The Faculty Affairs Committee held two proposals at the University of Georgia’s Executive Committee council meeting on Wednesday — changes to the appointment, promotion and tenure guidelines for academic ranked faculty, and changes to the appointment guidelines for librarians.
Brock Woodson, the chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee began the first proposal, saying they wanted to establish that being head of department required you must be a tenured individual, thus non-tenure individuals cannot fill this role.
Also in this proposal, Woodson stated the committee wanted to change the wording of the appointment for tenure track faculty. Where it originally stated that the department head will appoint a committee of faculty, it would be changed to say that the majority of the faculty appointed must be tenure track. This, Woodson said, would make it clear that non-tenure individuals can serve on this faculty but it must be majority tenure track individuals.
The final addition to this proposal included specifying language so it was made clear when guidelines referred to tenure track faculty and not the entire faculty. Gender specific pronouns were also erased in the guidelines.
Rebecca Stone, College of Pharmacy committee representative, was concerned with the language of the proposal since most of the individuals within this college are non-tenure faculty. She said that the tone of the proposal sounded like non-tenure faculty were below tenure faculty and noted some inconsistencies in certain terms used throughout the document, such as the terms “appointed” and “elected” were used interchangeably and needed clarification.
Jack Hu, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost agreed with these inconsistencies and said that the committee needs to recognize the contributions of faculty from all different tracks and that each discipline largely varies from one another.
“I wonder ‘do they emphasize on tenure faculty too far?’” Hu said.
Laura Bierema, Mary Frances Early College of Education committee representative, said that the language of the proposal creates inequality because all faculty should participate in academic decision making. She also said that the proposal goes against faculty voting of department heads. While the proposal stated that only those with tenure status can be department head, faculty might see it fit that someone who is not of tenure status be department head.
Bierema’s final opposition was that non-tenure faculty are just as capable, and have never caused someone to not be promoted to tenure status within their own faculty.
“I don’t think the enemy is within the walls of the University of Georgia,” Bierema said.
Rachel Reed, College of Veterinary Medicine committee representative, said that for their college, as well as the College of Pharmacy, having a mostly tenure track committee would be difficult as they are composed of mainly clinical track faculty.
Shelley Nuss, Augusta University and UGA Medical Partnership’s campus dean, expressed her concerns and said that most of the medical school faculty are non-tenure, but the process and promotion are just the same.
“It makes it feel like the physicians that are clinical are second class citizens,” Nuss said.
With a unanimous motion, it was moved to be sent back to the committee to revise.
The next proposal by the Faculty Affairs Committee was to change the appointment guidelines for librarians. It is currently stated that they must have a librarian degree, however in this proposal it would add relevant degrees to make hiring easier. The motion was approved to move forward.
After old and new business was discussed, the meeting adjourned.
