The follwoing white paper was written for presentation at the Academic Senate Retreat on August 25, 1995 and published in the Academic Senate Forum Vol. 3, No.1, 1995



Responsibilities and Rights of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty



Authors: Sarah Pratt (Coordinator), Natalie Alexander, Erwin Chemerinsky, T.C. Cheng, Najwa Hanel, and Guilbert Hentschke

We have been asked by the Provost and the Executive Board of the Academic Senate to investigate faculty responsibilities and faculty commitment to the university, primarily in relation to procedures for the definition and evaluation of full-time work. We do so gladly. However, we note that faculty responsibilities form a natural partnership with faculty rights, and we submit this white paper with the understanding that faculty rights must also be a focal point of university discussion. The main right at issue here is the right of faculty to be judged by faculty peers in conjunction with the administration, on the basis of standards and methods determined by faculty peers in conjunction with the administration.

We believe that faculty, chairs, and administrators should work together on these and other related issues. We make the proposals below with the recommendation that they be discussed and approved jointly by the faculty council and administration of each school before they are put into effect in that school.

The need for a review of faculty responsibilities and commitment stems from the following conditions:

Our goal is to address the issues above in practical terms, taking last year's white paper on Faculty Responsibility and Professional Development as our philosophical starting point. The key passages in last year's document read as follows:

"We believe that the Faculty Handbook should make clear that a tenure-track faculty position is a full-time position and that the faculty member may engage in other activities only if they do not interfere with University responsibilities...

"Faculty members, of course, are expected to engage in teaching, including: meeting all class sessions, having regular and frequent office hours, and grading written work in a timely fashion. Additionally, faculty members are expected to engage in high quality on-going scholarship of a type appropriate for their field or discipline. Also, faculty members are expected to participate in committees, both at the University level and within their school or unit...

"All evaluations of tenure-track faculty members - including promotion, tenure, and merit salary increases - should consider teaching, scholarship, production, and service activities. Although endeavors may not be given equal weight in evaluations, it is important that all be considered."


Recommendations of This Year's Working Group


1. The nature, quantity, and quality of full-time work


Because of the differences among the schools that constitute the university, we believe that standards for the nature, quantity, and quality of full-time work are best determined school by school. We therefore recommend that a task force made up of the cognizant dean and the elected faculty council of each school, or the cognizant dean and a subgroup appointed by the elected faculty council of each school, establish the standards for the nature, quantity, and quality of full-time work in that school.

2. The Spitzer Profile as a tool for defining the relative proportion of effort devoted to different aspects of full-time work


The most appropriate instrument we know for defining the relative proportion of effort devoted to different aspects of full-time work is the Spitzer Profile.

Each faculty member should be evaluated for tenure, promotions, and merit salary increases in acccordance with the distribution of effort indicated by his or her Spitzer Profile, and in accordance with the standards for the nature, quantity, and quality of full-time work established by his or her school.

2.1 Typical distribution of effort under the Spitzer Profile

We recommend the following as the typical distribution of effort under the Spitzer Profile for full-time appointments:
35-45% Teaching + 35-45% Research + 5-15% Service must = 100%

This means that 35-45% of the individual's effort would be devoted to teaching, 35-45% to research, and 5-15% to service to the university. The total must equal 100% if the individual has a full-time appointment.

Teaching includes classroom teaching and other supervision of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academic advising. The faculty member's general availability on campus to students and willingness to teach on various days of the week and at various times of day on rotation should also be considered under teaching.

Research is the faculty member's scholarly production, reviewed and approved for publication (or the analogous function) by peers in the field.

Service includes committee work and other activities undertaken on behalf of the department, school, or university, and service to the community specifically as a representative of the university.

If a school wishes to recommend a different typical distribution of effort for its faculty, a task force made up of the cognizant dean and the elected faculty council, or the cognizant dean and a subgroup appointed by the elected faculty council, should establish the recommended percentages for the Spitzer Profile in that individual school.

3. Means for establishing Spitzer Profiles for individual faculty members


3.1 Selection of a typical Spitzer Profile

A faculty member selecting a Spitzer Profile typical for his or her school need not take any special steps. It is expected that most faculty members will adopt a typical profile.

3.2 Selection of a customized Spitzer Profile

A faculty member selecting a customized Spitzer Profile may do so in consultation with, and with the approval of, the chair and cognizant dean of the relevant units, as long as the profile does not fall below the minimum percentage for a customized Spitzer Profile in any category as defined by the school (see item 3.3 below) and as long as the total yields 100% if the individual has a full-time appointment.

At some point, the university community may want to consider the voluntary use of customized Spitzer Profiles based on less than full-time effort. This means that the individual's total effort would be less than 100% (less than full-time) and that the individual's salary would be reduced accordingly.

3.3 Recommended minimum percentages for a customized Spitzer Profile

The Spitzer Profile is extremely flexible, in principle allowing a range of 0% to 100% effort in any given category as long as the total of the three categories adds up to 100%. Because it is important for the life of the University and for the principle of academic freedom that the tenure system remain strong, it is expected that each faculty member continue to make a significant contribution in each of the three areas. We recommend that minimum permissible percentages be established in each category of faculty effort. A low or minimum percentage in one or two categories would require a correspondingly higher percentage of effort devoted to the remaining category or categories to achieve the full-time total of 100%. We therefore recommend that, in the absence of special circunistances, no faculty member devote less than 25% effort to teaching, less than 25% effort to research, or less than 5% effort to service. The principle of minimum permissible percentages might be written out schematically as follows:

Teaching > 25% + Research > 25% + Service > 5% must = 100%

If a school wishes to recommend different minimum percentages, a task force made up of the cognizant dean and the elected faculty council, or the cognizant dean and a subgroup appointed by the elected faculty council, should establish minimum percentages for that school.

4. Relation of ratings to salary


We strongly recommend that the university community consider ways to link salaries more closely to merit ratings, and to establish salary pools of sufficient size that distinctions of merit make a real difference in faculty salaries. Many faculty feel that the recent small salary pools have removed virtually all incentive for merit because distinctions of merit yield only minor differences in salaries.

5. Accountability


The standards for the nature, quality, and quantity of full-time work, and the evaluation procedures affirmed by each school's faculty council and dean will be kept on file in the Office of the Provost. The faculty council, departments, and dean of each school will be responsible for noting deviations from approved standards and procedures, and for reporting them to the dean and/or provost. This applies to general practice rather than individual cases, and it does not supersede the right of individual faculty members to appeal their evaluations or salaries through other channels.

(Information on appendices is available in the Academic Senate Office.)


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