to the under-representation of people of color and other minority groups in Administrative and Professional Staff positions critical to student life. We request that Senior Staff identify and vigorously seek to hire and retain appropriately diverse personnel, demographically consistent with Oberlin's present and future needs.

K. Senior administrators should be especially sensitive concerning the additional or special assignments they ask of individual faculty members, especially faculty of color and in some instances women. "Arm-twisting" and appeals to the "special talents" of or the "need for representation by" an individual may be interpreted variously-sometimes as flattering, sometimes as an offer that can't be refused-but they typically add to an already heavy load.

Explanation: These two issues affect disproportionately faculty of color, faculty members of underrepresented groups, and, in many cases, women faculty. They lead to significant additional but "invisible" (i.e., unrewarded) work. For example, at critical times during each academic year, students seek support from Administrative and Professional Staff in certain offices (e.g., Office of Student Academic Services, Multicultural Resource Center). If these offices are not staffed to meet student demand adequately, the students turn to certain faculty, themselves members of underrepresented groups, to support them and to act as their advocates. This places an undue burden on those faculty, many of whom already shoulder a heavy load advising and mentoring students. The minority presence in senior level Administration and Professional Staff positions must be expanded, as should the personnel in those administrative offices that have close and critical contact with students (e.g., the Office of the Registrar, Financial Aid). The Multicultural Resource Center in particular must be structured and staffed with more professionals in addition to its interns so as to ensure its maximum effectiveness; otherwise student pressure on faculty of color for support and advice becomes unmanageable. Likewise, the call to serve on additional committees to ensure adequate representation leaves such faculty members drained of energy for their classes or their own scholarship. In the interest of making Oberlin College a welcoming and supportive institution for all faculty, we should assure that the workload for all faculty is equitable.

L. That the College identify a convenient space where faculty may engage in regular, informal social and intellectual exchange to revive our spirit of community and academic fellowship.

Explanation: Many faculty seek more regular ties with their colleagues. By helping to establish a location where faculty can interact informally, the College would enhance feelings of community and collegiality.

M. That the Dean and College Faculty Council review its annual directive to department chairs and program directors regarding recruitment procedures with the intention of enhancing our ability to hire a diverse faculty.

Explanation: We propose the development of mechanisms so that hiring will be perceived as a process that builds our community as well as shapes our curriculum. In revising the College's recruitment processes, the Dean and CFC should actively consult with minority faculty.

N. That the Calendar Dates Committee undertake a study, to be completed within a semester, to determine which curricular and administrative processes might be moved or streamlined to ease the "crunch points" in the academic year (e.g., "April Madness"). (See also VIII.G.)

O. That the College Public Schools Committee work with the Oberlin School District to attempt to coordinate the respective academic calendars.

Explanation: The first of these two recommendations is intended to reduce stresses associated with, for example, the confluence of advising meetings, lunches and panel discussions with prospective students and visiting speakers, or the confluence of changes in catalog copy for the registration supplement with mid-semester breaks. The second would ease pressures on faculty with children in the Oberlin Public School system, who currently need to find day-care for their children during school breaks because classes are in session at the College.

V. Junior Faculty

Summary Recommendation

That the College of Arts and Sciences extend its orientation and mentoring assistance to new faculty (tenure-track and non-continuing) to more successfully introduce and welcome them to the community and support them; that it regularize committee service expectations for untenured faculty; that department chairs and program directors receive more training in how to communicate institutional expectations to tenure-track faculty and guide senior faculty in forming productive relationships with their junior colleagues; and that the timing of evaluations, first year teaching loads, and other support for tenure-track faculty be revised.

Rationale

Oberlin is currently experiencing substantial rebuilding of its faculty. In 1999-2000, Oberlin hired 18 new tenure-track faculty members, 10% of the Arts and Sciences faculty. By fall 2001 one third of the Arts and Sciences faculty will be untenured. We are hiring highly qualified professionals with evidence of promise as both scholars and teachers, but they may come with little experience in the demands of working at a residential undergraduate institution. Oberlin has an obligation to both its incoming faculty and its students to provide new faculty with proper support for juggling the demands we make of them. The generation from whom many new faculty come has different expectations about the workplace and its relation to their lives than did earlier generations; to continue to recruit the best professoriate we need to take into account the rising generation's interests in new skills development, active mentoring, and working conditions that enable satisfying personal lives. Additionally, Oberlin is building a larger and more diverse faculty, which means that it will have to find creative ways to develop broadly inclusive forms of social interaction and fellowship.
Furthermore, it behooves us to avoid as much as possible creating a sense that non-continuing faculty are second-class citizens. By treating these accomplished colleagues respectfully, we will help to create congenial working conditions for all. The reputation of a selective undergraduate institution such as ours depends on our ability to demonstrate that there are no tiers of quality in our faculty's teaching and scholarship/artistic production. We should also recognize that non-continuing faculty share opinions about working conditions at Oberlin with their professional networks. Moreover, many of the concerns faced by new faculty are shared by tenure-track and non-continuing faculty alike. We must seek to assure that the quality of academic and social life is equitable and rewarding for all members of Oberlin's community.
On the other hand, persisting to tenure at Oberlin does entail specific pressures. Department chairs and program directors need to be encouraged to guide their senior faculty members in communicating their expectations clearly and consistently to untenured tenure-track colleagues and in acknowledging the pressures that affect new faculty. Comments made by untenured faculty in the focus groups suggest that other forms of support need to be examined as well.

