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In the Spring quarter of 1998 Harvey Himelfarb, who was then Vice Provost--Academic Planning and Personnel, appointed a six-member committee charged with evaluating the campus procedures used in personnel reviews of Academic Federation titles and recommending specific changes to relevant policies and procedures.
Overall, the Committee was surprised and disquieted by the extent to which Academic Federation personnel actions (both appointments and merit/promotion actions) were characterized by a lack of knowledge about and/or inadequate and inappropriate position expectations, review criteria, and review procedures. In addition, the Committee was struck by the degree to which peer review, a hallmark of personnel reviews for the Academic Senate, was absent for Academic Federation reviews, particularly in several specific title series. Finally, the Committee noted several important areas in which APM policy and guidelines are absent or contrary to superseding documents. All these situations seem to require actions.
I. General Recommendations
The following recommendation apply to personnel actions in all Academic Federation title series:
Recommendation 1: The Office of the Vice Provost should institute a series of annual workshops for key unit personnel (unit heads, MSOs, etc.) at which both permissible and inappropriate appointment practices and criteria for retention and advancement in each of the Federation title series are discussed. These workshops should include guidance for the appointment process when there is not a complete or good fit between the position expectations and the proposed title series.
Recommendation 2: Increasing understanding about appropriate appointment and review procedures and review criteria for Federation titles should be addressed at several levels, including the unit level and by the Academic Federation as an organization, which has a responsibility to serve its members. The goal should be to: 1) improve the level of information that each person who is a candidate for appointment and/or review has about the position expectations at the time of appointment/reappointment; and 2) to improve the candidate's understanding about necessary information and evidence he/she should include in his/her submitted review materials.
Recommendation 3: Require an annual meeting between each Federation appointee and his/her unit head (or an appropriate responsible officer designated by the unit head) to reconfirm or to modify the appointee's position description and criteria for advancement. A signed copy of each memorandum thus formulated during the period under review should be a prominent feature of every personnel file (e.g. the first page of the dossier) at each stage of the proceedings.
Recommendation 4: Require, as the first step in any personnel action, that unit heads familiarize Federation appointees with the detailed review procedures to be followed at the unit level and beyond. At a minimum, candidates should be told of the general characteristics, and where possible the exact composition of the group of individuals who will be voting on the case at the unit level.
Recommendation 5: The Academic Federation should continue and expand its practice of offering annual workshops at which both the review process and permissible and inappropriate criteria for retention and advancement in each of the Federation title series are discussed.
Recommendation 6: Provide most if not all of the members of the Academic Federation who could logically be termed "career employees" (for example, those who have been a UCDavis employee for 5 years or longer at 50 percent time or more) regular opportunities to review the personnel files of others. Inclusion in this process is an effective way to educate junior Federation employees about the culture and expectations of the review process. This experience would be particularly valuable at a time when the "reviewer" is a year or so away from becoming a "reviewee."
Recommendation: 7: Academic Federation title holders (including prospective appointees) should be evaluated at the unit level by peer groups, which (as custom and circumstance might dictate) should involve Federation members in the same title series. In some instances this might require that a unit head recruit reviewers from elsewhere--presumably on a quid-pro-quo basis, and/or to define the "peer group" more broadly as an affinity group which would include those with similar qualifications and duties to the candidate.
Recommendation 8: The data gathered indicated that, in some units, the chair appoints one or more ad-hoc committees to review Federation members and report their findings either to the entire unit or to the chair alone, as unit preferences or MOU's may require/allow. It is recommended that all units adopt this practice unless more widespread consultation is the desired departmental norm.
II A. Title-Specific Findings and Recommendations:
for the Administrative, Teaching, Clinical, and Experiment Station title series
Academic Administrator Series:
Recommendation 9: The unit head has the primary responsibility for assessing an Academic Administrator's performance, but the review process should include a mechanism for obtaining the opinions of other members of the unit wherever possible.
Recommendation 10: Implement the general recommendations 1-9, and poll unit heads and incumbents regarding the efficacy of the procedures that were followed after one full review cycle.
Recommendation 11: The Committee recommends that the UCD APM for this title series include the following statement from Academic Senate regulation 750: "Individuals in this title series who are assigned research or instructional duties will be required to hold a dual title."
Academic Coordinator Series:
Recommendation 12: The unit head has the primary responsibility for assessing an Academic Coordinator's performance, but the review process should include a mechanism for obtaining the opinions of other members of the unit
Recommendation 13: Implement the general guidelines and recommendation of this report, and poll unit heads and incumbents regarding the efficacy of the procedures that were followed, after one full review cycle.
Agronomist Series:
Recommendation 14: The recommendation to include detailed position descriptions at the beginning of the dossier appears to be especially pertinent for this title. This practice should guide reviewers to an appropriate assessment of each individual's achievements. In addition, it appears to the Committee that it would be prudent to re-visit how well the personnel process is operating for the series after the recent UCD APM revisions have been operative for a year or two.
