Faculty Assembly Executive Council | Minutes | 3/13/19

Faculty Assembly Executive Council [FAEC] Meeting Minutes

Date: Wednesday, March  13, 2019 | Location: A220  | Time: 10:30 am to 12:00 pm

Attendees: Kathryn Zeno, Tae Kwak, Donna Flynn, Sam Mustafa, Kathy Zeno, Renata Gangemi, Christina Connor, Hugh Sheehy, Kim Lorber, Catalin Martin

Secretary: Nakia Matthias

Guests:  President Mercer

FAEC Minutes Approved

1.  African American Literature Line and Changes to the name of the Literature Convening Group

Indication of the intention to renew the African American Line should have been made known much earlier in the AY.   It Deans have to ask for lines to be renewed or created.

The impact factor African American Literature at RCNJ needs to be established.   The Student Government Association can make a claim to demand that African American literature courses, and a professor  are in place.

2.  Tenure, Promotion and Scholarship

The FAEC discussed the complexity of determining adequate scholarship at the all college level for tenure and promotion considerations.  Provost Becker requests that all conveners devise explicit criteria for evaluating scholarship. Concern was raised about the acceptance of  faculty definitions of scholarship as the process for determining adequate scholarship becomes more complex.

RCNJ is currently over the threshold for associate professorship.  There are several associate professorship openings and are now at a bottleneck for full professorship.  There are currently eight candidates and two slots for full professorship. The FAEC would like clarification about how the administration plans to respond to the changing bottleneck.

There are currently fewer applicants for Associate Professor and more applicants for Full Professor than there are slots.  President Mercer is reviewing this procedure to ensure that tenure and promotion considerations are awarded separately. He explained that the tenure decision is the more important decision and tenure may be granted but not promotion.  President Mercer insists that financial reasons should not dictate faculty ability to advance from associate professorship to full professorship. For several years, the College has not been observing the 37.5% cap on associate (for which we are over) and we are under 37.5% of full professors .  Financial considerations inform this determinations in addition to union negotiations.

3.  Provost’s Discussion Paper

The proposals made in the Provost’s discussion paper are  unclear to some faculty and some are not in favor of the proposals made in the document. The Provost mentioned it is simply  a plan for discussion.  The 4/4 and 4/3 course load that the discussion paper mentions is likened to the initiative of the taskforce of the former Provost Edward Cody. Some faculty believe that this would move them backward to a situations that were not favorable to all faculty members’ ability to be productive.  For students, taking on a three-credit system a single failed course means students will have to overload their courses in order to graduate on time. With the current proposal outlined in the discussion paper, even if teaching load changes are off of the table converting to a three-credit system  will change how tuition is charged and how credits are allocated. Additionally, the assumption is that if classes are three credits there will also be a reduction in the content that is covered.

4.  President Mercer:

President Mercer explained that he would like to continue to disseminate alert messaging about delayed openings and early closings in their existing form.  He does to want to include additional information or revise the wording to avoid confusion. President Mercer explained that the exact opening time is determined via considerations about how much time the physical plant needs to make the campus habitable and traversable, as well as limiting any harm to scheduled classes.  He advised that faculty should never inform students to travel to campus before published delayed opening times. In the event of delayed openings, too few faculty and students are aware of the 60 minute rule whereby if a class has more than 60 minutes of time remaining, then it should continue to meet.  In the past, the alert messages have been inconsistent as they sometimes contained specific details regarding cancelled classes, while other times they have not included this information. Clinical classes meeting eight to twelve hours, as well as labs, or classes that meet once per week a are impacted the most by delayed openings and early closings as it becomes difficult if not impossible to make up the missed time.  Faculty encouraged to include their specific instructions for delayed openings and early closings in their course syllabi.  

Meeting Adjourned at 12:00 pm

Categories: FACULTY ASSEMBLY MINUTES