FACULTY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Annual Report to the Faculty

2003-2004

 

 

The Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) is established by the University Statutes, Article II, Section 4, and is elected by the faculty at each campus.  It is authorized to investigate grievances and is a channel for direct communication with administrators and a means of voicing suggestions for the good of the University.  Any member of the faculty may approach the Committee and is entitled to a consultation with the Committee or any member of it.  The Statutes also require that FAC make such reports to the Chancellor, the President, the Senate, and the faculty as it deems appropriate.

The following is a report of FAC activities for 2003-04.

 

Meetings and Membership

The members of the FAC are agents of the University, concerned first and foremost with the best interests of the institution.  The Committee serves as an advocate for fairness with respect to the application of campus policy and procedures.

The FAC meets twice a month throughout the year to consider items brought to its attention by faculty and administrators, and in addition periodically meets with the Provost to discuss specific cases and related or other academic issues.  On our campus, the FAC is comprised of nine tenured faculty; three are elected each year for three-year terms.  Nominations for 2005-08 appointments will take place between February 4 and 25; elections will be held April 1 through 15.

 

Caseload

While the FAC hears complaints from any faculty member, the Committee is authorized to make findings only on matters involving the application of procedures and policies, and cannot make judgments related to evalua­tion of scholarly achievements and activities.

Most grievances are first received by the Committee as consultations.  If it is determined that there is merit to the complaint and other University avenues of appeal have been exhausted, the FAC will appoint a subcommittee to conduct an investigation into the matter.  The nature of complaints that come before the FAC varies, and some issues overlap.  The cases and consultations considered during 2003-04 can be categorized as follows:

 

                        Description                    Cases               Consultations

                        Nonreappointment               1                             1

                        Denial of Tenure Review                                      1

                        Tenure Decision                  1

                        Administrative Action                                          4

                        Salary                                                               2

                        P&T Process                                                     2

                        Sexual Harassment                                            1

                        Harassment/mistreatment                                  1

                        Termination                                                       1

                        Leave of Absence                                              1

                        Total                                 2                            14

 

Outcomes

Of the two cases receiving formal investigations by FAC in 2003-04, FAC made a recommendation to the campus administration for further action in one case involving nonreappointment.  In the other case, FAC made a determination that no further action was required.  The fourteen consultations were either carried over into 2004-05 (7), referred to other avenues of appeal (3), resolved by the grievant after consultation with FAC (3), or declined by FAC for further review (1).

This statistical breakdown does not provide a complete representation of the types of problems faculty encounter on the UIUC campus, since many faculty choose not to pursue their grievances to this level. Moreover, in conducting its investigations, the FAC at times discovers underlying issues that go beyond an individual grievance, and these may not be fully reflected in the statistics.

 

Issues and Recommendations

Following is a list of issues of a recurring or systemic nature that we identified in the course of our investigations in 2003-04.

 

Composition of Promotion and Tenure Appeals Committees

As noted in last year’s annual report, FAC continues to urge that appeals of negative tenure and promotion decisions be conducted by an independent committee, specifically, one that does not include individuals who were involved in the original decision-making process.  Following up on this recommendation, the FAC chair, together with the chair of the Senate Executive Committee, met with then Provost Herman in July to discuss proposed changes to the language of Communication No. 10, Guidelines and Procedures for Notice of Nonreappointment for Nontenured Faculty Members.  Dr. Herman expressed his intention to initiate a process of review and revision in the fall 2004 semester, and we have been notified by Acting Provost Delia that this process is underway, with implementation expected for the 2005-06 redaction of Communication No. 10.

 

Minimum Procedural Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure Review

In the course of investigating denial of tenure grievances, FAC sometimes encounters situations where a department or College followed procedures that may allow for the operation of bias in evaluation of the candidate.  Examples of questionable procedures are departmental votes cast without a meeting of the voting body to discuss the candidate’s record, or decisions based on factors extraneous to the candidate’s dossier.  FAC considered recommending to the Provost that minimum guidelines for promotion and tenure review be issued, comparable to the mandate issued by the Provost in September 2001 for minimum bylaws-based grievance procedures in all departments and colleges.  However, before undertaking this project, FAC decided to wait on the outcome of the Provost’s effort to establish bylaws-based grievance procedures.

 

Role of FAC

FAC receives inquiries and requests for consultations covering a wide range of issues.  The statutes stipulate that FAC “shall make such investigations and hold such consultations as it may deem to be in the best interest of the University.”  In order to gauge the nature of FAC involvement in campus governance and administrative practices over the last three decades, we reviewed annual reports and other documents on file from the 1970s to the present.  Although the majority of issues considered by FAC in recent years pertain to the promotion and tenure process, historically FAC has addressed issues as wide-ranging as faculty recruitment and retention, academic freedom, faculty evaluation, salary equity and salary grievance procedures, teaching assignments, tenure rollbacks, the status of female faculty, academic integrity, sexual harassment (prior to the establishment of formal university policy), and instances of discrimination and harassment that fall outside the campus policies on harassment and discrimination.  In some instances, the FAC recommendation to the administration contributed to the establishment of new practices and norms on campus, such as the standards for promotion and tenure and the policy and procedures concerning academic integrity.  We continue to discuss the parameters of FAC competence and our relationship to other agencies on campus, particularly Senate committees and administrative channels for redress of grievances.

 

Access to Information

As we reported last year, in 2003 FAC met with University Counsel to determine what records, in the case of a negative promotion and tenure decision, the employee has access to under the terms of Provost's Communication Nos. 9 and 10 and other applicable regulations, such as the Illinois Employee Access to Records Act and the Personnel Record Review Act.  We learned that the employees may inspect the letter of the College promotion and tenure committee reporting their decision to the Dean, as well as the letter, if one exists, of the departmental promotion and tenure committee to the head of the department. (External letters of reference solicited for the purpose of the promotion and tenure review are not subject to inspection, unless a court of law determines otherwise.)  For explanation of which documents are disclosable, grievants are referred to the section entitled "Confidentiality" under "Evaluation of the Candidate's Performance and Potential" in Provost's Communication No. 9.

FAC has long taken the position that individuals grieving nonreappointment decisions will be able to make more informed decisions about their appeal when they obtain this information and, in 2003, University Counsel concurred with this position.  Insofar as customary practice on campus has not recognized this right of access, we expect that grievants will be permitted to inspect these documents only with some difficulty until the colleges gain more experience with this policy.  We continue informally to monitor progress of grievants in their efforts to obtain this information.

 

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This report and previous annual reports can be found on-line at www.fac.uiuc.edu.  The FAC Articles of Procedure are attached.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

2003-04 Committee                                      2004-05 Committee

Mary P. Stuart, Chair                                     Mary P. Stuart, Chair

Paul Gerding                                                 Paul Gerding (r. Fall 2004)

Carl G. Jockusch (r. Fall 2003)                       Sandra L. Kopels

Sandra L. Kopels                                           Craig Koslofsky (e. Fall 2004)

Herman Krier                                                 Herman Krier

Guillermo Mendoza                                        Lynn Barnett Morris

Lynn Barnett Morris                                       Jan Novakofski

Jan Novakofski                                              Ann Reisner

Beth Sandore                                                Beth Sandore

Billie Theide (e. Spring 2004)                          Billie Theide

 

 

 

ATTACHMENT: FAC Articles of Procedure

February 2005