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SKIDMORE COLLEGE |
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Committee on Faculty Governance (CFG) The Committee on Faculty Governance (CFG) met 25 times during the academic year 2001-2002, and convened the Committee of Committees on three occasions. In addition to conducting its routine business (Faculty Handbook maintenance, committee elections and appointments, replacing committee members as necessary, etc.), CFG dealt with many issues, great and small: STRATEGIC PLANNING CFG convened a faculty-only discussion meeting on Friday, 26 October 2001 to provide an opportunity for the faculty to consider the draft of the strategic plan presented early in the fall semester. The sense of the faculty expressed at that meeting was summarized in a resolution offered by CFG and approved by the faculty at the 2 November 2001 Faculty Meeting. In brief, the resolution urged that the strategic plan highlight excellence in liberal education as a central goal, recognize the necessity of a productive faculty of teacher-scholars to the achievement of that goal, and reflect the input of the writing sub-group of Academic Staff, drafts of which were to be circulated prior to the 7 December 2001 Faculty Meeting. The writing sub-group's draft was conveyed to IPC with the endorsement of the faculty through a resolution offered by Mehmet Odekon and approved by the faculty at the December Faculty Meeting. At the request of President Studley, CFG offered advice as to the composition of certain of the working groups involved in the elaboration of the strategic plan's various "bullets." In order to provide background for the discussion of the strategic plan in December, CFG arranged for several "out reports" from committees that were involved in the ongoing process of planning (CASA, CEPP, DAAC, FDC, and FPPC). The committee also consulted with the VPAA/DOF and the President regarding the structure of the agenda for the meeting (such consultations occurred prior to several Faculty Meetings). In April 2002, CFG conducted a straw poll to assess the level of support for a resolution in support of the (revised) strategic plan. The results indicated that a substantial majority would support the draft motion; accordingly, CFG offered a successful resolution endorsing the strategic plan (version dated 22 April 2002) at the 26 April 2002 Faculty Meeting. PARTICIPATION IN FACULTY GOVERNANCE Over the last decade, elections of committee representatives had become stressful, dispiriting affairs for CFG, and the fall 2001 elections were no exception. Returns from willingness to serve forms have been meager, not infrequently yielding a list of eligible candidates in one-one correspondence with the number of open positions, and consequently noncompetitive elections. (This is one symptom of the increasing demands on faculty time and energy to which we have with reluctance grown accustomed in recent years.) CFG determined to address the "participation problem" systematically, and to that end proceeded on a variety of fronts: Sensing that the electronic willingness to serve and ballot forms were too long, forbidding, and laden with boilerplate (and therefore easy targets for immediate deletion), we redesigned these using web links to committee descriptions and membership lists. (Katie Hauser took the lead on this project, working with Sue Blair in the office of the VPAA/DOF.) CFG discussed the problem of faculty participation in governance with Chuck Joseph on several occasions, including the January 2002 Committee of Committees meeting. We are pleased that Dean Joseph is working to make the process of awarding course releases or other "offsets" for committee service more regular and transparent. With Gove Effinger's leadership, CFG conducted a simple descriptive statistical study of patterns of service on faculty committees among tenured, untenured tenure-track, and non-tenure-track faculty. The data and some modest conclusions appear in Part Two of the CFG White Paper (see the next item). In brief, the study showed that the untenured, tenure-track faculty are doing more than their "fair share" on faculty committees, whereas the tenured faculty are doing relatively less. In spring 2002 CFG developed and distributed by email A CFG White Paper: Improving Participation in Faculty Governance (4 April 2002) to present the problem and several possible incentive-driven solutions. Given the lateness in the semester and the community's focus on other issues, it was clear that discussion of the White Paper would have to be deferred to the next academic year, a project that CFG intends to pursue. FACULTY HANDBOOK CHANGES The Faculty Handbook states that CFG is "responsible for ensuring that the text of the Faculty Handbook appears and remains precisely as approved by the