Clinical Professor:
Recommendation 15: Building on the current "Guidelines" for this series, the Committee urges the campus to add to the UCD APM, a section for Clinical Professors as soon as possible. Such a document should include a requirement for the Committee on Academic Affairs to participate in, at least, the review of appointments and promotions to the Associate and Full ranks of this series.
Cooperative Extension Specialist:
Recommendation 16: The Vice Provost, together with appropriate representatives from the Agricultural Experiment Station, should post-audit a reasonable number of Cooperative Extension Specialist personnel actions to determine if their perception of maltreatment, at both the unit and campuswide levels has validity, and if so, suggest appropriate corrective measures.
Lecturer:
Recommendation 17: It is strongly recommended that the campus consider reinstating the use of the Senior Lecturer (w/o SOE) title for selected individuals who have provided long (measured in decades) and exemplary service to the campus. If instituted, these advancements should be viewed as academic promotions with the formal involvement of CAP.
Recommendation 18: In the general case, teams including departmental peers or members of an appropriate affinity group should evaluate the performance of Lecturers (ideally via direct observation). The cadre of lecturers is so large that there is simply no excuse for not doing so. In addition, everyone who serves on one of these teams should be privy to the contents of the resulting letter of evaluation. (Such is not currently the universal practice.)
Recommendation 19: It is recommended that, in consultation with CAP and representative department chairs, the campus develop norms for establishing the initial salaries of individuals in the Lecturer series.
Recommendation 20: The campus should require reviews of members of this series at regular intervals.
Supervisor of Teacher Education
Recommendation 21: It is recommended that this title series be codified in the campus' APM. This would serve to standardize the review process, particularly outside of the academic unit where persons in this series reside.
II B. Title-Specific Findings and Recommendations:
for the Research Title Series
Adjunct Professor Series:
Recommendation 22: It is recommended that units afford their Adjunct faculty franchised participation in the personnel reviews of other Adjuncts and other Federation appointees housed therein to the same degree afforded Academic Senate faculty members at the same rank and step.
Recommendation 23: CAP, which oversees promotions in this series, may wish to post-audit some Adjunct-series merit actions to see if this notion has any validity.
Professional Research:
Recommendation 24: At the time of appointment, offices and review bodies at the college and campus levels should confirm that the Professional Research title is being appropriately used.
Recommendation 25: The campus should require regular reviews of members of this series at intervals no greater than five calendar years independently of the scope of the appointment.
Specialist
Recommendation 26: Position descriptions and reviews of persons in this title series should be reviewed for consistency with APM 330.
II C. Long-standing Issues of Appropriate Use of Research Titles
Recommendation 27: The Committee recommends that the campus use the Research Professor title for persons to conduct truly independent research and who are funded completely by extramural sources.
Recommendation 28: The Committee recommends that the Office of the Vice-Provost convene a taskforce for the purpose of developing a position paper to guide the campus' use of titles in the research series. This position paper should include:
a. Recommendations for the appropriate use of the Adjunct Professor, Professional Research and Specialist research titles on the UCD campus so that appointments into these titles differentiate between individuals with truly independent research programs that are funded largely by their own efforts and those who are critical components of long term research projects funded and administered primarily by others and research title(s); andb. Suggest revisions and additions to the appropriate sections of the campus' APM sections in light of the findings, suggestions, and recommendations presented in this section of the report and by the taskforce.
III. Policy Recommendation
Recommendation 29: The Committee recommends that the Office of the Vice Provost appoint a joint Academic Federation and Academic Senate Committee to address the issues identified in this Report regarding Point 4 a-f of APM-220A Exhibit D.
Introduction:
In the Spring quarter of 1998 Harvey Himelfarb, who was then Vice Provost--Academic Planning and Personnel, appointed a six-member committee charged with evaluating the campus procedures used in personnel reviews of Academic Federation titles and recommending specific changes to relevant policies and procedures.
On June 12, 1998, the Committee had an orientation meeting with Himelfarb, his successor, Barry Klein, and Dennis Shimek, Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources. We met another half-dozen times over the summer, with variable attendance as members' schedules permitted, and five more times during the fall and spring quarters. The committee co-chairs also met once with Steve Blank, the Academic Federation Faculty Assistant to the Vice Provost, and most recently with Blank and Vice Provost Klein.
Between meetings, several committee members interviewed individuals from a number of Federation title series and presented their findings to the group. In mid-September the committee devised a questionnaire that was e-mailed to all the Federation members whose addresses were on file in the Academic Senate office. The returns were somewhat disappointing in number but not in content. We attribute the shortfall mainly to the timing of the survey. The interviews were conducted and questionnaires distributed in an attempt to identify personnel issues about which the Committee was unaware or missed in its review of materials. The information gathered was used to extend it knowledge and provide examples of issues described in this report.
In the following sections, the Committee presents its findings, conclusions, and recommendations derived from the questionnaire data and its research, review, and debate about the elements included in its charge. In the first section of this report are general observations, guiding principles, and recommendations that are applicable to virtually all title series in the Academic Federation, followed by ones that are more title-specific.
