Faculty Organization and Council
Faculty Affairs Committee
Members
Michael Brown,
Chair (BUS)
Pelin Bicen (BUS)
John Champagne (HSS)
Elena Corbett (HSS)
Antonella Cupillari (SCI)
Sudarshan Nelatury (ENG) FA11
Peter Olszewski (SCI)
Dipo Onipede (ENG)
Elisa Wu (ENG) SP12
Purpose
The Faculty Affairs Committee advises the Council and administration on matters of policy concerning faculty affairs, on matters regarding the cultural, social, and material welfare of the faculty, and on matters affecting the educational environment in which the faculty work. Among the policy matters of concern to the Committee on Faculty Affairs are the following: faculty appointments, leaves, salaries and fringe benefits, and "rights and responsibilities." The Committee makes recommendations for the modification of existing policies and assists the College administration in the formulation of new policies and related matters.
Charges for Current Year
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Review the Behrend College faculty incentive system. In 2010-2011 the Chancellor asked the schools to examine their faculty incentive systems including promotion and tenure and annual review in terms of their ability to encourage faculty to maximize their productivity in line with a broad interpretation of the mission of Behrend College. One question is whether the current rewards systems attempts to fit all faculty into a one-size fits all mentality or provides the flexibility for excellence in a range of activities including teaching and the scholarship of teaching, research, both basic and applied, scholarship and service to the college and outreach to the college, University and community. Although this is a broad charge, the Committee may request and examine the school’s incentive systems, and identify best practices for enhancing faculty engagement and productivity. One important question is whether the incentive systems in the four schools, which have unique programs and faculty interests, are also clear and consistent enough to provide fairness in evaluation at the college level for P&T.
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Revisit the issue of faculty workload policies. Provost Erickson requested as part of the University Strategic Plan that all academic units examine their faculty workload policies. An ad hoc committee met in the summer of 2010 and provided recommendations to continue discussions at the school level and benchmark with other campus colleges. A Behrend college workload policy was developed and approved by the Provost. The schools are currently discussing their missions and how different faculty activities are valued. The Faculty Affairs Committee should review the Behrend College document in the context of the work at the schools to determine whether revisions to the college workload document should be recommended to the Faculty Organization.
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Work with the Research Committee to ensure that attempts at external funding and outreach efforts are included in a broader college and school definition of research and scholarship.
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Faculty at the campuses are less likely to be promoted to full professor than at University Park despite having similar tenure rates. The Committee may help to identify the barriers to faculty moving through the ranks and identify best practices for senior faculty mentoring. The Committee should examine the current guidelines for promotion to full professor and senior lecturer for the college and make recommendations to improve equity and transparency.
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Examine the role of Fixed Term I and Fixed Term Multi-Year faculty at Behrend. How are they integrated into programs? Do they have high job satisfaction? Are workloads fair and equitable across schools? What are the patterns of hiring across time at the University and at Behrend? Are we relying more on FT faculty? Can some FTI lines be converted to FTM lines?
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Rank and title. Discuss whether Behrend should in some cases offer assistant professor titles to fixed term faculty. At other Penn State campuses, rank and title are not necessarily the same. For example, at the Penn State College of Medicine, many faculty who are not tenured or on the tenure track hold the title of assistant professor, associate professor, or professor.
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Faculty salaries: Are we keeping up or falling behind? Make a comparison to other campuses and other schools. Dr. Light has offered to assist with this charge.
Reports (PDF Format)
Minutes (PDF Format)
2011-12