Proposals

A. For all new faculty, that the following suggestions should be pursued:
1. We should expand new faculty orientation before the start of fall semester to include more information on teaching at Oberlin by offering hands-on sessions on such important tasks as the construction of syllabi and course web materials. These sessions should be made optional to allow for varying amounts of teaching experience among new faculty.
2. We should arrange follow-up programming for new faculty throughout the school year. This should include discussions of issues in both teaching and maintaining a research or artistic agenda in the Oberlin environment.
3. Our current mentoring system should make mentoring available to non-continuing faculty as well as tenure track faculty. Likewise, mentoring programs other than those that match each new faculty member with a tenured faculty member should be considered. Alternative arrangements, such as small group mentoring or maintaining a list of senior faculty willing to be consulted on specific issues, might be effective. Finally, spontaneous mentoring arrangements should be supported when they arise. The responsibility for new faculty programming and mentoring might be located in a faculty committee or office not directly associated with the Dean's Office.
4. The current practice of not assigning faculty to committee service in their first year at Oberlin should be continued. In their second and third years (if applicable for non-continuing faculty, or until mid-probationary review for tenure-track faculty), they should be assigned to one committee only and encouraged to develop a specialty in one type of service before adding others. After mid-probationary review, tenure-track faculty could be assigned to one additional committee, but no more than a total of two until they earn tenure. Special care should be taken to assure that women and faculty of color do not become over-burdened, since such individuals are often asked to assume unusually heavy service commitments.
5. Non-continuing faculty should not be expected to serve on elected committees. No untenured faculty member should be eligible to run for elected committees until after mid-probationary review.
6. We should hold at least one informal social event for new faculty every semester to give all untenured faculty an opportunity to meet members of their cohort in other departments.
7. We should hold at least one informal social event for all faculty and A & PS members every semester to give junior faculty a relaxed opportunity to meet others with similar interests outside their own departments and cohort.
8. We should provide childcare so that faculty with young children can attend meetings and other events essential to full participation in the life of the College.

Explanation: Our current orientation program for new faculty recognizes that many issues in teaching and maintaining scholarly or artistic production are shared by tenure-track and non-continuing faculty alike. Further programming would enable faculty to share ideas about all aspects of working at Oberlin and would more thoroughly inform new faculty about the resources available. Whenever possible this programming should be coordinated with similar events sponsored by OCTET, COT, and CIRT, as well as the Office of Sponsored Programs and the Office of Human Resources (especially those concerning benefits). Untenured faculty in the focus groups repeatedly told the committee that they disliked the isolation they felt here; purely social events in a relaxed setting would enable new faculty to meet each other and other faculty and staff. Such programming and socializing events, including the establishment of a designated social space for faculty as proposed in IV.L, are needed to foster the interdisciplinary understanding and creativity valued in a liberal arts institution.
Mentoring can play an important role in serving similar needs. A large number of new faculty will be hired in the coming years, however. For that reason and others we should determine whether the mentoring system could be more effectively conducted via some structure other than the Dean's Office, such as the Committee on Teaching or the proposed Center for Teaching and Curriculum Development. Experience at other institutions, such as Carleton College, suggests that mentoring programs are trusted more fully if they are not created by the Dean's Office, which is often associated with evaluation and regulation. Clearly, however, those involved in mentoring programs must work closely with academic deans to ensure that institutional values are consistently expressed.
Furthermore, the College needs to articulate more clearly how we expect tenure-track faculty to assume the full range of responsibilities that our institution requires of faculty. This includes stating explicitly our customs regarding membership on elected committees, which have not been made clear to incoming faculty. Committee service has varied greatly among new faculty in recent years, with two unfortunate results: some new faculty have followed advice to avoid committee service entirely in order to concentrate on personal scholarship and teaching. Making such choices endangers their case for tenure, as CFC in recent years has expected some indication that faculty are willing to perform service to qualify for tenure. It also leaves them underprepared to assume the leadership roles we expect faculty to play after tenure. Other faculty have met requests to serve on too many committees and risked the quality of their teaching and research or artistic production. Service on elected committees such as EPPC and CFC by untenured faculty is especially time-consuming and is generally better provided by faculty who have acquired a broader sense of the institution than most untenured faculty have. The faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences already have a tradition of rarely electing untenured faculty to EPPC and never electing them to CFC because the issues addressed by those committees are so politically charged that participation in their decisions is considered too risky for untenured colleagues. Although the perspectives of untenured faculty are vital to decision-making, it would be better to recognize that we do not expect them to undertake the extra burdens of service on elected committees until after they have earned tenure. We also recommend that junior faculty develop a "service" expertise. This might help an individual faculty member avoid serving on multiple committees distant from his or her interests. This recommendation might be built into an enhanced mentoring program.
Finally, the College could more reasonably expect faculty with young children to attend important meetings and other events if it provided childcare when these events occur. Providing such a service would be easier if regular times for committee meetings and community events were set aside in the weekly schedule.

B. For new faculty hired in tenure-track positions the Dean should also attend to the following:
1. An informational meeting about the tenure process should be held annually by the Dean's Office to which new faculty, mentors, and department chairs and program directors are invited.
2. An informational meeting about more sensitive matters in the tenure process should be held annually by the Dean's Office to which only department chairs and program directors are invited.
3. Department chairs and program directors should receive training in how to encourage senior faculty to form productive relationships with the untenured faculty in their departments or programs.
4. The College should devise a program to assist faculty partners in finding suitable positions in the Oberlin area (including Oberlin College if appropriate).
5. The process of evaluating tenure-track faculty should be altered so that the number of evaluations during the first four-year appointment never exceeds one consideration in a single year.
6. The current leave schedule should be re-examined to determine whether more leave is necessary.