Overall, the Committee was surprised and disquieted by the extent to which Academic Federation personnel actions (both appointments and merit/promotion actions) were characterized by a lack of knowledge about and/or inadequate and inappropriate position expectations, review criteria, and review procedures. In addition, the Committee was struck by the degree to which peer review, a hallmark of personnel reviews for the Academic Senate, was absent for Academic Federation reviews, particularly in several specific title series. Finally, the Committee noted several important areas in which APM policy and guidelines are absent or contrary to superseding documents. All these situations seem to require actions.
I. General Findings and Recommendations
A. Understanding and implementing personnel policies and practices
The level of understanding of Academic Federation personnel policies and practices--particularly position expectations and appropriate review criteria and procedures--among department chairs/unit heads, MSOs, and incumbents in Academic Federation titles at the unit level is both uneven and inadequate. Through its work, the Committee became aware of enough examples to indicate that the issue is not an isolated one. For example, there were reports of unit heads who sought evidence of teaching from or even assigned teaching duties to individuals in title series for which there is no such expectation mentioned in the APM. For others, position descriptions included the development of an independent program of research and extra mural funding for title series that do not include those activities in the APM and are clearly intended to support the research enterprise rather than develop it.
Finally, the Committee noted with concern the number of questionnaire respondents who indicated little or no knowledge about the criteria or processes used to conduct their own personnel actions. It is inappropriate for any incumbent to be uninformed about his/her position expectations or review procedures. Part of the explanation for failures to convey this information could be ignorance on the part of the department/unit administrator and/or staff.
There are department/unit heads, MSOs and other staff members who are knowledgeable about appropriate appointment procedures and review criteria and procedures for Federation titles and implement appropriate practice at the unit level. However, there are far too many cases for which this is not the case. The following six recommendations are made to correct these inadequacies:
Recommendation 1-6:
1. The Office of the Vice Provost should institute a series of annual workshops for key unit personnel (unit heads, MSOs, etc.) at which both permissible and inappropriate appointment practices and criteria for retention and advancement in each of the Federation title series are discussed. These workshops should include guidance for the appointment process when there is not a complete or good fit between the position expectations and the proposed title series.
2. The goal of increased understanding about appropriate appointment and review procedures and review criteria for Federation titles should be addressed at several levels, including the unit level and by the Academic Federation as an organization, which has a responsibility to serve its members. The goal should be to improve: 1) the level of information that each person who is a candidate for appointment and/or review has about the position expectations at the time of appointment/reappointment; and 2) the candidate's understanding about necessary information and evidence he/she should include in his/her submitted review materials.
3. Require an annual meeting between each Federation appointee and his/her unit head (or an appropriate responsible officer designated by the unit head) to reconfirm or to modify the appointee's position description and criteria for advancement. A signed copy of each memorandum thus formulated during the period under review should be a prominent feature of every personnel file (e.g. the first page of the dossier at each stage of the proceedings).
4. Require that as the first step in the personnel review process, unit heads familiarize Federation appointees with the detailed review procedures to be followed at the unit level and beyond. At a minimum, candidates should be told of the general characteristics, and where possible the exact composition of the group of individuals who will be voting on the case at the unit level.
5. The Academic Federation should continue and expand its practice of offering annual workshops at which both the review process and permissible and inappropriate criteria for retention and advancement in each of the Federation title series are discussed.
6. Provide most if not all of the members of the Academic Federation who could logically be termed "career employees" (for example, those who have been a UC Davis employee for 5 years or longer at 50 percent time or more) regular opportunities to review the personnel files of others. Inclusion in this process is an effective way to educate junior Federation employees about the culture and expectations of the review process. This experience would be particularly valuable at a time when the "reviewer" is a year or so away from becoming a "reviewee."
B. Peer Review
The Committee believes that peer review is an important component for all personnel actions. The creation of an understanding of responsibilities of a faculty appointment; the context in which the duties are performed; and the standards for meritorious achievement are benefits of peer review that the Academic Senate understands and values in its review process. Both the mission of the campus and the members of the Federation will be well served by building this important component into the review of each Academic Federation member.
The degree to which academic departments/units currently include peers in the personnel reviews of Academic Federation members varies widely depending on the predilections of the unit head, the unit culture, and the title series being reviewed. Most lecturers and Supervisors of Teacher Education are reviewed at the unit level according to one of the methods prescribed by the Memorandum of Understanding between the University and the University Council-American Federation of Teachers.
In some units the inclusion of peers in the review process is a very thoughtful process, codified by written procedures, while in others, the nature of the peer group appears to be an idiosyncratic one determined largely by the unit head. To illustrate, the Committee is aware that in some academic units, appointees holding Academic Federation titles of Adjunct Professor and Professional Researcher are not included (and have not been for years) in the unit review in the same or related titles. Responses to the Committee's questionnaire and conversation with a range of Academic Federation members indicate that this is not an isolated occurrence.
