UNC Faculty Assembly Documents

Notes on the 01/18/2008 Faculty Assembly Meeting

1. Proposed Changes to the UNC Code 603/604/Post-Tenure Review Policies – Harold Martin (Sr VPAA) reported that an agreed-upon set of recommendations went forward to the Board of Governors (BoG) and that that set of recommendations benefited from the critical input from the Faculty Assembly and from faculty groups across the states. There was only one issue with the 603 recommendations by the time they got to the BoG. The BoG want Boards of Trustees (BoT) to be included in the faculty appeals process (the original recommendation from administrative committee that proposed the changes was to take the BoT out of the loop, making the appeal process shorter – this change had not been opposed by the faculty). Because the BoG disagreed with the recommendations on this issue, Code 03 was not approved. It is expected that the BoT will be put back into the appeal process and the Code revisions will then be passed. Faculty Assembly leadership is watching this progress carefully.

The rest of the proposed changes – as amended following feedback from faculty and discussion with the Faculty Assembly – were approved. This includes changes to the administrative review process.

Importantly, it was the faculty vetted version of the post-tenure review PTR) process that was passed. This means that the approved policy maintains PTR as a development tool only – not a tool for administrative dismissal of faculty.

2. UNC Tomorrow – The final UNC Tomorrow report is available at www.unctomorrow.org. All faculty are urge to read the report carefully and to respond critically and candidly. President Bowles reported that there are simply too many things recommended in the UNC Tomorrow report, that it can not all be done (at east not soon), and that GA is setting priorities for response to the final report.

The final UNC Tomorrow report makes numerous recommendations that are likely to have direct impact on the academic nature of our campuses, hence are important to faculty. Professor Gary Jones (WCU; VC of the Faculty Assembly) has compiled a list of Selected Point with Implications for Faculty Roles & Responsibilities, Workload and Evaluation (http://paws.wcu.edu/gjones/FA_UNC-T_Selected_Points_Implications_for_faculty.pdf) that will be useful as faculty and administration work together to implement changes. Other information one the UNC Tomorrow report and its implications is available at various in-line locations. Several of these are included in the resource list attached to this report.

The Faculty Assembly passed a Resolution in Response to the UNC Tomorrow Final Report. The resolution was brought forward by the Faculty Senate/Council Chairs and is available at http://paws.wcu.edu/gjones/Resolution_Response_to_UNC-T_2008-01-18_SenateChairs.pdf. This resolution calls for responses deadlines to be appropriate to established feedback procedures (among other things).and it also raised four pointed questions concerning campus responses. Thanks to this FA resolution, these four questions were raised last week at a meeting of top university administration officials from across the state (Chancellor’s Administrative Council). The administrators, apparently, found it “interesting” that it was the faculty who were most clearly raising the question of connections between UNC Tomorrow and respective institutional missions. It is obvious that faculty believe that their involvement any response to this report is critical to the academic mission of our campus and that the in-place shared governance procedures are more than sufficient to provide response in a timely fashion.

3. UNC/Community College/K12 Initiatives – President Bowles also spoke to the Assembly about ongoing UNC initiatives related to both Community Colleges (CC) and K12 education. He said that he wants faculty to help break down the barriers between the CCs and the UNC system and to help GA “fix” K12. He went on to say that we have done a lot together, but not enough and that much of what has been tried has failed. He specifically asked faculty to come up with ideas and bring them forward, saying that he will try almost anything and everything and take the blame for failures.

The Faculty Assembly received several reports on K12 initiatives and on the need for “system-wide core competencies.” Many are included in resource list at the end of this report. I urge all faculty who are concerned with the educational/academic mission and quality of our system and our campus to review them carefully.

Harold Martin spoke about changes in minimum admission requirement that were approved by the BoG at their last meeting and about the UNC/CC “partnership. He says that much progress has been made. But that GA will now “back away” and take a more comprehensive look at the toughest issues impacting student transferability. The Transfer Advisory committee has proposed solutions, but those solutions now need to be vetted by all constituencies. At the moment GA is working on “phase II” of the UNC/CC transfer issue. They are working on an electronic web-based system where any student can do an audit for transfer (asking what will transfer and where) and have asked campuses to review their General Education requirements in light of the system-wide, competency-based soft skills encouraged in the UNC Tomorrow reports (and, importantly, with a view toward some sort of system-wide set of GE skills that will aid in system-wide transferability for all CC transfer students).

All of these issues, obviously, impact the academic mission of our campuses, hence require substantial faculty input. Our established shared governance processes (and Faculty Senate committees, e.g., Academic Standards and EPPC) will be of utmost importance as we move forward into the discussions about implementing the UNC Tomorrow recommendations, changing the UNC/CC transfer requirements, and enhancing the connection between UNC campuses and K12 education.

Respectfully submitted,

Catherine A. Rigsby

UNC Faculty Assembly Delegate

Resource Documents Related to January Faculty Assembly Report

UNC Faculty Assembly Documents

http://paws.wcu.edu/gjones/UNC_FA_JAN18-08_OTHER-DOCS.html

Carnegies Community Engagement Classification: Intentions and Insights

http://paws.wcu.edu/gjones/communityengagementdriscoll08.pdf

Attaining Carnegies Community Engagement Classification

http://paws.wcu.edu/gjones/communityengagementchangencsu08.pdf

Resolution on an Equivalent Human Resource Management System

http://uncfacultyassembly.northcarolina.edu/html/meetings/2007-08/January2008/Jan_2008_Resolution_on_a_Substantially_Equivalent_Human_Reso.pdf