Mississippi State University’s faculty will have to wait to find out the future of a proposed post-tenure review policy. Professors failed to handle the only item of business at Monday’s general faculty meeting, the first of the 2002-2003 academic year. The faculty charter requires that a minimum of 250 faculty be present at a meeting in order to have a quorum for conducting business. However fewer than 200 were in attendance. Mail ballots will be used for a final vote on the policy.
The draft of the policy was approved and recommended by the MSU Faculty Senate in April 2000.
The draft states, “The faculty and the administration…recognize the importance of encouraging all professors to maintain appropriate levels of productivity in teaching, research and service. Accordingly, evaluation of the performance of the faculty does not cease with the granting of tenure.”
The proposed policy is not “intended as a mechanism for re-evaluating or revalidating the grant of tenure,” and professors will not have to “reassume the burden of proof … bore in the original tenure proceedings.” Rather, the “procedure is intended solely for assessing cases in which a tenured professor’s level of performance may have decreased.”
The policy would require comprehensive evaluations be conducted by a professor’s academic department. The appropriate dean would then review those evaluations annually. Those evaluations would then lead to rewards to include raises, assignments and research money. The policy “is not disciplinary” and “does not contemplate dismissal as a final sanction.”
As for specific standards to define a decline in a professor’s work, the proposal does not suggest any. That determination is left entirely to the dean, who would then empanel a committee within the professor’s academic department to review the situation.
The investigation would be entirely in the hands of that committee, which would also establish its own procedures.
Should the committee find a professor’s performance has declined, it will “meet with the professor and the department head to formulate a mutually acceptable plan of development to extend over one to three years.”
That plan would use a variety of methods to assist the professor, including lightening the faculty member’s load, reassignment or refocusing the professor’s energies. The policy would require the committee to monitor the success of the plan and report to the dean at least annually.
The reading of the policy draft was preceded by a statement from MSU interim President Charles Lee.
Lee reviewed the latest statistics from a variety of university functions and outlined some of his priorities for the semester.
Lee reported that the university is making progress on filling three administrative positions. Four candidates have been interviewed for the affirmative action/equal employment opportunity officer position. Four candidates have been interviewed for the director of institutional research position. Two of five candidates have been interviewed for the vice president of Student Affairs position. Lee said decisions should be made for each of those posts in the coming weeks.
Lee reported that Mississippi State continues to bring in more research funding. The 2001-2002 academic year set another record, with a 10 percent increase in total research dollars. An estimated $123 million is funding some 1,576 projects, a 7 percent increase in that number.
According to Lee, Mississippi State ranks 10th among American universities in supercomputing power. As much of an accomplishment as that is, Lee said he wants to devote at least $1 million to campus technology upgrades. He calls that amount “a drop in the bucket,” and said the university is still facing a computing “deficit.” Lee said he wants MSU students to be exposed to and familiar with the latest in technology.
Lee reported that private donations are also setting records. The university has raised an all-time high of $74.3 million. Some 16 percent of MSU alumni are now donors, up from 12 percent last year.
Alumni giving donations account for 35 percent of total private funds raised, up from 33 percent last year. University administrators have begun work on the next capital campaign, which Lee said is still in the silent phase.
A major goal for the interim president is the completion of Mississippi State’s reaccredidation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Lee said a self-study report should be completed this semester and that peer visits will begin in April.
Lee congratulated the faculty on “one of the smoothest startups I’ve ever seen in any of the institutions I’ve worked with.