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faculty roles
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At the heart of the institutional transformation lies the reconceptualization of the faculty’s roles and rewards, which directly reflect the institution’s values and priorities.  Chancellor Shaw stated the matter most succinctly: "It is essential that we improve our faculty reward system to create a more effective balance among teaching, research, and service.  At the same time, we will expand our definition of what scholarly work involves."  To implement the changes, the Chancellor called on each school and college to review its policies and procedures and to incorporate the necessary changes to reflect an increased emphasis on teaching and advising; an improved set of procedures for formative and summative annual evaluation; and a description of the appropriate balance, with teaching holding at least equal emphasis with research, scholarship, and professional activity.

Action Plans of the Schools and Colleges.  Following preliminary responses to this mandate in May and November 1992, the schools and colleges submitted final reports on action plans to the Vice Chancellor on June 15, 1994.  The plans coming from the thirteen schools and colleges were so diverse and so intimately based on the units’ traditions and disciplinary cultures that brief summary is impossible. These plans, however, addressed in varying degrees topics such as these:

In various ways, each school and college has reconceived its expectation of faculty members in order to achieve an appropriate balance of teaching and research in rewarding, promoting, and tenuring faculty members.  In general, new approaches to evaluating teaching and advising are emerging so that they may be more adequately recognized in the reward system.  Efforts to broaden the definition of scholarship have demonstrated that there are significant conceptual and procedural problems that need to be addressed.  The evaluation of service and the weight given it have received little attention.

Progress to Date.  Given the profundity of the issues and their significance for all faculty members and for the University, it is not surprising that there remains considerable anxiety among faculty members about what the University will reward and recognize.  In addition, it is no surprise that there is a variety of perspectives on what the University should do as well as how well it is performing.  In such an environment, an objective evaluation would likely report that units and individuals within units perceive the University’s recent changes in faculty roles and rewards quite differently.

Use of part-time faculty members.  One of the concerns raised among members of the faculty was that the reduction of regular faculty members and the increased number of smaller classes would lead inevitably to increased use of part-time instructors.  To address this concern, the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor called upon the Office of Budget and Planning to do a comprehensive analysis of the use of part-time faculty.  Between 1990-91 and 1996-97 the number of the full time faculty (tenure track and non-tenure track) was reduced by 15.1% while that of the part-time faculty (regular and temporary adjunct) fell by 6.5%.  The total number of faculty fell by 11.8% while the loss of FTEs was 13.7%.  When the question of change in faculty composition is addressed in terms of FTEs, the findings show that in 1990-91, full-time tenure track faculty accounted for 77% of the FTEs while all full-time faculty made up 83% of FTEs.  Both proportions remained unchanged for the 1996-97 academic year.  Hence, the fears that the University would increase its use of part-time instructors have not been realized.

The dilemma.  Most faculty members live in two professional communities at once: the national disciplinary or the professional community and the local campus community. For the most part the national scholarly community judges the success and achievement of its members by the quality (and often the quantity) of the individual’s scholarly or creative output.  Rewards and recognitions from professional organizations, job offers, and letters of evaluation for promotion and tenure address the person’s productivity or professional accomplishment.  The individual’s accomplishments as a teacher and undergraduate advisor are very seldom or only very lightly recognized in that environment.  Therefore, for an individual, especially an untenured faculty member in a research-oriented department, to invest excessively in teaching and advising may harm a promising career.  Finding the proper balance for each individual remains an ongoing challenge.

The general faculty perspective.  In informal conversations, some faculty members report feeling that their research productivity is threatened by the changing focus on teaching; others report their conviction that research is still what really counts in the reward system despite the rhetoric regarding students and teaching.  The most comprehensive study of faculty and administrators’ perceptions was reported in June, 1995 in the Executive Summary of "Syracuse University Revisited: Changing Priorities: 1989-1995" by Robert M. Diamond and Bronwyn E. Adam, of the Center for the Support of Teaching and Learning, (formerly the Center for Instructional Development).

Perspective of Chairs of Tenure and Promotion Committees.  A survey of the recent faculty chairs of the tenure and promotion committees of the schools and colleges addressed the degree of change in recent years in personnel decisions. Because of the variable size of the schools and colleges, the number of cases they have overseen in a given year ranged from two or three to over 20.

Many committee chairs generally believe that the criteria has not changed substantially in the past five years; some, however, note that teaching has been given greater weight.  All agreed that teaching was being very seriously considered, and many said this was not a new phenomenon in their unit.  Many stressed that the tenure and promotion guidelines placed considerable weight on teaching and that the guidelines were being followed.  In some otherwise marginal tenure cases, a strong teaching record seems to have been pivotal in leading to a positive recommendation.  Conversely, in some promotion cases, notably to full professor, a weak teaching record has led to negative decisions.

