The meeting began at 1:15 p.m. in Building 15, Room 2203. Faculty Association President Kathleen Cohen noted that the meeting was being held to discuss promotion and tenure questions asked at the November 2, 2000 Faculty Association meeting. She welcomed Dr. Kline and thanked him for coming to discuss the questions.

Dr. Kline gave a brief background statement regarding the questions on today's agenda and the reason for the meeting. He stated that there are certain standards that a faculty member is expected to meet in order to attain promotion and tenure. There have been questions concerning these standards.

QUESTION SYNOPSIS

The Vice President for Academic Affairs has made several decisions that will impact faculty, especially new hires and those who will be going up for tenure and promotion. Some of these decisions were made with limited or no faculty input. Faculty, historically, have been actively involved in issues when it has to do with promotion, tenure, and the recruitment of new faculty.

Point (1): The addition to the hiring offers letter of the statement that contracts and grants are expected to be actively pursued.

Dr. Kline noted that offer letters sent out last year included the wording that external funding of contracts and grants should be actively pursued. He was not sure if it was added to all offer letters. Joanne Campbell said that the statement was not included in every letter. The Faculty Affairs Committee suggested something a little milder be included in the offer letter. The Committee proposed the following statement, "In addition to the above stated expectations which are teaching, scholarly research and service, you will be highly encouraged to actively pursue contracts and grants, if appropriate to your discipline, as much for institutional interests as to maintain additional funding for your own professional pursuits." He doesn't know if those will be the exact words he will use in future letters, but he plans to make the wording weaker than before. He said he wanted to be frank that the university is investing a lot of money in engineering and sciences and he expects people to get grants to keep their research programs going. If they do not, they will not be successful. He noted that one cannot be an experimental physicist and not get grants. He wants to be clear about that up front. He recognizes, though, that there are disciplines for which grants are not available.

If it is appropriate to keep your body of research going, you need to be trying to get grants. If it is totally inappropriate, you wouldn't be expected to.

The answer is no. The Faculty Handbook says that getting grants is a relevant criteria for promotion and tenure. It does not say that it counts as much as an article. It does not say that unsuccessful ones count at all. The point of getting grants is to publish one's work. Usually there is some deliverable research associated with a grant. The ultimate end is to publish the articles, the scholarly work.

Both, if appropriate, but the goal is to publish one's scholarly work.

Dr. Kline indicated that he thinks that some are better than others. He feels an NSF grant counts more than a summer teaching grant at UNF.

Dr. Kline's comment was that he was not sure exactly what was meant by that question.

He thinks so. It would depend on the discipline, but again in some extreme areas, like experimental physics, if people are not trying to get an opportunity to use certain equipment, they will not be able to publish articles. Maybe the only articles that would be published would be the ones that came out of their dissertation or data that they gathered when they were graduate students. Dr. Kline indicated that he needed some sense that they are going to be able to continue that work, so if there is no grant activity there, that would be suspicious. On the other hand, it is fairly hard for poets to get grants, maybe impossible. He thinks the departments have been quite sensible about this. Where the expectations have not been strong enough are in the sciences. The university does not want to hire ten civil engineers and ten mechanical engineers and perhaps think about having a PhD program in one of these areas and not expect people to fund their research programs. That is really what has driven him to include that phrase in offer letters.

The question was asked about how papers are looked upon that have not been published yet — that are based on dissertations, the majority of the work done prior to coming to UNF. Dr. Kline said he would have to look in some detail, but thought that if he were in your department and he was looking at what you had accomplished in scholarship, he would hope that you had at least initiated a scholarly program at UNF and that what you were doing was not wholly parasitic on your days as a graduate student. He would wonder then if you could keep it going. Past scholarly work does show a lot. Some people come to UNF and have credit from another institution, they may have many articles, but it is nice to see that they have established something at UNF.

Pali Sen remarked that there are some kinds of grants that are not publishable, for example teaching grants. She wondered if Dr. Kline was telling faculty not to pursue those kinds of grants.

The answer was no. Again, the Faculty Handbook says that getting grants counts and he thinks that would count a lot toward teaching. For example, when he is looking at a dossier in the area of teaching, the SUSSAI should not be the whole story or maybe even most of the story. Others include things like having some interesting ideas and having colleagues support them. That would be very important. He thinks many people are coming to see that the SUSSAI should not be the whole story.

Minor Chamblin said he understood Dr. Kline to have made two slightly different statements. He asked for elaboration of the following points. First, grants are sought to bolster the overall university budget operation. Second, grants are a means to an end. It is almost mandatory to depend on outside funding to carry out research. He thinks that for someone coming up for promotion and tenure there should be some sort of feeling as to how those things are weighed out and balanced.

