Report of the University of South Alabama Faculty Senate
Ad hoc Committee on Faculty Governance
April 19, 2000
Members of the ad hoc committee:
Daniel E. Rogers (Arts & Sciences/History), Chair
Mary Engebretson (Library)
John W. Foster (College of Medicine/Microbiology & Immunology)
Michael A. McGinnis (Mitchell College of Business/Transportation &
Marketing)
Stephen D. Morris (Arts & Sciences/Political Science)
Michael P. Spector (Allied Health/Biomedical Sciences)
Summary
This report makes the following recommendations:
Charge: The chair of the Faculty Senate, Elise Labbé-Coldsmith, appointed the committee. She charged the committee with recommending improvements in faculty participation in campus governance at USA.
History: The mission statement of the University specifies a number of institutional responsibilities and goals, none of which can be accomplished without an active, effective, and vibrant faculty. For example (quoting from the mission statement in the University Bulletin):
The University mission actively embraces the functions of teaching, research, public service, and health care through which it vigorously pursues the preservation, discovery, communication and the application of knowledge....
Scholarship is an important aspect of the mission of the University and the responsibility of every faculty member. The University of South Alabama will provide quality research and scholarly activity in all areas of its academic programs and community service activities, as illustrated by the work of its faculty in business, education, engineering, mathematics, science, fine arts, humanities, and health sciences. To advance scholarship the University will provide appropriate instructional and investigative facilities within an atmosphere of academic freedom and shared governance. (emphasis added)
Instruction, research, scholarship, public service, and health care that enhance the economic development of the State and improve the quality of life and health of its citizens are integral and essential parts of its mission as a comprehensive, metropolitan university.
The Faculty Handbook assigns the Faculty Senate the role of working "cooperatively with the chief administrative officer and the other administrative officers of the University for the general welfare of the University." (Section 2.29)
The Faculty Handbook further states (Section 3.1) that "The University of South Alabama ascribes to the Statements of the American Association of University Professors," specifically including the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. That Statement in turn asserts that "Understanding, based on community of interest, and producing joint effort, is essential...." (http://www.aaup.org/govern.htm)
Furthermore, the very idea of a university has always been intimately linked to a faculty willing and able to assume the heavy responsibility of defining and maintaining high academic standards. The precise fashion in which professors have participated in campus governance has varied over time and place. Because a faculty fully in charge of all academic and administrative decisions must have a reliable source of funds, virtually all modern university faculties have relinquished some control over administration and fund-raising in exchange for more stable financing and administration of their academic mission.
The University of South Alabama and its faculty are creatures of the Alabama State Legislature, which in turn has delegated all responsibilities for University administration to the Board of Trustees. As stipulated under the Code of Alabama (Section 16-55), the Board of Trustees has sole discretion in all academic, financial, and personnel decisions.1 The Faculty Handbook acknowledges the Trustees’ ultimate powers and responsibilities when it states: "The faculty recognizes the authority of the Board of Trustees as the governing body of the University of South Alabama. Any responsibilities and duties assumed by the Faculty Senate must be delegated by the Board of Trustees." (FH, 2.29). The faculty at USA, as at other universities, has always proceeded under the assumption that the interests of the state’s citizens and taxpayers, and of the students and other constituents of the University, are best served by a motivated and energetic faculty that takes the lead in shaping, defining, and executing the academic policies of the University. These policies include matters of curricula, programs, research, and hiring and retention of academic administrators.
Recent events at the University have raised serious concerns about the level of institutional commitment to full faculty participation in campus governance:
When a search committee was appointed to search for a University president in 1998, two faculty members were included: Dr. Calvin Jones, chair of the Faculty Senate, 1998-99; and Dr. Leonard Rich of the College of Medicine. Dr. Jones, chair of the Faculty Senate, was not meaningfully consulted in advance about the decision in December 1998 to abandon the search and confirm Gordon Moulton as permanent University president. As a result, the Faculty Senate could not fulfill its responsibility under the Faculty Handbook of participating in searches that have "an impact university-wide" (Faculty Senate Constitution, FH, 2.29). The result was a Faculty Senate resolution of no confidence in the Board of Trustees, widely publicizing a severely dysfunctional process of campus governance.
At its October and November 1999 monthly meetings with the University president and other administrators, the Faculty Senate executive committee raised the issue of college-level alteration, without faculty participation, of duties regulated by the Faculty Handbook. At these meetings, the executive committee was not able to reach a common understanding with the administrators on the nature of its concerns. The executive committee felt frustrated at its inability to participate in a meaningful dialogue with the University’s academic administrators. These encounters further strengthened the Senate leadership’s sense of dysfunctional campus governance and led to this committee’s charge to propose improvements.
Committee Recommendations: The ad hoc committee has focused on four broad areas of concern, and makes proposals to improve each.
First Area of Concern: Insuring proper, timely, and meaningful communication between University administrators and faculty on anything pertaining to the academic mission of the University.
