Faculty Governance Research Articles

Governance Matters

These papers were given at the 2011 MLA panel on faculty governance. They present the topic's importance in the face of budget crises and institutional pressure.

La Langue de Coton

These papers were given at the 2011 MLA panel on faculty governance. They present the topic's importance in the face of budget crises and institutional pressure.

The Generation X Faculty is Arriving!

It’s that time of year again. Across small and large, urban and rural, commuter and residential institutions, students and faculty are preparing for the beginning of the academic year. Syllabi are updated, enrollments confirmed, classrooms assigned, faculty meetings set, students advised, committees formed, and the list goes on. During the summer months, some faculty members travel to distant locations for research or vacation. Others teach courses on campus or lead study abroad. I always imagine that some enjoy 8–10 weeks of leisure, reading novels and exploring new hobbies and recreation. I have yet to find that person of leisure; instead, all are busy trying to balance faculty work with personal or family time. A small percentage of the faculty are not “returning”, but rather they are “beginning”— either launching or relocating a career to another college or university. For these new arrivals, no matter how seasoned, the new location may be both exciting and frustrating as they encounter new colleagues, policies, practices, students, and culture—only the disciplinary or professional knowledge remains constant in this new location. Like many other institutions, the University of Georgia attempts to ease the transition with a faculty orientation held in the fall. These new colleagues represent various types of appointments: tenured and tenure track, lecturers, public service faculty, research associates, and so on. With 15 colleges and schools, representing virtually every discipline, field, and profession, the mix of new faculty joining the University of Georgia annually is quite diverse. Accordingly, in the orientation, we cover a wide variety of topics in short modules presented by the responsible head/leader (e.g., faculty governance, research, instruction, technology, Center for Teaching and Learning, legal affairs). If a session is totally unrelated to the faculty member’s interest, at least it is short; and everyone hears a brief overview and is pointed in the direction of web resources and people resources. Apparently, the topics were mostly relevant, for at the end of the day, the 100-plus new faculty members remained enthusiastic; and, at the reception, the deans and other administrators mixed happily among the new recruits. I did notice that a majority of the new faculty were part of Generation X (1964–1980). So, I was pleased that we had a member of our Teaching Academy to present on work/life Innov High Educ (2011) 36:287–289 DOI 10.1007/s10755-011-9196-6

How Law Schools Benefit When Librarians Publish, Teach, and Hold Faculty Status

Many nondirector academic law librarians publish and teach legal research classes. Some hold faculty status as well. Law librarians have expertise in the development and delivery of legal research instruction methodologies and are developing a body of literature documenting their efforts to create and share a pedagogy of legal research instruction. Principles of shared faculty governance entitle library faculty to contribute to the development and delivery of a curriculum of legal research instruction. Encouraging law librarian participation in the shared governance of law schools should lead to increasing opportunities for the successful reform of legal education curricula with respect to legal research instruction.

Constructing fear in academia: neoliberal practices at a public college

Neoliberal values and ideology, which have broadly undermined social justice ideals, have been inserted into a range of public spheres both in the U.S.A. and internationally. Public higher education institutions have increasingly acquiesced to neoliberal strategies, which restrict access to public services, commodify the public sphere and challenge the legitimacy of progressive and liberal politics. This article explores some neoliberal practices at one public institution of higher education in the United States. I present three incidents that took place between 2000 and 2006 at a college that is part of a public State University system: a shift to disparagement of 'activism' in a college that had prided itself on its activist traditions; a confusion over the profitable marketability of Global Black Studies, in a context where political pressures diminished 'minority' perspectives in the interest of reasserting homogeneous 'Western civilisation'; and a partnership between this public college and a prestigious private university. In each case I explore my own response in terms of faculty governance, and how I developed new courses and pedagogies to open up these aspects of the operation of neoliberalism to critical examination by students. These incidents show how neoliberal practices create fear and feelings of vulnerability among faculty, especially faculty members of colour; they also show the importance of developing critical pedagogies to expose their assaults on social justice and equity.

Academic Faculty Governance and Recruitment Decisions

We analyze the implications of the governance structure in academic faculties for their recruitment decisions when competing for new researchers. The value to individual members through social interaction within the faculty depends on the average status of their fellow members. In recruitment decisions, incumbent members trade off the effect of entry on average faculty status against alternative uses of the recruitment budget if no entry takes place. We show that the best candidates join the best faculties but that they receive lower wages than some lesser ranking candidates. We also study the allocation of surplus created by the entry of a new faculty member and show that faculties with symmetric status distributions maximize their joint surplus under majority voting.