Recommendation 7:
7. Academic Federation title holders (including prospective appointees) should be evaluated at the unit level by peer groups, which (as custom and circumstance might dictate) should involve Federation members in the same title series. In some instances this might require that a unit head recruit reviewers from elsewhere--presumably on a quid-pro-quo basis, and/or to define the "peer group" more broadly as an affinity group--which would include those with similar qualifications and duties to the candidate.
The data gathered indicated that in some units, the chair appoints one or more ad-hoc committees to review Federation members and report their findings either to the entire unit or to the chair alone, as unit preferences or MOU's may require/allow.
Recommendation 8:
8. It is recommended that all units adopt this practice unless more widespread consultation is the desired departmental norm.
There is one invariant in all of this. At at least the unit level, members of the Academic Senate must participate in the teaching evaluation of any Federation members who offer instruction which carries academic degree credit.
IIA. Title-Specific Findings and Recommendations:
for the Administrative, Teaching, Clinical, and Experiment Station Title Series
Academic Administrator Series:
As of 6/24/98 there were 17 individuals appointed in this title series. Three were housed in the Division of Environmental Studies. No other unit had more than one of them. In the fall of 1998 the campus issued a revised version of UCD-340 which in our opinion describes the nature of these appointments quite well. Because there are relatively few Academic Administrators and their assignments are highly mission-specific--- peer review in a literal sense could be quite hard to obtain.
Recommendation 9:
9. The unit head has the primary responsibility for assessing an Academic Administrator's performance, but the review process should include a mechanism for obtaining the opinions of other members of the unit wherever possible.
Incumbents who responded to our questionnaire were more or less satisfied with the procedures followed for their reviews in the past, but there was some concern about the criteria being used beyond the unit level to judge people in the same title series who have vastly different duties.
Recommendation 10:
10. Implement the general guidelines and recommendations 1 through 9 above, and poll unit heads and incumbents regarding the efficacy of the procedures that were followed after one full review cycle.
The Committee noted that both the systemwide and the local APM sections mention teaching as a permissible activity of appointees in this series. As always, if an individual has "...substantial responsibility for the conduct and content of courses approved by the Academic Senate." then for a suitable fraction of the appointment he/she must hold an appropriate instructional title. ( Academic Senate Regulation 750). The Committee also noted that the systemwide APM 370 has not been revised since 1977 while the equivalent section for Academic Coordinators was revised in 1996. The latter includes the statement: "Individuals in this title series who are assigned research or instructional duties will be required to hold a dual title."
Recommendation 11:
11. The Committee recommends that the language quoted immediately above be incorporated into UCD APM 370 and that the campus asks that the systemwide section be similarly amended.
Academic Coordinator Series:
There are about twice as many Academic Coordinators as Academic Administrators and several units have two or more of them. In this instance peer review at the unit level could be more easily achieved than for the Academic Administrator. The comments made by questionnaire respondents generally mirror those of the Academic Administrators. Because the UCD APM section dealing with the Academic Coordinators has also been revised heavily in recent months, the Committee only need to echo two recommendations regarding the Academic Administrator series made above, which are:
Recommendation 12 & 13:
12. The unit head has the primary responsibility for assessing an Academic Coordinator's performance, but the review process should include a mechanism for obtaining the opinions of other members of the unit
13. Implement the general guidelines and recommendation of this report, and poll unit heads and incumbents regarding the efficacy of the procedures that were followed, after one full review cycle.
Agronomist Series:
On 6/24/98 this series had only 5 incumbents and at least one of them was jointly appointed in the Cooperative Extension series. The systemwide policy which applies to this series (APM-320) has not changed since 1985, but the local version, UCD-320, was revised in November, 1998. The latter makes it unambiguously clear that individuals in this series are responsible for mission-oriented research and mission-oriented service conducted under the auspices of the Agricultural Experiment Station. By order of the Regents, this is an equivalent-ranks title series which grants tenure to individuals at and above the rank of Associate Agronomist.
Most, if not all, of the Academic Senate members in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences hold fractional (often greater than 50%) appointments in this series so it would be entirely appropriate for them to participate in some fashion in the personnel reviews of their full-time Agronomist colleagues. Current departmental practices seem to vary in their details quite a bit, but none of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the procedure that pertained to them. There was, however, a general perception that too much emphasis was being placed on peer-reviewed journal publications and not enough on their mission-oriented research, outreach and service activities.
Recommendation 14:
14. The recommendation to include detailed position descriptions at the beginning of the dossier appears to be especially pertinent for this title. This practice should guide reviewers to an appropriate assessment of each individual's achievements. In addition, it appears to the Committee that it would be prudent to re-visit how well the personnel process is operating for the series after the recent UCD APM revisions have been operative for a year or two.
Clinical Professor:
On 6/24/98 this series had 68 incumbents. Only two returned questionnaires and their responses were unremarkable. The systemwide APM is totally silent about this series but there are many numerical title codes for it on the UCOP website. The closest thing to APM language that seems to exist is a set of "Guidelines for Salaried Clinical Faculty in the School of Medicine;" a document of uncertain origin, promulgated in November of 1990 and amended in October of 1991. This document includes nothing at all about procedures for the appointment and review of these individuals. We therefore assume that all of their personnel actions are initiated and processed entirely within the School of Medicine. The number of appointees in the Clinical Professor series has increased considerably in recent years and is likely to continue to do so.