Explanation: The focus groups for untenured faculty expressed a need for more information about how the tenure process works and what criteria in all areas will be used to determine tenure. An annual meeting that gives tenure-track faculty the opportunity to ask questions and receive advice from a central source would be helpful in clarifying the process. Inviting faculty mentors and department chairs and program directors to that meeting may assist in creating more consistent information from all sources and give new faculty an opportunity to hear answers to questions that they may feel too vulnerable to ask. Chairs and program directors, however, also need an opportunity in a more confidential setting to discuss with the Dean how to handle more sensitive matters that may arise in a tenure case and methods of guiding a department in carrying out a fair procedure.
Comments made during several focus group meetings indicate that some new faculty receive mixed messages from their colleagues regarding what must be accomplished to qualify for tenure. While the College's broader expectations for achieving permanent appointment are relatively clear, the criteria assumed by members of home departments or programs tend to be more specific and are sometimes contradictory. Moreover, the judgments of immediate colleagues count most during formulation of the recommendation upon which the Dean and College Faculty Council will act. Chairs and directors should consult regularly with all of the members of their departments or programs so as to remain aware of what is expected of untenured colleagues. This information in turn should be used to counsel new faculty at least annually until they are considered for permanent appointment.
The extent of the problem remains unclear, but other comments made by untenured faculty in the focus groups suggest that at least a few senior colleagues have made remarks that were overbearing or unfriendly, or revealed their indifference to the needs and vulnerabilities of new faculty members, especially faculty of color. While few, if any, of these actions may have been intentional, they add to the already heavy burden of adjusting to the Oberlin community and its high professional standards. Chairs can do much to alleviate the discomfort caused by such dynamics if they remain alert and intervene whenever this behavior emerges. Additionally, these new members of the Oberlin community can often infer from such entry experiences that a broader social dynamic of insensitivity exists here. Chairs could do much to alleviate the problems caused by such dynamics if they do not dismiss certain behavior as harmless, but, rather, intervene when it occurs. They should consider how newer colleagues are affected, and should counsel more established colleagues to alter their behaviors or reconsider the underlying attitudes.
Untenured faculty in focus groups noted several other issues of concern, among them the problems experienced by dual-career couples. The increase in dual-career couples among the current generation of academic professionals suggests that efforts by the College to help faculty partners find suitable employment would increase the attractiveness of Oberlin to the kinds of scholars it seeks to recruit and retain. In order to accomplish this goal, the Office of Human Resources should consider developing a specific program or retain a professional employment service so as to assist partners in seeking employment locally, including employment on campus. Other colleges and universities are already providing such services and could be consulted for help in revising our policies. Oberlin's semi-rural surroundings make this a particularly important issue to address.
Another important issue for both untenured faculty and the chairs of their departments or directors of their programs is the number of evaluations we require prior to consideration for permanent appointment. Untenured faculty undergo both annual progress evaluations and salary merit reviews each year after their first. They also typically undergo consideration for reappointment during the third year of initial appointment. The recent decision to postpone the first year assessment of progress to tenure until the beginning of second year means that tenure-track faculty undergo three separate evaluations in their second year. This is a particularly demoralizing practice for both new faculty members and their departments or programs, and it occurs at a crucial point in their process of forming productive collegial relationships. Limiting the number of evaluations of untenured faculty to no more than one per year by combining annual evaluations with reappointment or salary evaluations should be possible and will also aid in reducing the non-teaching workloads of faculty. (See §VII.)
New faculty in our focus groups also spoke eloquently about the crushing load of adjusting to teaching demands at Oberlin while finishing dissertations or working on other major research or artistic projects. Some departments and programs have recognized this problem by giving tenure-track faculty four-course teaching loads during the first year of their employment. Making this practice standard for all tenure-track faculty, as recommended in IV.E, would be an attractive recruiting tool and make time available for new faculty to take advantage of additional orientation programming and mentoring if they so desire. There are also indications that the College's leave policies need to be re-examined. One way of tracking changing needs for additional mid-probationary leave would be to collect data on the numbers of untenured faculty in recent years who have chosen to take a year off at half pay rather than a semester of full-paid leave (taking into account how specific situations may make this easier for some, e.g., for dual-income couples more than for single people).

VI. Joint Appointments

Summary Recommendation

That the College Faculty Council establish a task force to review and, as appropriate, revise policies concerning the appointment of a faculty member to more than one department or program. The task force should consider the following matters: (1) whether a faculty member holding a joint appointment should have a primary department or program; (2) the nature and level of participation of the faculty member in each of the departments or programs to which she or he is appointed; (3) the nature and level of participation of each department or program in the assessment and evaluation of the faculty member. The task force will be expected to complete its work within a semester.