A question about how units dealt with teaching performance below the units’ expectations frequently provoked reflections on the effectiveness of annual reviews of non-tenured faculty members, especially in their third year. Non-tenured faculty members were reported commonly to have availed themselves of University or departmental resources to improve their teaching performance.  Also, a number were reported to have departed the University prior to their tenure review.  The extremes of a brilliant researcher but very poor teacher or a great teacher who does no publishable research do not seem to have appeared among the population seeking tenure or promotion in recent years.

Responses to the question of whether scholarship is defined differently now than it was in the past fall into two general categories: either no recent change was evident or a broad definition of scholarship and creative activity had been adopted some time ago.

Perspective of Department Chairs.  In preparation for a roundtable discussion at the University’s 1997 Department Chairs Leadership Conference, an informal survey was conducted among department chairs and academic unit heads.  The objective was to ascertain the chairs’ perspective on how faculty roles and reward structures have changed over the past five years.  Of the 70 individuals surveyed, 31 responded.  A brief summary of their responses indicates a substantial variability among the many academic units on campus.

  • During the past five years, have the standards for tenure and promotion changed in your department or school/college?  If so, in what way?  In response, 15 said their unit was giving greater attention to teaching and advising; two said research was being valued more highly; and 12 reported no change. Two gave other responses.
  • During the past five years, has the definition of scholarship been broadened to include such areas as scholarship of teaching, synthesis, or application?  In response, 15 said no; four others said no, but their units had always included scholarship of teaching; eight said yes, but with many qualifiers.  Three gave other responses.
  • During the past five years, has teaching been evaluated more effectively?  In response, 16 said yes; 10 said no; five said that there was no need to improve since it was done well already.

Discussion at the conference brought out the great variability of units’ expectations of research and creative activity, teaching loads, and tenure and promotion guidelines.  Hence, the various starting points and expectations of the many units on campus make it very difficult to present a refined interpretation of the responses to the questions.

Perspective of Deans.  During the fall of 1996 the academic deans spoke individually with members of the study groups to provide their perception of the degree of institutional change.

A very common expression from the deans was their commitment to students in general and to teaching in particular.  No fewer than eight deans made a point of saying that their college or school had always been student-centered.  In many cases, recent change refers to the ways by which this emphasis is now being documented and better rewarded rather than change of emphasis.  For many deans, especially from the professional schools and colleges, the current goal is to become more research oriented.

There was a clear consensus among the deans that tenure and promotion criteria do reflect a balance between teaching and research--at least at the level of the unit if not for an individual.  Quantitative evidence supporting major changes in outcomes is not yet available but many deans cited instances reflecting greater attention to a balance between teaching and research in tenure and promotion.

Several deans indicated that an increased focus on teaching and advising did represent a culture change, at least among some of their faculty.  In many units, focus on teaching meant greater involvement with courses for first-year students and advising.  Several deans reported explicit guidelines for varying the teaching load in light of research productivity.  A few comments were made about faculty who left the University or faculty members being recruited who did not come to Syracuse because of a possible or perceived de-emphasis on research.  Most reported that new as well as continuing faculty members held a positive attitude about the student-centered approach.  This positive note was frequently accompanied, however, by the statement that "faculty members are stressed" by the increased expectations.

There was general consensus among the deans on the importance of rewarding teaching.  They frequently noted the increased amount of space devoted to teaching in faculty portfolios and curriculum vitae updates.  There were, however, varied levels of concern expressed on exactly how to reward teaching.  One dean commented that, in contrast to research, the rewards for teaching showed less dispersion¾suggesting that teaching evaluations do not provide grounds for distinguishing among faculty members to the same degree as peer evaluations of research.  Several deans observed that with so little money available, a salary increase is not a very useful discriminator for rewarding good performance.

There are a significantly greater number of endowed or distinguished professorships for research than there are for teaching.  Major teaching awards such as Meredith and Tolley Professorships generated positive comments as well as concern that these were limited to a small proportion of the many well qualified faculty.

Incorporation of expanded definitions of scholarship proposed by Ernest L. Boyer into the tenure and promotion review process was relatively slight, although some colleges had incorporated elements of these guidelines explicitly into their documents.  In some cases the "scholarship of teaching" was accepted--in others such emphasis was viewed as "double counting."

Findings.