Excerpts from the Commission on

Faculty Rewards and Development

REVISED 10/28/94

Report of the Commission
on Faculty Rewards and Development

[Commission Members: D. Udovic, L. Alpert, L. Carter, K. Cashman, S. Clark, L. Dann, J. Finrow, P. Gwartney, R. Horner, B. Matthews, J. Orbell, D. Shuman]

A. Introduction

 In March, 1993, at the request of the Faculty Advisory Council and the Faculty Personnel Committee, President Brand established the Commission on Faculty Rewards and Development to examine the University of Oregon's policies and procedures governing faculty appointment, advancement and development.  The commission makes numerous suggestions for improvement.  Major recommendations for change include the following:
 

President Brand's charge asked the Commission to examine and evaluate existing University practices, and to recommend improvement where desirable and consistent with the University's mission and the faculty's aspirations.  In particular, the charge directed the Commission to focus on the following concerns:  search and appointment of tenure-line faculty;  promotion leading to tenure; post-tenure promotion to full professorial rank;  mentoring and professional development of nontenured professorial faculty;  and career development and productivity of tenured faculty.  The charge mandated that within each of these areas, the Commission address such general, overarching concerns as affirmative action, the importance of teaching, and methods for evaluating research and other creative endeavors.

B. Guiding Principles

 In executing this charge, the Commission determined that the University's faculty reward structure should promote excellence, fairness, consistency and flexibility.
 
 Consistent with its mission as a comprehensive public research institution, the University should demand and promote excellence in instruction, research and creative activity.  In achieving and maintaining this quality, the University must deploy evaluation and reward strategies that comport with generally accepted standards of fairness.  Policies and procedures regarding tenure, promotion, compensation and other forms of rewards should be consistently applied across disciplines and over time, according to readily available, widely disseminated, and clearly articulated criteria.  Within this structure, however, the University should encourage and support flexibility by recognizing various forms of scholarly or creative activity; by permitting career paths that accommodate the changing interests, commitments and family obligations of faculty at different stages of their professional lives;  and by acknowledging and rewarding the extra demands upon, and special contributions of, faculty who are members of underrepresented groups.

D.  Major Findings and Recommendations

 The Commission concludes that the existing systems of faculty appointment, promotion, tenure, post-tenure promotion and review, and development do not require fundamental or major revision.  Current policies appear to function to the general satisfaction of faculty and administrators.  Still, significant improvements might result from a variety of new or reformed policies in almost every aspect of the faculty reward structure. This report describes these changes in detail.  Generally, they indicate a few recurrent themes:

4.  Faculty development, reward structures, and the University mission should be intimately interconnected and mutually reinforcing.
 

4.  CAREER AND PRODUCTIVITY DEVELOPMENT FOR TENURED FACULTY

 The expectation of the University is that every faculty member at the University of Oregon should achieve excellence in performance commensurate with full professorial rank.  Academic units should help tenured faculty realize this performance through thoughtful career planning and clearly delineated policies and procedures.  Of prime importance is the recognition and confirmation that the tenured faculty are expected to contribute to the status as a research university.

A.  Career Planning.  Unit heads should work with each tenured faculty member to develop a career strategy articulating the faculty member's planned progress toward promotion to full professor and beyond.
 

  1. Career plans should identify significant goals --accomplishments in research or creative activity, teaching and service -- accomplishment of which would indicate progress toward and beyond promotion.  As an example, these plans might take the form of "career contracts" covering specified periods of time (e.g. three year plans), and they should be a primary basis for evaluation in promotion decisions.
  2. Within the traditional categories of professional activities, these plans or contracts should allow tenured faculty to develop flexible career paths which include the opportunity to change and adjust career direction according to the professional aspirations of the faculty member and the needs of the academic unit and in keeping with general University expectations.
B.  Criteria and Policies for Promotion to Full Professor. Several specific recommendations address the post-tenure promotion policies and practices in many of the University's academic units.
 
  1. Each academic unit's Mission Statement should include written criteria for advancement to full professorship, and the procedures the unit will use in its deliberations.  Tenured faculty who have not advanced to full professorial rank should receive thorough career review and advising every three years, with the goal of promotion during the second or third three-year review period.
6.  CAREER DEVELOPMENT OF TENURED FACULTY

   Many faculty development activities of the University are appropriately focused on junior faculty members;  commitment to faculty development, however, does not end when a faculty member is tenured.  Continued intellectual growth is the cornerstone of faculty vitality.  Further, not all faculty careers follow the same rhythms or patterns.  Interests may change throughout the course of a career, and merit evaluation of teaching, research, and service must be sensitive to the different career rhythms of individual faculty.  For this reason, development strategies for faculty with tenure need to accommodate the freedom to develop new interests.

A.  Career Development Plans.  The roles of the University and the academic unit outlined in Section 5 with respect to the development of non-tenured faculty apply as well to the development of tenured faculty:
 

  1. The University should provide broad policy guidelines, support and incentives.
  2. Academic units should develop written development plans for senior faculty, congruent with the unit's mission, and work with individual faculty to implement these plans.
  3. The plan should indicate the process by which tenured faculty will receive career development support within the unit, including departmental or program criteria for sabbatical leaves and flexible teaching or research loads for fixed periods of time.
B.  Post-Tenure Review.  Post-tenure review is an integral part of career development because faculty benefit from a systematic structure for evaluation and career planning.
 
  1. Each tenured faculty member's record of performance should periodically undergo a peer review intended to gauge progress and identify strengths and weaknesses.
  2. For each faculty member, the post-tenure review typically should involve the preparation of (a) a summary of professional activities and accomplishments since the last review, (b) a discussion of professional accomplishments during the review period in relation to identified goals and objectives, and (c) a new professional plan for the subsequent review period.