Senate Lapdogs

Senate Lapdogs?

The Faculty Senate met for over 2 hours on Tuesday, March 9^th, in the presence of all the Deans, the Acting Provost, President Jischke and the President of the Board of Regents. The unusually impressive group of administrative dignitaries listened to the Senate debate amendments to the Post Tenure Review document, which reads as follows:

Faculty in each department are charged with developing and implementing a plan for review of each tenured faculty member in the unit. Such review should be done periodically, at least once every seven years. The review should address the quality of the faculty member's performance in the areas of teaching, research/creative activities, extension/professional practice, and institutional service, consistent with the faculty member's position responsibility statement. The review should result in recommendations that enhance that performance and provide a plan for future development.

This review does not change the university's commitment to academic freedom, nor the circumstances under which tenured faculty can be dismissed from the university. Grounds for dismissal remain those listed in the Faculty Handbook under Faculty Dismissal Procedures.

The plan for review should designate: 1) the review participants; 2) review procedures and timelines; 3) materials to be reviewed; 4) distribution and use of the results of the review including communication beyond the department; and 5) mechanisms for the faculty member to respond. The plan should have the approval of the College Promotion and Tenure Committee and the Dean of the College.

Among the amendments considered were motions to:

Specify that the reviews must be peer reviews.
Require that the department’s plans have the approval of their college dean only, rather than both the dean and the college promotion and tenure committee.
Require that the college dean should only be consulted during development of the departmental review plan

To spare you any suspense: All amendments were voted down handily.

In case anyone needs to be reminded, the AAUP has argued strenuously against post-tenure reviews. In case the faculty has to implement a post-tenure review, as is the case at ISU, the AAUP recommendations are very clear; post-tenure review should be by the faculty and for the faculty and, as such, it should be kept out of the hands of the administration.