Issue: Lack of communication between faculty representatives on University-wide committees and the Faculty Senate. The Senate may raise issues that are already being addressed by faculty representatives to University-wide committees.
Proposal: The Faculty Senate should participate in the naming of all faculty members to University-wide committees (such as ad hoc campus-wide search committees, Academic Standards, Library, Academic Computing, Bookstore, etc). The Senate might, for example, propose names for each committee to the administration, who would then request the faculty member’s service on the university-wide committee. The faculty representatives to University-wide committees should communicate regularly with an appropriate standing committee of the Faculty Senate. For example, the faculty representatives to the Academic Standards Committee should communicate all news concerning the Academic Standards Committee to the Policy and Handbook Committee chair, who can then inform the entire Policy and Handbook Committee, the Faculty Senate executive committee, and, when necessary, the entire Senate.
Discussion: The Faculty Senate is the sole democratically-chosen body representing University faculty. It should therefore be the clearing house for all faculty efforts to improve the University, in order to avoid duplication of effort and potential working at cross-purposes.
Issue: Development of academic policies affecting the University as a whole without timely faculty participation, specifically within the USA Council of Deans.
Proposal: The Faculty Senate should name, for staggered three-year non-renewable terms, two non-voting participants to all meetings of the USA Council of Deans. These faculty representatives would communicate periodically with the Senate executive committee on the outcome of such meetings.
Discussion: Improvements in academic policies must involve the faculty at some point, and it is far more efficient to have such involvement as early as possible. Choosing faculty representatives for three-year terms insures a sufficiently lengthy service to participate in long-term policy development, while the staggered selection insures regular new faculty perspectives.
Issue: Some colleges and schools have Councils of Chairs meetings without participation by non-administrative faculty. Academic policies are being shaped at an early stage without participation by full-time teaching and clinical faculty.
Proposal: Each college or school should, with the approval of the college’s or school’s elected Faculty Senate representatives, send an appropriate number (one to three) faculty representatives in staggered, non-renewable three-year terms to meet as non-voting participants at all college/school Council of Chairs meetings.
Discussion: As for the above-mentioned issue concerning the Council of Deans, faculty participation in academic questions is crucial from the very earliest stages – if such policies are to be a success. Furthermore, department and program chairs, as well as deans, can benefit from a non-administrative faculty view on most issues affecting the college or school.
Issue: Excessively lengthy discussions of purely academic questions at the regular monthly meetings between the Senate executive committee and the University president, VPAA, and VP for Financial Affairs.
Proposal: The Faculty Senate Policy and Handbook Committee should hold regularly scheduled meetings with the senior vice president for academic affairs. These meetings should take place in addition to, and not as a replacement for, existing Faculty Senate executive committee meetings with the University president. A monthly meeting schedule is suggested as a start – experience would then dictate whether more or less frequent meetings are advisable.
Discussion: Many issues of a purely academic nature can be discussed at greater length and depth in a meeting between faculty senators and the VPAA. These issues may still need to be aired with the president at the regular meetings with the Senate executive committee, but time and effort can be reduced if most issues are discussed in advance with the VPAA.
Issue: Development of academic policies (for example: curricula, workload, hiring procedures) without a well-defined, clear, and transparent procedure.
Proposal: A clear statement or outline in the Faculty Handbook charting the process by which academic policies are created, amended, or deleted.
Discussion: Two ad hoc committee members have noted that policies appeared this year without a clear idea of the process by which they developed (examples: the process by which chairs are hired; dress codes for faculty members). The Senate and Office of Academic Affairs should cooperate and create a clear statement of the process that must be followed if specific academic policies are to be created, amended, or deleted.
Issue: The Board of Trustees does not hear a consistent faculty voice on major issues directly affecting the academic mission of the University. The Board allows faculty attendance at its quarterly meetings, but on the same basis as the general public, with no consistent opportunity for the faculty members present to speak without specific invitation to do so.
Proposal: The Board of Trustees should be requested to allow the Faculty Senate to recommend a faculty liaison to serve for a three-year term as a non-voting participant at the table at all Board of Trustees meetings, including executive sessions.
Discussion: In order to facilitate better communication among the faculty and the Trustees, a liaison is vital. This liaison would be responsible to the Faculty Senate and would be expected to present a verbal report to the Senate at the Senate meeting following each Board meeting. At its December 1999 meeting, the Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling for just such faculty participation. There is currently no regularly scheduled opportunity for the governing board of the University to hear about the academic mission of the University from the faculty who regularly carry out the mission. A three-year term would allow for the faculty member to provide a continuity of perspective not possible when the faculty senate is represented solely by its chair, who is replaced annually.
Second Area of Concern: Faculty participation in the hiring, evaluation, and retention of the academic administrators.
Issue: Chairs, deans, the senior vice-president for academic affairs, and the president are academic administrators whose primary purpose is the smooth functioning of their unit’s or the university’s academic mission. Thorough evaluation and suggestions for improvements might helpfully come not only from superiors and other administrative subordinates, but also from the full-time teaching and clinical faculty.