Rationale

There has been a significant increase in interdisciplinary work on the part of many faculty, especially incoming faculty. Hence the College should ensure that faculty and academic programs are well-matched in order both to foster suitable intellectual environments for faculty and to keep academic units current and appropriately coordinated. This evolving reality suggests that we will continue to see interest in joint appointments for some time to come. However, appointment to multiple departments and programs can exact a heavy toll from faculty: too much time is spent serving multiple departments, too much energy is consumed by negotiating the conflicting expectations of different departments, and the burden of undergoing multiple simultaneous evaluations can be demoralizing. Moreover, additional work falls to departments and programs to manage and mentor jointly appointed faculty. Thus, it is desirable to resolve as many of these issues as possible at the time of initial appointment by making a realistic assessment of workload for both the faculty member and the departments involved. It is likely that some individual flexibility is desirable, even necessary, but a reliable and reasonable default standard would be useful.

VII. Salary System

Summary Recommendation

That the processes of evaluating members of the faculty become more uniform, more equitable, and more explicit; that we reward all of the work that Oberlin requires; and that the process of salary evaluation provide an opportunity for us to consider the work of our colleagues with the thoughtfulness it warrants. To that end, the quality as well as the quantity of work in the categories of scholarship, teaching and service should be identified and rewarded, based on the principles that each category has merit and that all faculty should engage meaningfully in each; further, that we move to a biannual system of salary review.

Rationale

There can be little doubt that our current salary system is perceived as demoralizing, excessively time-consuming, and opaque. Some faculty believe that merit shares (especially "1s") have been so broadly awarded as to become meaningless measures of merit; others see the category of standard increase ("0s") as demeaning or as punishment. Still others argue that the rewards overall are so slight and the incentives so meager that we should do away with the merit system altogether and essentially reward everyone equally but make room for special cases (exceptional teaching, exceptional scholarship). Some routinely "opt out" of the system. Further, there is a perceived lack of clear criteria by which our performance as faculty is evaluated. Some faculty are convinced that scholarship is rewarded more than teaching in significant degree because it is easier to quantify. Others are convinced that teaching and service have, in recent years, been rewarded to an increasing degree and to the detriment of recognizing scholarly achievement. Many faculty members not only find departmental and college-wide criteria unclear or absent, but view the salary process as it moves through CFC as mystifying. In short, there is consensus that the salary system is flawed in important ways, although there remain highly divergent views about what is currently rewarded and what should be rewarded.
We operate in a context in which the Board of Trustees wants a salary system that evaluates merit. Further, we operate on the principle that the categories of evaluation should reflect our collective goals, needs and values and that the institution should have a reward system that identifies what constitutes meritorious faculty work. We need to recognize the contradictions embedded in the merit system. A merit system inherently assigns quantitative value to activities that we see in fundamentally qualitative terms. So too, while we may acknowledge the distinction between appreciation for quality work and monetary reward, these will never be fully uncoupled. Most of us will continue to look at our level of salary as the most obvious measure of our value to the institution. While we may acknowledge that a culture of competitive comparison is invidious, rewards will nonetheless be tied to money, which invites comparison and hence will remain invidious. If we also wish to recognize the varying trajectories of individual faculty careers and nourish institutional and personal flexibility, we must acknowledge that a "one size fits all" assessment of merit conflicts with institutional goals, needs, and values. While it may be more convenient in the short term, it works against the goal of affirming our inherent differences and fails to recognize our collective contributions to the quality of our professional life together.
With the clear recognition that no set of proposals to reform the salary system will satisfy all of us, we proceed with the belief that we as a faculty must be able to define what constitutes meritorious work and develop evaluative measures that strive to be qualitatively better than those we now utilize. Further, our current practice of yearly evaluation takes too much of our time and impairs morale. More intensive processes will undoubtedly require more time, so the frequency of evaluations must change. Finally, our salary/evaluation process must be more explicit. We also believe that for tenure-track faculty the salary and evaluations leading toward a tenure decision need to be uncoupled until reappointment consideration.

Proposals

Frequency of evaluation

A. That there be a two-year cycle of merit salary evaluation with one half of the tenured faculty evaluated for merit each year and with all faculty normally receiving at least an across-the-board cost of living increase every year.

B. That the initial merit salary review for tenure-track faculty occur at the time of reappointment, and biannually thereafter. Until the first salary review, tenure-track faculty will not be reviewed for merit and will receive guaranteed annual salary increases. There will, however, be annual assessment by all department members as part of the progress-to-tenure process.