faculty." Each summer, a CFG representative works with the office of the VPAA/DOF to revise the Handbook to reflect all changes approved during the preceding academic year (as well as to correct typos, etc.). The revised Handbook is then presented at the September Faculty Meeting for adoption in October. The Faculty Handbook was amended by faculty action in the following ways during the academic year 2001-2002: The Faculty Development Committee's function statement (in Part Two) was amended to include the selection of the recipient of the Ralph A. Ciancio Award for Excellence in Teaching, and its membership statement was amended to include a representative of the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, not specifically the VPAA/DOF him/herself. These changes were approved at the 5 October 2001 Faculty Meeting (for inclusion in the 2001-2002 edition). Two obsolete references to the "CAPT Review Committee" were removed from the Faculty Handbook by a CFG motion approved at the 5 October 2002 Faculty Meeting. The CAPT promotion legislation, passed at the 26 April 2002 Faculty Meeting, entails several changes to Part One, Article X, PROMOTION. The procedures for replacing members of CAPT when tenure or promotion cases involve candidates in their own departments were changed by a CFG motion approved at the 26 April 2002 Faculty Meeting; these procedures appear in the membership description of CAPT (in Part Two). The promotion of Artists- and Writers-in-Residence was converted from a two-tier to a three-tier system by a CFG motion approved at the 26 April 2002 Faculty Meeting; three passages in Part One were amended by this motion. OTHER ISSUES/ACTIONS Here, in roughly chronological order, is a list of other things that CFG dealt with this past year. At the start of the year the Chair completed an extensive survey on faculty governance. This survey involved a comparative analysis of responses from senior administration members and faculty members involved with the governance system at institutions of diverse size and mission. The Chair participated in the new faculty orientation session to provide an overview of the faculty governance system. CFG reorganized the faculty governance web site, and posted all available committee annual reports for 2000-2001. Later in the year we added links to committee home pages from the web page of committee function and membership information. The committee consulted with CEPP and others about the proper locus for a consideration of distance learning issues. CFG drafted a function and membership description for the "Governance Advisory Council" comprising the VPAA/DOF and the chairs/designated members of CAFR, CAPT, CEPP, CFG, Curriculum Committee, and FPPC. Creation of the group was announced at the 1 March 2002 Faculty Meeting. At some future time, when its role in the governance system is better understood, the GAC can be formally added to the Faculty Handbook. In March 2002 the Chair filled out a second, web-based survey on faculty governance issues. CFG considered a request from the Campus Environment Committee to become a regular committee of the faculty, rather than a subcommittee of IPC. After reviewing the relevant history, we recommended that the CEC's structure and function be more fully spelled out in the operating code of the IPC. We consulted with Associate Dean Sue Bender regarding an invitation from Union College to partner on an initiative to examine issues surrounding faculty leadership, and the nature of a faculty member's job. We agreed that this should be pursued, and it will be on our agenda next year. In response to the unprecedented and controversial use of cfg-eligible-list for communications other than those directly related to CFG business, the committee discussed the proper use and membership of e-mailing lists, especially faculty-list and cfg-eligible-list. Not all issues were resolved, and this discussion will continue next year. CFG conducted a straw poll to assess the faculty's interest in holding a faculty-only discussion of institutional leadership (April 2002). The results indicated a very low level of interest, and so no further action was taken. SOME CFG AGENDA ITEMS FOR 2002-2003 · Pursue the issues raised in the CFG White Paper. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CFG is happy to join the CAPT in expressing appreciation of the "extraordinary work and constant good cheer of the staff in the office of the VPAA/DOF, especially the efforts of Chris McGill[,] Sue Blair [and Patti Heritage]…. " We are also very grateful to all faculty who have participated in the governance system or have expressed willingness to serve on one or more occasions this past year. The outgoing Chair extends his personal thanks to the 2001-2002 members of CFG for their hard work and good will.
CFG Membership 2002-2003 |