Champaign Senate Nov. 17.
The first, Communication 26, outlines campus-level procedures for promotions to teaching, research or clinical associate or full professor titles, and provides the general campus criteria and guidelines for unit executive officers charged with evaluating promotions.
The comprehensive 24-page document includes checklists and a template dossier for units to use for seeking external reviews.
“The university uses a rigorous multistage process of review that involves external evaluation for promotion of specialized faculty in these tracks,” the document reads. “Each recommendation for promotion is reviewed at multiple levels, including the home unit and at each successive unit in the reporting chain up through the campus level.”
Katherine Galvin, the associate provost for administrative affairs, said Communication 26 reiterates the long-standing promotion review process that has been found in Communication 9 and places it into a new stand-alone procedural document for special faculty professorial promotions. The change was announced in Communication 25, released in April, and provides employment guidelines for specialized faculty in non-tenured position.
“The units have been moving forward with implementing Communication 25 since last springe and have been asking for this procedural document for a long time,” said Katherine Galvin, the associate provost for administrative affairs.
Galvin said staff members in the Office of the Provost are willing to help units walk through the process.
“The Provost’s Office is interested in helping,” she said. “We’ve already been helping some individual units implement Communication 25 and we want to keep assisting in any way we can.”
Ilesanmi Adesida, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the communications are reviewed every year and his office will “revisit and learn and tweak” the guidelines based on campus feedback.
The second communication, Communication 27, outlines the shared governance system on the U. of I. campus and will be provided to new hires.
It includes input from guidelines developed by the senate’s General University Policy Committee and a campus survey conducted last year on unit-level shared governance practices.
It includes sections on mentoring, development and evaluation of faculty members, and is meant to ensure all faculty members are aware of the available avenues for including their voice in campus discussions.
“In addition, executive officers should be required to commit to the principles when accepting new leadership positions and should incorporate the principals in their annual reviews of leadership activities,” the communication reads.
In other senate business, John Hart, chair of the Information Technology Committee, reported on a “transparent” email system the committee may propose at a future meeting.
The policy currently is undergoing a review by the university’s legal department.
If implemented, discussions on senate business could continue after a meeting – but binding votes would not be allowed.
The system would let senators discuss issues between meetings, but also allow anyone to follow the discussion online to ensure transparency. He said a board would have to move to committee-of-the-whole status for the conversation to be continued online post-adjournment.
Calvin Lear, a graduate student and senator, said he wondered how the new approach would meet the requirements of the Illinois Open Meetings Act and if following it would lead to predetermined meeting votes.
Nicholas Burbules, a senator and a professor of education policy, organization and leadership, suggested sending the provision to the University Statutes and Senate Procedures Committee, and possibly testing the system on a trial basis if the recommendation is to put the system in place.
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