There appears to be a certain symmetry between the use of the Adjunct Professor series to accommodate non-Academic Senate medical researchers (many of whom hold the Ph.D. degree and are housed in clinical departments) and the Clinical Professor series to accommodate clinicians who are not Academic Senate appointees.
Recommendation 15:
15. Building on the current "Guidelines" for this series, the Committee urges the campus to add to the UCD APM, a section for Clinical Professors as soon as possible. Such a document should include a requirement for the Committee on Academic Affairs to participate in, at least, the review of appointments and promotions to the Associate and Full ranks of this series.
Cooperative Extension Specialist:
This series had 100 incumbents in June of 1998. As best as can be determined, peer review as we view it, is the norm in virtually every unit. In many if not most instances, the unit head reports the opinions of its Federation and Academic Senate members separately. There were no significant criticisms of the mechanics of the personnel review process.
On the other hand, almost every respondent in one way or another echoed the observation of one of their number that: "Many of the other title series (including academic senate members) don't have a clue what Cooperative Extension is all about and generally pay little or no attention to the CE job description which is supposed to be the yardstick against which Cooperative Extension performance is measured." Many respondents were particularly critical of the Joint Personnel Committee. A perception of second-class citizenship as irritatingly evidenced by a growing salary disparity vs. Senate members was also a recurrent theme. (This of course is an Office of the President issue that has nothing whatsoever to do with the campus's personnel practices).
Committee members were quite surprised by the (evidently widely-held) view of Cooperative Extension Specialists that their roles are so poorly understood by others and that their performance is being judged (at least in part) by inappropriate criteria. It seems to the Committee that following the general guidelines and recommendations in Section I of this report may ameliorate some of the concerns expressed. Specifically, the mandated practice of including a current position description in the review file would necessarily define/limit the expectations of the various reviewers.
In addition, because two members of the Campus-wide Committee which makes personnel recommendations on this title series, are Cooperative Extension Specialists, and one of the three Academic Senate members on this Committee often comes from an A&ES department, the role of these individuals should be better understood and properly evaluated at that level. The Committee did not seek independent evidence to support or discount this view, so for now, its validity remains an opened question.
Recommendation 16:
16. The Vice Provost, together with appropriate representatives from the Agricultural Experiment Station, should post-audit a reasonable number of Cooperative Extension Specialist personnel actions to determine if their perception of maltreatment, at both the unit and campuswide levels has validity, and if so, suggest appropriate corrective measures.
Lecturer:
There were 334 individuals in this title series at the time of the June census. They are housed in every School, College and Division on campus. Some of them hold the title in conjunction with another one, e.g. Cooperative Extension Specialist, in order to legitimize their assignment to formal teaching duties. Most, however, have this as their only university appointment.
Among other responsibilities, lecturers are very heavily involved in the delivery of lower-division instruction in many departments in the College of Letters and Science and the Division of Biological Sciences, they deliver all of the upper division English Composition courses, and they staff the Campus Writing Center. By systemwide policy, non-SOE appointments in this series are "temporary," although many incumbents have been on campus in excess of 15 years and some for as long as 29 years! Many Lecturers are professionals in the visual or performing arts who are appointed for a small percentage of time in one or two quarters each year to offer instruction in their area of expertise. Many others, however, are the mainstays of their academic programs--e.g. those in the FNP/PA program of the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine, and the instructors in English Composition. It is in the best interest of the campus' teaching mission to recognize that the need for experienced lecturers is unlikely to diminish in the coming decades and their contribution to the campus should be recognized more tangibly.
Recommendation 17:
17. It is strongly recommended that the campus consider reinstating the use of the Senior Lecturer (w/o SOE) title for selected individuals who have provided long (measured in decades) and exemplary service to the campus. If instituted, these advancements should be viewed as academic promotions with the formal involvement of CAP.
The personnel appointment/review process for persons in the Lecturer title series varies widely among academic units, and as a consequence is viewed both scornfully and apprehensively by many incumbents. Reappointments are sometimes made at the eleventh hour and/or at reduced percentages, making life planning extremely difficult for the affected individuals.
In some academic units, reviews are conducted entirely by the administrative head. In others, ad hoc committees review the candidate's record and present a recommendation to the entire unit. This variability may be due, at least in part, to the range of options for departmental review listed in the Unit 18 MOU.
While it is clear that the unpredictability of course enrollments requires procedures which afford unit heads a reasonable amount of quick-response flexibility, as a matter of principle the Committee believes that the campus should foster practices which treat the individuals in question as valued academic professionals. It is the Committee's belief that the following recommendations should be the first steps in this direction.
Recommendation 18:
18. In the general case, teams including departmental peers or members of an appropriate affinity group should evaluate the performance of Lecturers (ideally via direct observation). The cadre of lecturers is so large that there is simply no excuse for not doing so. In addition, everyone who serves on one of these teams should be privy to the contents of the resulting letter of evaluation. (Such is not currently the universal practice.)