Proposal: Each department or program, school or college, and the University as a whole (concerning the VPAA and the president) should develop an annual evaluation for its administrators, to be completed by the faculty served by the administrator. As far as possible, the evaluations should be standardized across colleges and schools to provide comparability. The results of the evaluation should be made known to the administrator being evaluated, the faculty who participated in the evaluation, and the administrative superior of the person being evaluated (in the case of the president, such results should be forwarded to the Board of Trustees).
Discussion: Such processes for evaluation are currently in place for administrators at various levels and in various colleges or schools. This proposal would standardize the process and give the full-time teaching and clinical faculty an opportunity to express their appreciation of good administration, or their suggestions for improvements. The University can only benefit from better, standardized information on how its administration is being perceived by those closest to the daily pursuit of the academic mission of the University. Existing annual evaluation through the annual faculty survey is helpful, but does not allow for comparisons over time and between colleges, schools, and units beyond the broadest "popularity" questions. A standardized ten-question survey, for example, might be far more helpful in revealing the strengths of administrators and the areas they might improve.
Third Area of Concern: Improving the Faculty Senate’s ability to act quickly, thoroughly, and responsibly as the elected voice of the University’s faculty.
Issue: During the year of their service, the Faculty Senate chair and secretary are overwhelmed by administrative detail, committee meetings, and other new assignments. Their departments are not given increased secretarial or operating budgets to accommodate the vastly increased responsibilities of the Senate chair and secretary.
Proposal: The Faculty Senate executive committee should be given secretarial support from the Office of Academic Affairs up to the equivalent of a half-time secretary. This secretary would assist the chair and secretary of the Senate in their duties (correspondence, photocopying, e-mail, Web page updates, keeping Senate minutes, etc).
Discussion: Keeping the secretary within the Office of Academic Affairs minimizes the need for any new space or equipment, and insures continuity of staff support every year when the Senate leadership changes.
Issue: The year in which a full-time teaching faculty member is elected to serve as chair of the Faculty Senate is filled with a plethora of new duties, committee assignments, and speaking engagements. Service on university-wide committees, planning for Senate meetings and functions, and representing the faculty at a variety of on- and off-campus functions seriously detracts from the chair’s ability to carry out her or his teaching, research, and/or clinical duties in the year of service as chair. The chair becomes, briefly, an academic administrator and would benefit professionally from the same consideration for reassignment of teaching duties as is offered to other academic administrators.
Proposal: The committee strongly recommends a reduction of the Senate chair’s teaching assignments to one class per semester during the year of service. If such a reduction is impossible in the year of the chair’s service, the reduction should occur the following year in order to facilitate the ex-chair’s resumption of a productive scholarly life.
Discussion: The University’s commitment to shared governance is nowhere more clear than in its willingness to adjust the Senate chair’s duties for a year in order to allow the most effective possible faculty participation in campus governance. Reassignment of a significant portion of teaching duties is a standard means of accommodating vastly increased time pressures created by new administrative duties.
Fourth Area of Concern: Some college and school faculties do not have regular meetings or assemblies in which to discuss in common their concerns and proposals for improvement.
Issue: The College of Medicine has a set of by-laws for a faculty assembly that meets at least once a semester. That assembly shares important powers concerning the development and implementation of academic policies with the college administration. Other colleges and schools might see improved faculty morale if similar assemblies and by-laws were adopted.
Proposal: Each college or school that does not already have a formal faculty assembly with by-laws (such as exist in the College of Medicine) should establish such an assembly to assist its dean in developing and administering all academic policies.
Discussion: The faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences, for example, held its first regular faculty meeting in nearly a decade in the fall of 1999. Full faculty engagement in the success of the academic mission of the college is impossible under such circumstances.
1. Section 16-55-3 states:
"The Board of Trustees of the University of South Alabama shall have all
the rights, privileges and authority necessary to promote the purpose of its
creation, which is to establish and provide for the maintenance and operation of
a state university in Mobile County. The board may hold, lease, sell or in any
other manner not inconsistent with the object or terms of the grant or grants
under which it holds, dispose of any property, real or personal, or any estate
or interest therein, as to it may seem best for the purposes of the institution,
and sales of property, real or personal, may be made at any time by the
trustees."
Section 16-55-4 states: "The board of
trustees shall have the power to organize the institution by appointment of
instructors and faculty members and such executive and administrative officers
and employees as may be necessary to operate the university; the trustees may
remove any officers, faculty members or employees of the institution in their
discretion and shall have the power and authority to fix salaries or
compensation, increase or reduce the same at their discretion, to regulate,
alter or modify the government of the institution as they may
consider advisable. The trustees may prescribe courses of instruction, rates of
tuition and fees, confer such academic and honorary degrees as are usually
conferred by institutions of like character; and they may do whatever else they
may consider in the best interest of the institution." (Jump
back to Text above at Point of Note 1)