State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine

State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine

University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia

University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia

Viewing Faculty Governance within a Social Justice Framework: Struggles and Possibilities for Democratic Decision-Making in Higher Education

For many faculty members in colleges of education, social justice is a concept they teach or a lens that frames their scholarship about efforts to combat injustice in settings outside the university. Rarely does it serve as a lens for understanding or guiding the ordinary activities of faculty service, such as engagement in faculty governance. Yet the increasing corporatization of universities and its concomitant threats to academic communities as inclusive and democratic decision-making spheres necessitates the study of faculty governance within a critical social justice framework. This article, contextualized in a multi-campus college of education in a large, public university on the east coast of the US, addresses how leaders in faculty governance extended the principles of diversity and social justice taught in their classrooms to leadership practice and democratic decision-making within a college of education. Highlighted are practical strategies for increasing faculty voice and leadership listening and a critical reflection on the implications of the struggle for democratic decision-making within autocratic, corporatized organizational cultures.

The Status of Clinical Faculty in the Legal Academy: Report of the Task Force on the Status of Clinicians and the Legal Academy

In the midst of ongoing debates within the legal academy and the American Bar Association on the need for practice-ready law school graduates through enhanced attention to law clinics and externships and on the status of faculty teaching in those courses, this report identifies and evaluates the most appropriate modes for clinical faculty appointments. Drawing on data collected through a survey of clinical program directors and faculty, the report analyzes the five most identifiable clinical faculty models: unitary tenure track; clinical tenure track; long-term contract; short-term contract; and clinical fellowships. It determines that, despite great strides in the growth of clinical legal education in the last 30 years, equality between clinical and non-clinical faculty remains elusive. Clinical faculty still lag behind non-clinical faculty in security of position and governance rights at most law schools. The report then identifies four core principles that should guide decisions about clinical faculty appointments: 1) clinical education is a foundational and essential component of legal education; 2) the legal academy and profession benefit from full inclusion of clinical faculty on all matters affecting the mission, function, and direction of law schools; 3) there is no justification for creating hierarchies between clinical and non-clinical faculty; and 4) the standards for hiring, retention, and promotion of clinical faculty must recognize and value the responsibilities and methodologies of clinical teaching. The report concludes that these core principles are best realized when full-time clinical faculty are appointed to a unitary tenure track. This conclusion does not ignore the imperfections of a tenure system. However, to the extent that tenure remains the strongest measure of the legal academy's investment in its faculty and is the surest guarantee of academic freedom, inclusion in faculty governance and job security, the report recommends that law schools predominantly place their clinical faculty on dedicated tenure lines. In addition, it recommends that schools implement standards for hiring, promotion, and retention that reflect the teaching responsibilities and methodologies, as well as practice and service obligations, unique to their clinical faculty. To facilitate the development of such standards, the report suggests good practices for the appointment of clinical faculty on a unitary tenure track.

Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy

In April of 2009 the University of Kansas (KU) Faculty Senate passed an open-access policy much like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford faculty’s, a decision that was expanded and improved in a second vote in February 2010. With these policy decisions, KU became the first public university to pass a university-wide policy of this sort. A long-standing interest in addressing the systemic failings of access to university scholarship prepared KU to develop and support such measures. The KU open-access policy is not a new phenomenon for the university. Rather, in 2005, KU faculty governance passed a resolution to encourage greater access to scholarship created at the university, under the leadership of then Provost David Shulenburger. KU also made a key early investment in the development of an institutional repository, KU ScholarWorks, which is now serving as the platform for the open-access materials levied by the current policy. The 2009–2010 policy asserts the rights of KU faculty regarding the provision of worldwide access to their scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles. The policy was the product of a broad, collaborative effort by members of the faculty (including librarians), administration, and faculty governance. KU’s Faculty Senate is considered a vibrant and healthy institution within the university. In fall 2008, with a short turnaround time, a small but devoted ad hoc subcommittee of the Faculty Senate Research Committee was charged with developing a policy for the Faculty Senate’s consideration by the end of the academic year (spring 2009). As part of their work, a Web-based survey was distributed to KU faculty to assess their attitudes about and knowledge of open RLI 269 5