Explanation: We believe biannual review will encourage an atmosphere more likely to foster productive collegiality. Annual reviews have serious drawbacks. Our current annual reviews encourage some faculty to play to the PIR, i.e., to engage in a range of activities that will allow them simply to list things for the purpose of "looking good" in each category. This emphasizes quantity more than quality, and may fail to recognize work not amenable to being listed in a single annual tally. For example, annual review can work against experimentation and growth in teaching. It is hard to take risks that may not work out immediately if student dissatisfaction with the first effort is likely to have salary implications. In the faculty forums we held in spring 2000, a number of colleagues reported that the premium placed on course evaluations had discouraged them from experimenting for fear of not receiving good reviews each semester for every course. Moreover, because it compares quick snap-shots of the entire faculty, annual evaluation runs the risk of working against healthy variation within the faculty. Additionally, annual reviews do not sufficiently acknowledge variation within the work-lives of individuals, including the rhythms of incubation, new starts, occasional false starts and development over time that are essential to the growth of scholarship and teaching. They cannot take into account faculty members' commitment of extra energy to scholarship at one point, teaching at another.
Biannual evaluation will not fully remedy the problems associated with annual reviews. The profiles it provides will still cover a relatively brief period. Our values-what we deem meritorious-will not coordinate with the strengths of all the members of the faculty. But, in conjunction with our other recommendations, biannual evaluation will help place quality in the foreground of our evaluation procedures, and of our assessments of ourselves and each other. It will allow patterns of steady performance, of growth, of risk and payoff to be more apparent, open to assessment and evaluation. An occasional unsatisfactory year or one of lesser accomplishment in one or even two areas will be more likely to appear as aberrations within a larger picture. Biannual review may also spotlight more effectively those faculty members who consistently fall below institutional standards, illuminating problematic patterns and allowing evaluation to be keyed to these, providing clear feedback to the faculty member.
A longer time frame and opportunity for fuller assessments will give colleagues more complete pictures of each others' work, facilitate the pursuit of longer-term goals, diminish demoralization stemming from the onerous task of evaluating every faculty member every year, and-we hope-from the excessive comparisons we all make. Biannual evaluation is not likely to reduce the sheer quantity of work we put into merit evaluation, but it will permit us to deepen our knowledge of one another's work. It is, finally, much more in keeping than annual evaluation with the higher value we as educators place on thorough and qualitative assessment than on quick studies.
Finally, we believe that ample time should be given to tenure-track faculty to establish themselves as scholars, teachers, and members of the community, without salary implications. Beginning with reappointment, however, they should be included in the evaluation process/merit system so they are in a position to reap the full rewards of the merit system and participate more fully in institutional citizenship with its benefits and its costs.

Point system

C. That merit shares be awarded according to a point system to clarify the criteria on which evaluation is made and to reflect the College's needs and the values we prize: 3 points in the category of scholarship, 3 points in the category of teaching, and 2 points in the category of service. The sum of these points would constitute the merit share received by an individual; this evaluation would "hold" for the two-year period. For a faculty member to receive the highest rating (8), we would expect outstanding achievement in all three categories.

Explanation: Precise criteria within each category are to be determined by the College Faculty Council; here we address the general principles of each category.

Scholarship. With a two-year window of consideration, we will be able to take a variety of scholarly and artistic activities into fuller account and be in a better position to review all of these activities for quality, as well as quantity. Faculty will provide context explaining the character of their scholarly/artistic work and work in progress. Peer review from sources both internal and external to Oberlin (departmental colleagues in the former, various forms of recognition by professional peers elsewhere in the latter, including but not limited to work placed in refereed venues), as well as reference to citations in others' work to measure impact, might be brought more fully into consideration in making qualitative assessment. (Also see §I.)
We again acknowledge the contradiction that we are quantifying, to a certain degree, that which we believe is fundamentally a qualitative judgment. We acknowledge as well that some of us would prefer making a salary judgment on the basis of each individual's qualitative profile for a two-year period, while others would prefer the clarity and precision of allotting a particular number of points for particular types of scholarly and artistic work. We believe that only a combination of these is fair and workable.

Teaching. With a two-year look, we believe we will gain a better measure of a person's teaching and course development. Our objective is to foster a more qualitative approach to the evaluation of teaching and greater emphasis on each faculty member's articulation of his/her own teaching methods and goals in courses and curricular development. Hence not only student evaluations, but course syllabi, assignments, and the like might constitute part of the materials to be evaluated in the biannual review.
The Center for Teaching and Curriculum Development we propose in §II would, among other things, help us distinguish between evaluation for personnel actions and assessment for improvements in teaching. It would help us develop instruments more appropriate to these differing tasks and provide consultation for chairs and others that would facilitate a peer-review process.
We propose as well that the category of teaching take into account differentials in teaching loads and work with students outside the classroom, such as Honors projects, independent research, summer internships, mentoring of students, and the like.
While we propose that point values be assigned to teaching during merit evaluation, we again acknowledge the implicit contradiction in qualitative evaluations being translated into quantitative judgments. We believe, however, that greater information about the various types of teaching we engage in will facilitate the assignment of these point values.

Service. In §III and §IV we seek to clarify the kinds and purposes of activity in this category, e.g., that faculty service comprise governance, administrative activities, community participation, and other activities that contribute to the College's well being; we also seek ways to streamline our committee system and assess the substance of each committee's work. All of this will facilitate assigning point values to work in this area. Here again, we note that a two-year window will permit a higher quality assessment of the significance of faculty members' contribution to the institution's needs and goals.

The College Faculty Council should restructure PIRs so as to encourage faculty members to discuss more fully what they are doing and why it matters; to articulate the qualitative aspects of their work and their objectives in all three categories; and to avoid listing their activities with an emphasis primarily on quantity.

Process

D. That the College Faculty Council the process of merit evaluation to employ the following steps:
1. When under review, each member of the faculty will prepare a PIR that includes a qualitative account of the full range his/her work over the two-year period. The PIR will be circulated to all members of the department. After the first year, consistent with current practice, tenure-track faculty and non-continuing faculty with multi-year appointments may choose whether or not to participate in the evaluation of their colleagues. Departmental evaluation will include both a qualitative discussion and the assignment of points in each category. The departmental process of evaluation must include the opportunity for individuals conducting the evaluation to communicate their evaluation to the chair individually; some departments may also wish to hold group meetings.
2. All department evaluations will be written by the chair, with qualitative prose and a tally of the average points assigned by department members in each category. As is now the case, the chair will include her/his individual assignment of points and be invited to write a separate evaluation of the work of the faculty member under review.
3. The chair's evaluation will be written by a department faculty member mutually agreeable to the chair and the rest of the department.
4. Drafts of departmental salary reports for all members under review will be circulated to the entire department for a period of at least three days to allow all members to review the accuracy of the report. This will help ensure an appropriately balanced reporting of evaluations, be they uniform in substantive respects or reflective of divergent points of view. Each final report will then be transmitted to the individual under review, preserving the current week-long period during which individuals may respond to factual errors and building in allowance for dialogue with the chair on the part of the individual being reviewed. The chair's report will be confidential.
5. The final determination of merit will continue to reside with the CFC, which will review the yearly cohort and seek to ensure uniform standards across the College. The Dean will report to the individual faculty member the merit points earned in each category and the monetary value of the composite merit award, which will be added to base salary. The Dean will also continue to summarize for the Arts and Sciences Faculty the outcome of the merit evaluation each year.