Dr. Kline replied that he did not say the first. That statement came from the Academic Affairs Committee. He would not include that kind of language in someone's contract. He indicated that Dr. Chamblin, as a psychologist, should not be worried about pursuing grants so that the university's budget is better off. He thinks contracts and grants should be pursued because they will enable one to do better scholarly work. Dr. Chamblin noted that he had heard that UNF had been mentioned as not doing its share in getting grants and contracts. Dr. Kline said that is true. One of the performance measures of a university has to do with the amount of external funding relative to the amount of state funding put in research. UNF did the poorest of any institution in that regard. The Board would like for every state dollar put in research, for two to come in contracts and grants. At UNF it is less than one dollar, maybe .3, which is the lowest. Certain people conclude that it is not a very cost benefit deal. He thinks UNF's numbers will get better but he says this is something that he should worry about, not faculty. He thinks as we get the right kind of emphasis on scholarship and expect it more in certain areas, grants will come. Dr. Chamblin said that if that is true then why even talk about grants in the promotion and tenure process? If grants are a means to an end and that end is scholarship and publication can you not accomplish a valid assessment of someone by looking at that criteria? Dr. Kline responded that he supposed you could but it is in the Handbook. If a faculty member pursues grants successfully that would be significant.

Judy Solano noted that this whole question came up not so much relevant to promotion and tenure but to the offer letter of employment. There are many other things in the Faculty Handbook that were not added to the letter. This seemed to add more importance to the phrase. That's why the issue came to Faculty Affairs, because it seemed to indicate a change in expectations. People wondered where they should be putting their efforts. Should they try to continue to publish or should they shift to contracts and grants?

Scott Hochwald asked which is better in the university's eyes, to pursue and get a $500,000 teaching grant or publish a ten page paper? Which is more beneficial to promotion? Is it counted as scholarship? Which counts more, a ten page article or a grant?

Dr. Kline indicated that it would depend on the rest of the package. That is like asking how many articles are enough. Then your colleagues have to make the judgment about the quality of the articles. They would have to decide on the quality of the grant. Your chair, your colleagues and the central committee would make a judgment. Dr. Kline said he couldn't answer in the abstract. To him, both articles and grants sound very good.

Judy Solano noted that the letter had singled out the pursuit of grants and had elevated it - equaled it to teaching, research and scholarship. Faculty members are now asking where to put their emphasis.

Dr. Kline noted that grants and articles are not incompatible; they are related to one another.

Pat Plumlee said he understood that Dr. Kline intends to soften the language in the offer letters. He wonders what is the argument. Are people saying that it should not be in there at all or soften the language?

Judy Solano said her preference is that it would not be there. If a person is being offered a position at UNF then they are expected to teach x number of hours and pursue scholarship and service. Grants could fall under teaching or scholarship but it is not an equivalent category.

Mary Borg asked how binding is the offer letter? She noted that she didn't really look at what was expected of her when she received an offer letter. All the expectations for promotion and tenure came from her chair and dean and colleagues and annual evaluations, etc.

Dr. Kline responded that he doesn't think it is that big a deal. Obviously a lot of people are worried about it. The intention was that it was to be a signal to a certain group of people this is really important, that we really want to do science, not just articles on science teaching. Maybe this kind of meeting is sufficient to send the signal. He would like to talk to deans and hear from department chairs. No offer letters have been sent out yet this year. There is plenty of time to continue to talk about it.

Judy Solano said that people do look at the wording in offer letters. She had a candidate who asked her about it and a chair said he had lost one candidate because of it. Dr. Kline noted that her department (Computing Sciences) is a good example of a discipline that should be getting grants. If that is worrying a candidate then she should be worrying about that candidate.

Point (2): Time in rank.

Why is it assumed by the Vice President for Academic Affairs that when a candidate comes up for promotion to Full Professor at the required minimum time in rank as listed in the Faculty Handbook that the faculty member is actually coming up for promotion early and is likely to be turned down because the faculty member came up too early?

Dr. Kline said the time in rank should be left as is in the Faculty Handbook. He noted that a couple of universities he knew of expected faculty to apply for promotion in the minimum amount of time, but that most universities did not. The minimum at UNF is four years. A candidate must have an outstanding record -- that is the issue, not how many years in rank.

Paul Mason noted that the perception exists that if you come up in the minimum time, you must be more outstanding than if you wait a year or so.

Dr. Kline said that we must figure out what is meant by outstanding and if a person has an outstanding record in four years, then fine, but five or six years is also fine. It should not be held against a person if he is a boy genius. It would not be fair to make the standard higher for someone going up in four years instead of five or six. He noted that his office had done a little survey and found that some universities do not have a specific time period, some have longer than UNF. He thinks the University of Florida has six.

Point (3): Outside letter of reference.

Outside letters of reference are used by some departments for P & T evaluation purposes. Are the departments that do not require outside references placing their candidates in jeopardy?

He said he honestly does not know. If a person has an excellent outside letter, that helps. If a person does not have a letter, it's possible it doesn't hurt at all. If the package is strong enough, a letter is not needed. He cited a case two years ago where without those letters, the package would not have passed the threshold of outstanding. But every record does not need outside letters.