LORAN B. SMITH

Dr. Loran B. Smith passed away in Topeka, Kansas, on July 24, 2009. He was born on July 23, 1946. He was the son of Gordon T and Edith A (Hibbard) Smith of Medford, Massachusetts. Loran received his bachelors degree at Salem State College (Massachusetts) in 1968, a masters from Oklahoma State in 1971, and then taught at Black Hills State (Spearfish, South Dakota) from 1971–1974 and Augustana College in Souix Falls from 1974–1977. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1980 and taught at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin until 1982. He then came to Washburn University of Topeka, where he taught until his death. While “Doc” Smith (as the students referred to him) published sufficiently enough to be awarded tenure and promotion to professor, that was not his forte. Loran was a gifted teacher. His CV lists 23 teaching awards, including Washburn's Faculty Certificate of Merit, a university-wide teaching honor based on student elections, from 1985–1998. Loran was also extremely active in faculty governance and other service to the university and the Topeka community. He was on the university's faculty governing body from 1996–2006, serving as its vice president in 2002 and president from 2003–2005. He was the chairman of the Social Science Division almost all of the 1990s and he also served as the chairman of the college's curriculum committee during that same time span. As Washburn is an open-admission university, we have retention problems not experienced by most universities. Loran researched, organized, and ran a college experience program for at-risk students. He was very active in ASPA, serving as the Kansas chapter president from 1987–1988, indeed, his auto license plate read “KS ASPA” and was purchased for him by students he had recruited into ASPA. Loran's main area of academic interest was state and local government and he was the election night expert for one of the local TV stations here in the capital of Kansas from 1984–1992. What occupied most of his time and energy outside of his official academic duties was serving as the faculty advisor for a local chapter of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Doc Smith took what was a typical college fraternity and turned it into a modern association of men that consistently had the highest average GPA of all the fraternities and sororities on campus. It was not unusual for Loran to pay for a student's tuition and fraternity house bill, buy students books, and lend money to a needy student. Loran had a reputation for frugality (his apartment had a TV but no cable, a rotary phone, and he rented all of his furniture and appliances). Loran's tightness with money turned out to be a big benefit for the fraternity. One chapter official put it this way, “Through his notorious tight-fisted watch over finances, the Chapter was able to wipe out a significant debt to the National Housing Corporation ahead of schedule and helped the chapter build a significant savings by 2000.” People who knew Loran thought that he was not married but Loran was married to his job. Not only was Loran in his office nearly every evening until 10:00 p.m., but he was there all day Saturday and Sunday too, and, more often than not, there was a student in that office talking with him.

Strengthening the Academic Department Through Empowerment of Faculty and Staff

Empowerment of employees has been a primary concern of business for many decades, under thepremise that involvement of employees in decision making leads to superior performance and results.Acceptance of the practical value of empowerment by colleges and universities is more recent andmore rare, despite the centrality of ideas such as faculty governance and recognition of the faculty’sessential role in the academic enterprise. Empowerment in academe is defined as the processwhereby stakeholders are encouraged and supported in utilizing their knowledge, skills, and creativityto embrace ownership and accountability for the well being of their department and institution. Theprocess requires stakeholders to collaborate in order to establish clear goals and expectationsfocused on the institution’s vision and mission but within agreed-upon boundaries. This alignment ofdepartmental and institutional goals is a key ingredient of empowerment, one that Black (1987) calls"enacting the vision" in organizations.

Poland's Transition In Business Education

Prior to Poland's transition from central planning to a market system, which began in 1990, schools of business were non-existent in that country. Instead, university level instruction on economics during the socialist period was closely tied to ideological priorities, and limited to imparting skills suitable for planned economy. All universities were owned by the state, heavily politicized, and solely focused on supporting a centrally planned economy. There was no meaningful attempt to impart, or even describe, market oriented theories, leaving Poland almost wholly without the basic human capital needed to run a market economy. This backdrop makes higher education reform particularly crucial for Poland’s continued economic development and, to date, marketization has fundamentally transformed that sector. Poland’s current higher education system is now compatible with those of many Western European countries, relies on standard Western curricula, and enjoys significant academic autonomy, which exceeds that of some more developed Western countries. This sector has also seen an unprecedented growth in economics and business programs enrollments, along with the formation of private universities. Indeed, the depth and rapidity of Poland's progress in reforming higher education stands in marked contrast to that of other former centrally planned economies, and may serve as an interesting case study for potential reforms in Russia and other former Soviet republics. In this paper we describe the progress and effects of several major reforms in Poland's higher business education, examining changes in funding, potential funding sources, the structure of faculty governance, educational programs and degrees granted, the formation of new curricula, and Poland’s system of faculty promotion. Following this examination, we identify and discuss a number of continuing systemic obstacles to further progress in this area, and discuss how they might be addressed. In addition, we apply Western metrics to assess and evaluate the impact of reform on the current and future quality of Poland's business education. One consequence of Poland's transition to a market economy is its high level of governmental involvement in income redistribution policies, and a quasi-monopolistic position regarding the provision of such services as for example, health care, and quality higher education . Because these governmental policies have parallels in the experiences of European countries, those experiences provide insights into possible outcomes upon which various policy recommendations for Poland may be drawn.