Explanation: Our underlying objective is to establish a more nuanced evaluation; we need to change current expectations that critical comments in departmental reports will inevitably lead to low merit awards and that only uniformly glowing comments will garner higher rewards. This will require chairs' reports that will accommodate sometimes critical assessments without mandating a negative evaluation. At the same time, CFC will have to read these reports in the same spirit.
Such a process will require a cultural shift: if we want honest, balanced reporting we will need to change the expectation that judgments that incorporate criticism will inevitably lead to punishment and that only superlatives will net rewards. Moreover we have to acknowledge the inherent tensions between the need for openness and the requirements of confidentiality. As argued elsewhere in this report, the chair constitutes the essential link between the department and the institution; the authority of the chair to articulate his/her own judgment in difficult cases needs to be protected by confidentiality.

Career review

E. That career review occur every six years, timed so as not to occur in the same year as a faculty member's biannual merit reviews.

F. That funds for career review should always be sufficient to ensure appropriate adjustments to base salaries.

Explanation: Career review every six years (a change from the current seven-year cycle) is intended to avoid overlap with merit review and build in more frequent opportunity for adjustment.
As in the past, career review will continue to provide a useful corrective: it allows comparison within a length-of-service cohort, it may be used to adjust inequities due to compression, variations in the size of the merit pool from two-year cycle to two-year cycle, or variations that result from merit point assignments that have consistently fallen on the lower of two possibilities. Career review should also provide adjustment in instances of extraordinary accomplishment, especially in the case of noteworthy published scholarship, exhibition, or performance, or in the case of sustained extraordinary teaching. In rare instances, career review could also recognize extraordinary service contributions.
The process will be conducted by CFC, which will consult the faculty member's current curriculum vitae, biannual reviews since the previous career review, and a separate statement presented by the faculty member if she/he so desires.

Opting out

G. That we preserve the present arrangement by which tenured faculty may opt out of the process of being evaluated for merit shares, in which case they receive cost of living increases only.

Explanation: Because faculty self-evaluation is a central part of the self-determination that lies at the heart of our governance system, we believe that all faculty, including those who choose not to be evaluated, must participate in the evaluation of their peers. We do, however, respect the wishes of those colleagues who choose to uncouple evaluation from salary in their own cases. As is current practice, those who opt out of biannual merit evaluation would nevertheless continue to undergo full-scale performance review at the departmental level every four years. It is expected that all of their materials will be available to their departments, including course evaluations, published work, and PIRs.

Implementation

H. To initiate the new system, all tenured and tenure-track faculty (except those tenure-track faculty who have not undergone reappointment evaluation) will be reviewed according to the point system and process described in C. and D. above. For half of the faculty, subsequent merit evaluation will take place the following year; for the other half, subsequent merit evaluation will take place in two years.

VIII. Department Chairs and Program Directors

Summary Recommendation

That the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences recognizes the crucial role, both administrative and intellectual, played by department chairs and program directors in the College of Arts and Sciences; that the Dean and the College Faculty Council clarify the responsibility and authority of chairs and directors and offer them improved training; and that the Dean and Council seek to make the positions of department chair and program director more tenable by examining their workload, by improving their compensation, and by devising more appropriate reward and evaluative structures.

Note: For ease of exposition, the term "department chair" is sometimes used to mean both department chair and program director.

Rationale

Department chairs are central to the implementation of College policies, and their role in the implementation of changes recommended by the Committee on Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards is especially crucial. Chairs and directors are also uniquely situated among faculty both as executives of institutional policies within departments and programs and as communicators of disciplinary and programmatic needs and views to the College as a whole. Moreover, at a time when Oberlin College is undergoing a significant turnover in its faculty, department chairs have a special role to play in helping new faculty develop successful and satisfying careers at Oberlin. Indeed, chairs' leadership will prove crucial in fostering the democratic pluralism the College must encourage if it wishes to succeed in its efforts to hire and retain an excellent and diverse faculty. In sum, an effective chair can enhance the work of everyone in the department and lead the department in undertaking new initiatives. Yet despite the considerable responsibility vested in department chairs, there is little clarity regarding a chair's authority within the department.
In addition, department chairs and program directors face more acute versions of some problems that affect all faculty. The demands on their time are more severe than the demands on most other faculty. Their workload has become increasingly difficult to manage. It is, therefore, appropriate and necessary to clarify the roles of department chairs and program directors.

Proposals

Appointment

A. That the Dean set the regular term for all department chairs and program directors at four years, and that normally no individual should serve consecutive terms as chair. Faculty with joint appointments should not be appointed to consecutive terms as chair of one department or program and then of the other department or program.