In a codified salary "step" system like ours, initial placements are critically important. Anecdotal evidence suggests that practices in this regard vary widely across the campus, and are viewed by some incumbents as having been determined on grounds only loosely connected with an individual's qualifications.
Recommendation 19:
19. It is recommended that, in consultation with CAP and representative department chairs, the campus develop norms for establishing the initial salaries of individuals in the Lecturer series.
The Committee is also concerned about a perceived lack of campuswide uniformity regarding merit increases for Lecturers in their first six years of employment. UCD 287B states that individuals who are not on 3-year appointments are eligible for consideration for a merit increase after two years of service, but that is not the same thing as putting out an eligibility list and requiring that everyone on it be considered. The Lecturer title is not included in the Annual Call for Merits and Promotions, thus leaving the possibility of merit reviews to the discretion of the colleges, and perhaps academic departments.
Recommendation 20:
20. The campus should require reviews of members of this series at regular intervals.
Supervisor of Teacher Education
Persons holding title Supervisor of Teacher Education serve as the academic mainstays for the campus' professional preparation programs that credential K-12 teachers. The APM is silent about this series, although the campus' Division of Education prepared guidelines for the review of persons in this title series.
Recommendation 21:
21. It is recommended that this title series be codified in the campus' APM. This would serve to standardize the review process, particularly outside of the academic unit where persons in this series reside.
Supervisor of Physical Education and Librarians
The Committee has no specific recommendation to make regarding these two title series. Personnel matters appear to be implemented relatively well and without unique issues.
IIB. Title-Specific Findings and Recommendations:
for the Research Title Series
In this section of the report, the Committee first addresses concerns about the existing situation in three title series: Adjunct Professors, Professional Researchers, and Specialists. The report concludes with recommendations intended to address long-standing issues of appropriate use of these titles.
Adjunct Professor Series:
On this campus this title series is used mainly by the health sciences. Out of 59 individuals who were employed in this series as of 6/24/98, 38 were housed in the Medical School and 10 were in the Veterinary School (including 6 at the Primate Center). By academic rank they were distributed 55% Assistant, 27% Associate and 18% Full. Most of the personnel actions in this series are handled at the School level by personnel committees composed entirely of Academic Senate faculty.
The questionnaire responses and interviews revealed a clear perception of second class citizenship by members of this series.
Recommendation 22:
22. To address this concern we recommend that units afford their Adjunct faculty franchised participation in the personnel reviews of other Adjuncts and other Federation appointees housed therein to the same degree afforded Academic Senate faculty members at the same rank and step.
Some of the questionnaire respondents noted that in their particular units individuals in this title series are principally answerable to "supervisors", something which greatly rankles folks who generate their own salaries. Comments like this together with the distribution by rank noted above could lead one to conclude that certain appointees in this series may not enjoy--or be required to exhibit--the high degree of scholarly independence which necessarily accompanies a ladder appointment at the same professorial rank.
Recommendation 23:
23. CAP, which oversees promotions in this series, may wish to post-audit some Adjunct-series merit actions to see if this notion has any validity.
Professional Research:
There were 148 individuals in this title series last June. Forty-eight were housed in departments in A&ES, 34 in the Medical School, 25 in Organized Research Units, 19 in Veterinary Medicine, 12 in Engineering and 10 in L&S. By rank they were distributed Assistant = 108, Associate = 26, Full Rank = 14.
It appears that this series could well be the right one to use for appointments in Organized Research Units such as the Bodega Marine Laboratory. However, the Committee was concerned that even in these cases, and especially with entry-level personnel, external granting agencies might not appreciate the high degree of independence which this series requires; namely, research qualifications equivalent to those of a ladder faculty member with the same academic rank.
According to APM Section 310, the Professional Research title is given: "only to those who engage personally and directly in research, and not to those whose duties are merely to provide technical assistance to a research project..." If this statement is taken literally by review committees, promotions in this series would be very difficult to achieve unless there is convincing evidence (e.g. sole PI status) that the candidate has been the intellectual leader on an appropriate number of projects.
The distribution by rank noted above suggests that many of the appointees in this series could be essentially super-postdocs. As was the case with the Adjunct Professor series, anonymous questionnaire respondents mentioned having to stay on the good side of "supervisors." A MELVYL search of the recent publication records of about a dozen UCDavis appointees in this title series yielded a preponderance of articles published jointly with at least one ladder faculty member. (For example, some of the Professional Researchers in the physics department are members of research teams in high-energy physics which are so large that it takes six or more lines on the screen to list all the authors.)
A major current concern we have about this title series is that there is no requirement for the regular review of incumbents. It would be possible for (perhaps unassertive or uninformed) individuals who are funded mainly by research grants on which they are not the PI to be treated unfairly. (The Committee learned of one example of a 49% Professional Researcher who spent more than ten calendar years at the Assistant rank.)
Recommendation 24 & 25:
24. At the time of appointment, offices and review bodies at the college and campus levels should confirm that the Professional Research title is being appropriately used.