The Corporate University, Academic Freedom, and American Exceptionalism

In the first part of this essay, I sketch some of the material conditions that comprise the contemporary corporate university: a job market dominated by contingent labor (non-tenure-track positions) and increasingly by part-time labor; the cooptation of links between scholarship and activism (particularly noticeable in ethnic studies and Native American studies programs) by the traditional scholarly agenda of “disinterested” individualized research; and the force of this agenda coupled with the changing labor market to stymie collaborative progressive action within the university. I then suggest the way these conditions have operated in two cases with which I have been centrally involved: faculty governance at Cornell University, and the firing of Ward Churchill by the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the second part of the essay, in addition to the Churchill case, I survey the cases of some scholars who have found themselves under attack by their own universities either for their activism, their scholarship, or a combination of both. By looking closely at the cases of Churchill, Norman Finkelstein, and Nadia Abu El Haj, I conclude that what these cases have in common is that all these scholars have mounted critiques of Israeli and American exceptionalism. I define exceptionalism as a mode of producing history outside of history, as a way of reading history ahistorically in order to create a coherent narrative—one that appears to be without contradiction—that we call the Nation. In particular, the exceptionalist mode functions to deny the violent displacement of indigenous peoples by settler colonialism.

Assessing an academic pharmacy position: guidelines for evaluating an institution and roles for new faculty

The decision to join an academic community engaged in pharmacy education and research requires careful consideration of many issues. Unfortunately, these issues and the processes by which one might evaluate them may be foreign to the prospective faculty member. In today's market, there are a wide variety of academic institutions from which to choose, including those that are part of an academic health sciences center, private school or university, liberal arts college, or for-profit or not-for-profit school. Each institution will have a different mission and vision, programmatic focus, and structure. Thus, careful evaluation of an academic position and the roles for potential new faculty in that institution is of paramount importance. Areas that should be assessed by faculty candidates include institutional culture and focus, organizational structure and reporting responsibilities, role of faculty governance and voting abilities, and opportunities for career enhancement and professional growth. Through careful evaluation of various components of the institution and roles for faculty within the school/college within the institution, faculty candidates may be able to more accurately judge what they consider to be a good match for long-term enjoyment and success as part of the pharmacy academy.

Hiring, Promoting, and Valuing Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Non-tenure track faculty comprise an increasing percentage of full time faculty employed by Americanuniversities. In 2001, the Association of American Universities (AAU) reported that 31% of full and part-timefaculty were non-tenure track. According to a 2006 report by the American Association ofUniversity Professors (AAUP), full-time non-tenure track faculty increased from 13% to 18.7% of totalfaculty between 1975-2003. These faculty often serve in most of the same roles as tenure track faculty,including teaching, research and service. At the same time, they are nearly always paid less, havefewer benefits, few opportunities for research leaves or sabbaticals, less job security, and little or noinvolvement in faculty governance (AAU, 2001; AFT, 2003; Curtis & Jacobe, 2006). In addition,especially in this very difficult economic climate, non-tenure track faculty positions are often the first tobe offered up during budget cuts. Curtis & Jacobe (2006) contend that these differences betweentenure and non-tenure track status limit academic freedom since many non-tenure track faculty fear thatpressing for greater benefits or job security may result in job loss.

A Passion for Wartime Liberalism: A Conversation with John Israel

In human history, wars are usually associated with autocracy, repression, martial law, and the like. The establishment of an institution of higher education embracing freedom and liberty during a devastating war, on the other hand, is nothing less than extraordinary. Xi'nan lianhe daxue or Lianda, a university established in the rear during China's war of resistance against Japan (1937-45) was precisely such an institution. As a university formed to cope with the wartime situation, Lianda was meant to be provisional, but it turned out that its legacy has been profound and enduring. To this day, the academic freedom, cultural diversity, and faculty governance that prevailed at Lianda during its eight years are still the stuff of which many Chinese intellectuals dream.

The Impact of Market Driven Staffing on Faculty Governance in a General Education Environment

The Impact of Market Driven Staffing on Faculty Governance in a General Education Environment

Community College Dilemma: Adjunct Faculty

ABSTRACT What is the effect of the diminuation of tenured, professional faculty or librarians by adjunct faculty or librarians? The author explores the effects of adjunct faculty and librarians on student learning, faculty governance, curricula, and academic freedom. The author discusses solutions offered by professional organizations as well as an intriguing new approach to this dilemma.