Explanation: Each year of service as chair typically leads to additional erosion of a person's ability to participate actively as a scholar or artist. For this reason, overly long terms as chair can effectively truncate a person's scholarly or artistic career. Under special circumstances, however, longer terms may be appropriate, even desirable. Nonetheless, both deans and prospective chairs are advised to be cautious about agreeing to extended terms.

B. That program directors and department chairs for the coming year normally be named in December, in order to enable departments, programs, and individuals to plan effectively for the coming years.

Explanation: Since appointment as chair leads to the cancellation of courses, and since both individuals and departments or programs need to be able to plan effectively, the naming of department chairs or program directors late in the year can be a significant problem.

Elucidation of responsibilities

C. That annual workshops for chairs be instituted, at which the administration present updated information on the calendar for the year and new legal information (i.e., stemming from recent court cases on sexual harassment, hiring policies, etc.), along with recommendations for effective chairing. Particular attention should be given to assisting new chairs and directors and, where appropriate, portions of the workshop should be open to chairs of College committees.

Explanation: While some of what is proposed above already takes place (for example, advice regarding legal matters), more thorough and comprehensive efforts are needed. In particular, there should be expanded training of new chairs, in terms of both the "nuts and bolts" of running departments and programs and the more nuanced and unexpected issues that arise for chairs. Some of the issues faced by department chairs and program directors (e.g., running an effective meeting) are also relevant to committee chairs, and thus the workshop should be organized so that chairs of committees can attend an appropriate session of the workshop.

D. That the General Faculty Council add language to the Faculty Guide regarding appropriate roles for department chairs and program directors in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Explanation: In some cases, faculty members view the chair as a workhorse who "serves" the department with little authority, or do not appreciate that curricular changes or programmatic suggestions require significant work to implement. Chairs, in turn, must appreciate that their multifaceted roles as leaders of their departments, mentors of junior faculty, and chief communication link between the department and the rest of the institution, require attention and focus. Clarification of the main duties and authorities of the chair should be clearly stated in the Faculty Guide.

Compensation and workload

E. 1. That the Dean set the regular annual stipend for all department chairs and program directors at 1/12 of the mean salary of all continuing faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences.
2. That the Dean's Office determine appropriate annual course release for service as chair or director of each department or program. The specific amount of course release should depend on such factors as department size (including support staff supervised), typical summer workload, technical equipment to be managed, etc., and should be reviewed every ten years.
3. That, upon successful completion of a regular term as chair or director, the chair/director have the option either to have the standard stipend (see 1. above) added to his or her base salary, or to take the equivalent of a one-semester paid leave (this could be taken as a separate leave, added to the next sabbatical, or spread out over two or three semesters).

F. That if a department chair or program director is elected to the College Faculty Council, the General Faculty Council/General Faculty Planning Committee, or the College Educational Plans and Policies Committee, then he or she is normally exempt from other committee service.

G. That the Office of the Registrar develop a calendar for enrollment and registration issues like that for personnel issues currently distributed by the Dean's Office and distribute it at the beginning of the academic year. Other administrative and professional offices should normally clear significant work requests with the academic administration. (See also IV.N.)

H. That the Dean examine the feasibility of eliminating some routine tasks currently undertaken by department chairs and program directors (e.g., signatures on transfer of credit, private reading cards, etc.).

Explanation: The College has attempted to compensate for the increased administrative workload by granting chairs course release and modest extra compensation. However, while helpful, these measures rarely offset the loss of scholarly momentum chairs encounter. In addition, the annual stipend that chairs currently receive is a fixed amount whose significance diminishes as faculty salaries rise over time. Tying the stipend to average salary base ensures that the stipend will escalate in proportion to overall average salary. Further, two issues related to workload are inadequately addressed by current College policy. First, the workload of chairs can vary significantly over time depending on the number of searches one needs to oversee, the number of junior faculty in the department, ongoing technical needs, whether the department or program is undergoing a program review, etc. Moreover, this variation is not entirely related to department size. The institution must develop more refined means to recognize special circumstances that obtain in individual departments and programs. Second, unanticipated work is an ongoing problem. A number of academic and professional offices ask chairs to respond to questionnaires, poll their department members, determine enrollment lists or equipment lists, and the like, often with little or no advanced warning. For persons attempting to organize and control their lives, this generates significant stress. Finally, matters related to registration and enrollment and transfer of credit create significant stresses at particular times during each semester.

Evaluation of chairs and directors

I. That the College Faculty Council revise the salary PIR so as to include questions specific to chairs. Department chairs and program directors should be asked to list fully their activities as chair/director and to outline their role as the department or program leader.

J. That the criteria used to evaluate chairs for merit salary increases be somewhat distinct from those used to evaluate other faculty. In particular, chairs should be evaluated using a 3-2-3 formula, with chairs having the choice to decide, for each evaluation, whether their teaching or their research is to be weighted 2 units; their service is to be weighted 3 units.

Explanation: The institution asks different things of department chairs and program directors than it asks of other tenured and tenure-track faculty, yet chairs are, at present, formally evaluated by the same criteria as other senior faculty. CFC has formally and informally acknowledged the work entailed in chairing departments, but there is a widespread feeling that the period spent serving as chair is simply a time when one sacrifices teaching and scholarship for administrative work, generally at some personal, intellectual, and financial cost. The institution must develop a means to recognize regularly special circumstances that arise for chairs. Moreover, there is, at present, too little distinction made between effective service as chair and less than fully effective service. This contributes to the perception that persons choosing to act responsibly as chair feel little institutional reward for their responsible service, whereas those who take the role less seriously, choosing instead to maintain a primary focus on research or teaching, reap rewards while the institution suffers. To combat this perception, and, to the extent that the perception is an accurate reflection of reality, to correct a serious institutional problem, chairs should be evaluated using criteria that are weighted differently from those for other senior faculty. Moreover, the institution should recognize differences between good, effective chairs and those whose performance as chairs is substandard. In exceptional cases, this may include denial of base salary additions or leaves indicated in E.3.