25. The campus should require regular reviews of members of this series at intervals no greater than five calendar years independently of the scope of the appointment.
Specialist
Currently there are 19 Specialists housed in units across the campus. The APM definition of the Specialist series is that it is used for academic appointees who are engaged in research in specialized areas and who do not have teaching responsibilities. The doctorate is not a condition for employment. Specialists do not serve as PI on research grants, or conduct independent research. The Committee's understanding of this title series is that it is appropriately used in situations where there is a need for specialized, technical research skill.
The Committee observed that, as in the case of other Research titles, the implementation of the Specialist series, in some cases, inappropriately exploits individuals holding this title. In one example, the position description required the development of an independent research program; solicitation of extramural funding; and the publication in peer-reviewed journals. None of these are criteria listed in the APM for appointment or advancement in this series
Recommendation 26:
26. Position descriptions and reviews of persons in this title series should be reviewed for consistency with APM 330.
IIC. Long-standing Issues of Appropriate Use of Research Titles
As the Committee reviewed the various title series comprising the Federation, it became clear to us that there must be a review of the array of titles with research requirements. Those are the Adjunct Professors, the Professional Researchers and the Specialists.
The recently promulgated campus statement concerning the nature of acceptable teaching assignments in the Adjunct Professor series leads us to conclude that UCD recognizes a sea change in the organizational requirements of competitive research programs in many fields; i.e., professionalized research teams have become increasingly common and important.
We also note earlier in this report that many individuals currently appointed in the Professional Research series are team members for whom documentation of their independent scholarship could be very difficult or impossible to provide. It is suspected that the same could be said of many of the team researchers currently appointed in the Adjunct Professor series.
We believed that what is needed is a clean titular way to differentiate between individuals with truly independent research programs that are funded largely by their own efforts and those who are critical contributors to long term research projects funded and administered primarily by others.
A viable solution would be to extend the use of the existing (but without a section in the APM), title "Research Professor" to include (only) those truly independent (current and future) scholars who provide the intellectual direction for their research projects and who now populate both the Adjunct Professorial and the Professional Research Series. Individuals in these two series who de facto are not required/expected to show such independence would then be appointed only in the Professional Research series.
Such a practice would permit assigning "real" teaching duties to Adjunct Professorial appointees and compensating them for such services from State rather than grant funding. Further, the Research Professor title would greatly improve the chances of its holders to compete for external funds without suffering either the stigma of the "Adjunct" title or the utter lack of external recognition of the "Professional Research" title.
Recommendation 27:
27. The Committee recommends that the campus use the Research Professor title for persons to conduct truly independent research and who are funded completely by extramural sources.
If the above changes are adopted, the campus will need to solve the challenge of having workable titles with competitive salaries to use for persons who are appointed as part of a research team. These persons typically are required to have highly developed research skills and work without supervision but do not provide intellectual leadership to that effort. There are issues with both the Professional Research (requirement for a program of independent research) and the Specialist (salary scale that is not competitive with industry) title series that, in the current form, do not work well for persons appointed to work in a team context .
Recommendation 28:
28. The Committee recommends that the Office of the Vice-Provost convene a taskforce for the purpose of developing a position paper to guide the campus' use of titles in the research series. This position paper should include:
A. Recommendations for the appropriate use of the Adjunct Professor, Professional Research, and Specialist research titles on the UCD campus so that appointments into these titles differentiate between individuals with truly independent research programs that are funded largely by their own efforts and those who are critical components of long term research projects funded and administered primarily by others; andB. Suggest revisions and additions to the appropriate sections of the campus' APM sections in light of the findings, suggestions, and recommendations presented in Section II of this report and by the taskforce.
III. Policy Recommendation
As one of the "Specific Charges" given to this Committee, Vice Provost Himelfarb asked us to" "Review any related policy, procedure or document that materially affects the personnel reviews of an Academic Federation title series and identify any conflicts between it and the recommendations made..." in our final report. One such document, Exhibit D of Section 220A of the UCD Academic Personnel Manual, has been the subject of much study and comment for more than a decade because it singularly empowers the tenured Academic Senate faculty of a department to "establish the voting procedures in (certain) personnel actions..." new appointments and advancements in six Academic Federation title series' being among them.
The detailed procedures which departments/units follow in reviewing their Academic Senate faculty members vary considerably across the campus, but always conditioned by the prior approval of the divisional Committee on Academic Personnel (cf. Systemwide Academic Senate Bylaw 55.B.7.). There is currently no equivalent requirement for an external validation of the procedures which a department/unit uses to evaluate its Academic Federation members. As a practical matter, what this means is that unless this Exhibit is either substantially changed or entirely removed from the APM, there will be no way to insure that any recommendation we or others might make for increasing the participation of Academic Federation members in their own personnel actions at the unit level will be considered at all, let alone be implemented, in units where they are currently excluded from the process.