Dr. Kline noted that the best outside letters tell why the work is good. If it just says this is good work, he does not take it very seriously.

Dr. Kline's advice is not to ask outside referees whether this person should be promoted or tenured, in fact, write it in a way that makes it clear that you are not asking that. What you are asking is, "What do you think of this work? Is it good work?" Don't ask if it is enough, because they don't know our context. Dr. Kline said a letter could say that this article is just dead wrong, but it is very interesting and I learned something from reading it. That's a pretty good letter.

There was a discussion about who should write outside letters. Dr. Kline indicated that it was his desire that the candidate submit some names and the chair pick a couple of those and pick a couple of experts independently. But even the candidates list shouldn't be friends or acquaintances.

Pali Sen noted that many times an article sent to one journal is rejected as trash, another journal accepts it and says it is a wonderful article. The same can be true about outside reviewers. One person's judgement can make a decision on one person's whole life.

Dr. Kline said he does not know the answer to that. His advice to a young faculty member would be to have an envelope ready for another journal. When you get the rejection, look at reasons, if they are good reasons, change it, if not send it to someone else.

He discussed that earlier.

Again, he already discussed that. Do not ask them to do that. He noted that we have less time at UNF to spend on research than they do at MIT, but the volume of things produced at UNF are of high quality.

He does not agree with the second part of that question. Departments have to decide how much they want to send out. If you send three good pieces and the vita, they can tell if it hangs together. If there is any issue about it, send more.

Dr. Kline noted that he had tried to write something about that and it is on the Web. The Faculty Handbook says you are supposed to have a research agenda. He gave an example of what would not be a research agenda: a paper on this, a review on that, a presentation on that -- none connected. One extreme example is if your area of study is military history and you do research on contemporary Chinese cooking. He gave an example of what would hang together: military history - the role of guns in South America between 1400 and 1550 and write a set of articles that thoroughly makes sense of that. In your narrative you explain what you are doing. He noted he could not think of what would be more natural or fun. He thinks we can all recognize it. Your colleagues have to help, your committee has to help, your chair has to help. He also noted that when he was trying to get promoted that the "hanging together" was more important than the volume.

Paul Mason said as an economist, he would do research in different fields, and they might not relate. His research was done to support teaching. That almost necessitates broader research. He thinks his research in support of teaching demands diversity.

Dale Clifford said that could be true in his department, but her area is the French Revolution and she cannot teach six courses a year on that subject. She can't possibly do research in all the courses she teaches.

Dr. Kline said the narrative would be the chance to explain how the research hangs together. He noted that in five years there was only one case where it was an issue. His advice is to have a program - write a book, review other peoples books, write articles. When people think of the French Revolution, they will think of Dale Clifford.

Point (4) Confidentiality of Reviews

A candidate who agrees to outside reviews may not have the right to exclude those reviews from the dossier. A candidate should always have the right to see and respond to reviews (as he/she does for letters from inside the University). How can the administration deny this right of a candidate to see material in his/her own dossier and respond to it?

The administration cannot ever deny the right of a candidate to see the material in his or her own dossier and respond to it.

However, we have some departments that have external reviews and they are confidential. How do they handle that?

Dale Clifford explained what they do in the History Department. The bylaws do not say that the letters must be confidential. That is the option of the candidate. If the candidate wishes to have confidential letters, the department puts the request in the dossier together with the confidential letters. The reviewers are told letters would be confidential.

Dr. Kline stressed that if the candidate chooses for the letters to be confidential, then they are treated as confidential.

Judy Solano asked if there is any feeling of pressure to agree to confidential letters because there is a sense that you are disadvantaged if you don't agree to have confidential letters.

Dale Clifford said she doesn't think so. The History Department feels they need them. She is the only French historian, her colleagues can't judge her work. Someone from the outside must review the work. She can't judge Theo Prousis' work because it is not her area and some of it is in Russian.

Dr. Kline said this issue has been controversial. If we wanted to have a position that is absolutely unassailable in terms of the contract – we should say that we would allow no confidential letters, and we may have to do that down the road. But, at least for now, he is willing to let departments that have a process that works for them — work. And what legally seems to allow it to work is that the candidate requests that the letters be confidential.

Minor Chamblin expressed worry the perception existed that confidential letters might be more important and carry more weight.

Dr. Kline indicated that he had spoken with the Faculty Affairs Committee and it was decided to take a laissez-faire attitude and let the system that seems to be working in those departments that have a process continue. That is what he is inclined to do.

Dr. Kline reiterated that some departments want to have them. He said the Faculty Association could vote on a policy and he would follow that.

Judy Solano said if there seems to be enough concern this issue can be raised in the Faculty Affairs Committee.

Dr. Kline said that he thinks the most concern is for contracts and grants. He will put a weakened statement in the offer letters. He would accept any ideas about the wording. If people want to talk about it in departments and think it is inappropriate, let him know. He is still thinking about it.

Dr. Kline noted that he thought this year's dossiers are as good as any year since he's been here.