IX. Annual Reports

Summary Recommendation

That, for a period of five years, the Dean and President report annually to the College Faculty regarding the status of the implementation of the recommendations made above.

Rationale

The recommendations we have made in §§I-VIII are intricate and their implementation will require ongoing efforts by various College divisions. A number of the recommendations, if adopted, will also entail significant budgetary commitments. In particular, we estimate the following major costs:

§I.D.1. More frequent sabbatical leaves. Providing sabbatical leaves every sixth year instead of every seventh would require hiring approximately 2.5 FTE additional sabbatical replacements. The approximate annual cost at this time would be $137,000.

§I.D.4. Increased support for attending professional meetings. In 1999-2000, 153 faculty were reimbursed for attending professional meetings, at an average cost of approximately $470 per meeting. Of these, 110 faculty attended one meeting. This year the reimbursement for travel expenses has been increased about $30. If half of the 110 decided to attend two meetings instead of one, the approximate additional cost would be $27,500. If all 110 attended a second meeting, the approximate cost would be $55,000 annually.

The average meeting registration fee reported by faculty was about $115. Only $40 of this was reimbursed. If the remaining $75 were also reimbursed, for 300 meetings the additional cost would be $22,500.

§I.D.5. Additional Research Status appointments. In a typical year perhaps six or eight proposals are not successful. If six of these are worthy, and five of the appointments are replaced, the replacements would cost about $275,000. The six additional expense allowances would amount to $21,000. These figures represent lower limits, as the number of applications would likely increase.

§I.D.6. Increased research travel funds. The current source of domestic research travel funds is the Grants-in-Aid program, administered by the General Faculty Research and Development Committee. An increase of $40,000 per year would be sufficient to fund most requests for travel funds.

The current source of international research travel funds is the Powers Travel Grants program, also administered by the R&D Committee. Most worthy proposals satisfying the requirement that the project take the traveler to more than one location abroad are funded. To fund research travel to single destinations abroad, perhaps an additional $30,000 could be added annually to the Grants-in-Aid program.

§I.D.7. Student Research Assistants as needed. A student research assistant costs about $1,000 per semester, and $3,000 per summer. Providing 15 student research assistants every semester would require $30,000 annually, while funding 10 student research assistants each summer would require another $30,000 annually.

§I.D.8. Technological support. Salary and benefits for a technology support person who could assist faculty with their research software problems would cost about $60,000 annually.

§II. Center for Teaching and Curriculum Development. The salary and benefits of a staff person for this Center have an estimated current annual cost of $72,000. A half-time secretary might require $36,000. Operating funds for the Center could be $25,000 each year. So a rough total estimate for this Center would be $133,000 annually.

§IV.E. Four-course teaching load for first-year tenure-track faculty. Departments that now follow this practice accommodate the concession by temporarily dropping a course from their curriculum rather than hiring a one-course replacement. In many cases it is very difficult to find a well-qualified person to teach just one course. Nevertheless, a one-course temporary faculty member typically costs $5,000. In a year when 10 new tenure-track faculty are hired, replacing one course for each of them would cost $50,000.

§V.A.8. Childcare during meetings. To hire three students for this purpose presently costs $18.75 per hour. If all committees meet on MWF from noon until 1:20 pm, the total cost of childcare during these periods would be about $85 per week or $2,550 per year.

§VII.F. Sufficient funds for career review. Funds for career review come from the general pool allocated for faculty salary increases. In recent years, sufficient funds have been available.

§VIII.E.1. Stipend for department chairs. This year, 1/12 of the average base annual salary of continuing faculty is about $5,900. Providing this stipend for 30 chairs would cost $177,000, which is an increase of about $134,500 over the current budget.

§VIII.E.3. Bonus for successful completion of term as chair.

Increase in base salary option: If 7.5 retiring chairs choose this option each year, the result would be the annual addition of $44,300 plus associated benefits to the salary budget, where it would remain and increase with salary increases. Unlike the other proposals, which entail a one-time step up in the budget, this is nearly equivalent to repeatedly increasing the size of the faculty by one every year.

Semester paid leave option: With 7.5 chairs completing a term each year, it would be necessary to hire 3.75 FTE of temporary leave replacement faculty annually. This would cost about $206,000 annually.

Thus it likely will take time for all of the recommendations above to be acted upon. We believe that a five-year period should be adequate for implementation and therefore request that the Dean and President keep the College Faculty informed, on an annual basis, as to the progress towards these goals.

Special Committee on Faculty Roles, Responsibilities, and Rewards
David Benzing, Robert S. Danforth Professor of Biology
Susan Jane Colley, Andrew and Pauline Delaney Professor of Mathematics
Jan Cooper, John C. Reid Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition
Heather Hogan, Professor of History
Albert G. Miller, Associate Professor of Religion
Steven Wojtal, Professor of Geology
Sandra A. Zagarell, Professor of English

January, 2001