This Exhibit of the UCD APM has other technical/conceptual problems as well. It clearly conflicts with the Memorandum of Understanding between the University and the AFT regarding the departmental review of (Unit 18) Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, and Supervisors of Teacher Education. The MOU permits the department chair to choose from among three options for evaluating such a faculty member, whereas according to Exhibit D, the unit's tenured Academic Senate faculty "shall determine the voting procedures..." in these cases.
Exhibit D is both incomplete and inconsistent. It applies to Agronomists in the Agricultural Experiment Station---non-faculty "equivalent rank" academic appointees (cf. APM 110) with no teaching obligations whatsoever--but not to Cooperative Extension Specialists, Experiment Station personnel who are required to "conduct educational activities both on and off campus." It is silent regarding Clinical Professors, whose numbers are increasing rapidly.
In 1996, another Committee, jointly created by the then sitting Chairs of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate and the Academic Federation, recommended removing Exhibit D from the UCD APM because, in brief, they could find: "...no evidence to suggest that the Academic Senate has authority, either derived from the Standing Orders of the Regents or Senate Bylaw 55, to participate in the personnel actions or to establish voting procedures in any personnel actions other than those of Academic Senate members." In a second recommendation they asked the Chancellor to: "...instruct the Federation to propose methods by which its members are evaluated." They noted that in doing so, "the Federation (should) consider methods for including members of the Academic Senate in personnel reviews, as appropriate."
Some faculty think that the recission of Exhibit D would potentially preclude Senate members from significant participation in the personnel actions of non-Senate academic appointees, many of whom fill critically important positions in their units/departments. Others feel that without Exhibit D or some substitute acknowledgment in the APM of the role of the Senate in such matters, performance standards for Federation appointees could be seriously eroded. These concerns are presented more fully in a minority report from this Committee. The majority are confident that if the will to do so is there, the campus can find means to overcome these or similar objections to broadening the franchise in Federation personnel matters.
In addition to the technical/conceptual problems described above with this Exhibit, members of the Academic Federation have fundamental concerns about it. Many have spoken about numerous instances in which UCD-APM 220A Exhibit D is the rationale used (particularly at the unit level) to preclude peer review for Academic Federation members. Others have described the effect of this Exhibit as contributing significantly to the erosion of collegiality between Senate and Federation members. Finally, the Federation Executive Committee, on behalf of its membership, asserts that APM 220A Exhibit D, as a campus addition to the Systemwide Academic Senate's Bylaw 55 regarding departmental voting procedures for Academic Senate personnel actions, inappropriately includes 6 Academic Federation Personnel titles in Point 4 a-f of that Exhibit. For almost 15 years, a number of committees and individuals have recommended action with respect to this section of the APM. It will continue to be an endless issue unless addressed.
Everything we have said in this report to date demonstrates that we unanimously favor peer review in Federation personnel actions to the fullest possible extent. It seems to us that if the Administration accepts the main thrust of our report, it will then be incumbent upon them to effect a transition from the current rather hierarchical structure surrounding many Federation personnel actions to a more inclusive one.
We do not suggest lessening the involvement of Senate faculty in Federation personnel matters, but we clearly believe that at the unit level other voices need/deserve to be heard. The final recommendation is intended to address the issues that have been engendered by and arisen because of the addition of Point 4 a-f of APM-220A Exhibit D.
Recommendation 29:
29. The Committee recommends that the Office of the Vice Provost immediately appoint a joint Academic Federation and Academic Senate Committee to address the issues identified in this Report regarding Point 4 a-f of APM-220A Exhibit D
Concluding Observation
In the course of its work, some Committee members discussed ways in which some initial Federation appointments are compromised, ultimately affecting the personnel review process. Although issues related to appointments are outside the Committee's charge and hence not included in the body of the report, some of us believe that the practice described below is important to address as part of the Administration's review of campus procedures for Academic Federation titles.
The Committee was struck by the practice at the unit and/or College level, to use Academic Federation title series at the time of appointment that do not match the position description/responsibilities for the particular appointment. These instances seem to occur most often in situations when there is not a complete fit between the position duties and/or hiring period and the title series that are available for use. For example, it was noted that the Professional Research title has been used for appointments that are part of a research team, without the expectation of independent scholarship for the position, and in other instances used as a "catch-all" title to fill out the percentage of an appointment, even though that position had no research responsibility.
Using title series that do not match the expected position expectations/responsibilities, although done with the intent of getting personnel appointed, can and do have repercussions for the holder of these inappropriate appointments during the merit and promotion process. At the unit level, recollections about the reasons for the mismatch fade over time and personnel review may be compromised. At the college and/or campus level(s), personnel review committees judge that the dossier does not contain evidence of the type needed to recommend merit or promotion-- disadvantages of this practice accrue to the title holder. Once the initial appointment goes off track in this way, it is difficult work to correct it.
Therefore, it is recommended that the Office of the Vice Provost work with the campus' personnel committees and key unit and college personnel to determine if any procedural corrections or APM revisions for specific Academic Federation title series should be made in order to: 1) achieve a better fit between position responsibilities and title specifications ; and 2) preclude appointments for which the position responsibilities do not match the review criteria for the title.
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